Is there a printer that prints only with one pin or dot while moving side to side as the page moves up? Like dot matrix but not using 9 or 24 pins.

Old Plotters called a pen plotter uses a carasel with different color pens and pics one up when that color needs to be used.

also still used for vynel paper cutting.

http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-DRAFTPRO-EXL-PEN-PLOTTER_W0QQitemZ5803010493QQcategoryZ178QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

just a sample of one, do an ebay search on pen plotter.

Joe

worked that way. Is there a printer that prints only with one pin or dot while moving side to side as the page moves up? Like dot matrix but not using 9 or 24 pins.

A single pin would be too slow. There was a line printer that had a single pin per character. The mount for the print head (pins) moved the width of a character while the paper moved up. A daisy wheel printer has only one impact per character per position. The type element was rotated to be under the hammer as the carriage moved sideways. The paper was advanced line by line. 35 to 80 characters per second.

I'm just looking for a way to make a laser engraver that works like the commercial ones do. Where the head moves back and forth quickly and indexes line by line. It is a pretty slow, but that is how they do it.

Thanks for the ideas!!

Probably any router with the required resolution could do. The z-axis or spindle power would turn the laser on and off. The x and y motion would trace the character outline. Actually a single pen flat bed plotter described in reply 2 is the closest thing. All you need is to replace the pen with the laser and connect it to the pen up/down signal. The plotting language (HPGL) would control the positioning and the pen (laser). I used a plotterer more than 25 years age. (HP-9872). For lettering there was limited fonts with italic, bold, outline (depending upon size) or you could make your own fonts.
A small CNC router would be perfect all you need is a laser, safety shielding, and modify the controls.

Fred,

Can plotters do pictures with a lot of dots?

Fred,

Can plotters do pictures with a lot of dots?

They can... but that would take like forever. Laser scanning heads do it with spinning mirrors and focused lenses.

Years ago there was a line printer that would print one row of dots at a time across the entire page. It was a bar that had one row of pins all the way across. Noisy as heck and vibrated. That was back in the 80's and only major corporations had them because they were so expensive. Can't remember who made them, it may have been IBM.

Dennis, sorry so long for a reply. Plotters make lousy pictures with dots unless you change the pens often. They originally used nylon tip pens and using rapid up and downs beat the tips up in no time at all. I tried using drafting pen points, but the ink flow slowed down so the speed had to slowed. A laser should not have any problem laying down the dots. It should be able to burn line segments.

Years ago there was a line printer that would print one row of dots at a time across the entire page. It was a bar that had one row of pins all the way across. Noisy as heck and vibrated. That was back in the 80's and only major corporations had them because they were so expensive. Can't remember who made them, it may have been IBM.

sure it wasn't a chain printer? I remember in the 80's operating printers where all the characters (like the little square bits on the end of typewriter key's) where in a chain. On the printline, in each character position were tiny hammers. the chain passed between the hammers and paper, and looped around.

In operation, the chain would rotate and when the right character was in the right position, the hammer would fire. Usually the processor was the constraint but when it could keep up, that chain printer was something to see. loud and fast!

towards the end of the eighties, we started using laser for many apps, but the chain printers were still the workhorses as the impact would do multipart forms.

For the begining I will just build it like a regular gantry router it might not be very fast but it will get the job gone.

Speed = complicated + $$$

Thanks for a the info on the printers that are out there and were out there.