Fly poster printer (or mouse poster printer)

Hi guys,

The idea is to make a 2D printer of a special type: it would integrate a piezo printhead (or 4 of them for color prints), a tank for ink (or 4 ...), one or two computer mouse (mice) and a raspberry Pi for computing. Instead of common printers where image creation is done sequentially top to bottom and that have motors for paper feed, this printer would be handheld and the computing part would calculate the position and them decide if the printhead will (or will not) be activated depending on the position. I'd like to be able to print on a horizontal or a vertical surface.

I'll try to explain a little deeper how it'd go: first, you have to load the image you want to print on a usb memory or directly in the RPi. You sure gotta fill the printer tank with ink. Then, to start the picture, you push a button when the printer is on the print surface. At this time, the mouse sensor will transfert to computing part the position (or difference of position). You can then move the printer and when you push a second button, it prints what it is supposed to print. The software part has to be fast enough and maybe anticipate a bit.

Compared to a common printer, this one would be smaller and more convienient. With a small machine, you'd be able to print a surface as big as you wish. And also, you could print on a surface without having to put it inside a machine, for example, like directly on a wall or on the ground.

To sum up, i think there's 2 quite big challenges:

1. make a working reprapable printhead
Things have already been explored a bit by John RPM (see his reprap page here))
and by Adrian Bowyer himself (see his reprap page here)
I have the intention to print with diluted acrylic paint and i'll be working with a quite larger noozle than these previous projects. Because i don't need big precision and i need the printhead to spit a lot.

2. programming the RPi
I'm thinking of a RPi rather than an Arduino because the RPi is more powerfull and quicker and because it has more ram memory for loading the image to print.
I've seen Gordon (@ Drogon) has made a kind port of Arduino's Wiring (see here) and i think that would be usefull.

If you have any comments about this project or are willing to help (i'm first working on the printhead part, so if you can help to the software side...), please, make a post !

I may be wrong, but I have seen something like this done already.

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Random Precision

Hi John,

I've search over the web several times and haven't found nothing close to such a thing. But if you (or somebody else) find something close, please let me know, by posting here. I'd be very interested.

Tom

... check 'Hektor the spraybot' - [hektor.ch]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2012 06:08AM by VDX.

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

This Hektor spraybot is really a cool project. I didn't know it (even if it's from a school very close from me).

Thanks for posting, Viktor !

Sorry, can't find the original link, it was a while ago, but found a couple of low res projects on the same theme, keep looking its out there somewhere.

[liatsegal.blogspot.co.uk]
[graffitiprinter.com]

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Random Precision

You might be thinking of the PrintBrush.

Very nice links, thank you !

The GraffitiPrinter with its punched cards is incredible. Reminds my of my old parent's washing machine...

And the PrintBrush really approaches what i'm willing to make. Except i wouldn't like to use market cartridges and would make it open source. Eleven years and ten milions USD to develop it !! I wonder when they'll be selling it. The latest news on their website is almost one year old.

Tom