Hey all, this is my first post so bear with me. I just took apart my old printer (i know, i know, don't roll your eyes) and wanted to see if I could build some sort of RepStrap out of it. For the two horizontal axis, I was going to use the print carriage and the paper-feed motor assemblies. These are both run via visually-encoded, toothed belt driven, servo motors with a gear reduction. For my vertical axis, I planned on attaching the scanner head assembly (this came from an all-in-one style printer) to the print carriage. The scanner assembly is run by a toothed-belt and gear-reduced servo motor. I have not decided how to build my extrusion assembly yet, so I'm not sure what factor that has in the rest of my electronics setup.
Now for my questions:
1) Is it even remotely possible for this setup to work?
2) Is there any sort of software/firmware that is compatible for sending output to both stepper and servo motors at the same time?
I posted this in the electronics section because the software and firmware sections didn't seem to have any "general" sections applicable to my topic. If it makes any difference, I was planning on using my Arduino Duemilanove with whatever electronics hardware would be necessary for both types of motors. Any advice or help is welcome!
Edit:
It occurred to me that I should probably be more clear about my intentions. After chatting with some great guys on the IRC channel, I realized that servos are kind of forbidden ground in the world of RepRap. I saw some indication that others had tried servos in the past (who knows if they were successful, very vague info). Everything that I have found points toward this being an impossible (or with the current reprap boundaries, very difficult) project. Feel free to help me out here in this thread if any of you know a way to boot-strap the servos into my project, otherwise I think I'm gonna head over to the General section and see about starting a slightly more "legit" reprap project. Thanks to anyone who posts!
-GP
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2012 09:56PM by GlassPineapple.
