Hacking A Printer To Directly Print PCB's

[scratch_6057]

(snip) They had a huge flame war about how FeCl will not etch copper. It was very intense about how chemicaly that reaction will not take place. I guess it takes a brain bigger than mine to figure out that what my eyes see is not happening.

All I can say to that is what I believe I have seen someone around here is using as a Tag Line . . .
“Those who say it can not be done should not stand in the way of the one doing it.”

I’m rather heavily involved with a local hobby robotics club and although it’s sad
many of the younger members of the club (HS & University students and those recently
out of University / College) only seem to be able to do what has already been done
i.e. building pre-designed kits, or say what has been drilled into them by professors.
Very rarely do these people exhibit the ability to think independently or ask the
hard questions such as ‘Why WON’T it work this way . . . ?”

[epineh]

I was LMAO at reading about the FeCl not etching... dammit!!! I thought I had the process working well and didn't need to really do much more, now I find that the FeCl doesn't etch copper

As for people thinking for themselves, I am afraid I think that is the way of the world at the moment, the era of invention is dead. If we took a fraction of the time we spend on marketing, refining corporate business models blah blah and spent it on looking at ways to improve our plight on this planet, then we would be a whole lot better off.

Getting a little off topic, but thats OK... I have finished my printer

Russell.

[epineh]

Anybody have a quick and easy way to re-colour a PDF file to another colour ?

I have Dl the UHU servo driver board layout and would like to print it out and etch, it is a PDF and black, I would like to change the colour to magenta or red and print it to copper, thought about printing and scanning to another format but don't want to lose quality.

I would like to keep the printer as standard as possible to try to combat the head clogging issues if possible so I would like to change the picture, not refill inks into different carts etc.

On that note, I was going to refill the inks, but at $14.00 bucks a cart, I don't think I will bother, there is a lot of PCB printing in one of those carts.

Russell.

*EDIT, nm on the colour conversion, I used Photoshop, used selective colour, chose black and then ran the sliders to max yellow and magenta, and no black or cyan, going to try print and etch...

[x6xtyx9x]

Hey I am dumb on this stuff. What is a PCB?
I think insert when I hear that.

[kreutz]

Hey I am dumb on this stuff. What is a PCB?
I think insert when I hear that.

PCB= Printed Circuit Board

[kowell]

C88mod and wnnelson

Call me stupid , but if you have lowered the feed bar , why can,t you lower
mounting points for the purge pump as well , from the pictures this seem
simple to do , cut off the plate that holds the pump , re-attach with some
thin steel plate and some bolts.

Kym

[C88mod]

Anybody have a quick and easy way to re-colour a PDF file to another colour ?

*EDIT, nm on the colour conversion, I used Photoshop, used selective colour, chose black and then ran the sliders to max yellow and magenta, and no black or cyan, going to try print and etch...

how goes it?

yeah, thats how i can easy "exchange" colors/inks in gimp for etching/masking...
I open up my pcb.ps with 720 or 1440 color dpi to keep the rez native,
also gimp-print has a nice printer frontend.

Jeez, i tried to log on here for the last two hours, server was down...

[C88mod]

C88mod and wnnelson

Call me stupid , but if you have lowered the feed bar , why can,t you lower
mounting points for the purge pump as well , from the pictures this seem
simple to do , cut off the plate that holds the pump , re-attach with some
thin steel plate and some bolts.

Kym

Hi kym, I looked into really getting that pump to work,
But there is no room as the pump is almost touching the floor of the
printer, Besides i kind of like the fact that i can control the purge ink usage,
maybe squirt it back in the black tank for masking ink.

Hey wnnelson, are you sure the turning radius is the same between the feed shaft
and those rubber rollers?

[wnnelson]

NO! Why would I even think of that? I do remember thinking this may not feed at the same rate but promptly forgot about it. It should not be a problem as there is no pressure on the bar. It just gives the carrier a flat path out. I haven't added a outfeed tray yet, I try to catch it before it hits the floor, sometimes not very well. When I had the front printhead guide rail raised it did not have much support and would bend easy if I did not catch the board in time, this would cause the printhead to bash into the side of it and go into error alert. Lucky nothing jammed up permanate. I'm going to look at that pump again, maybe it could be glued to the base? Maybe cut out a hole in the base to lower it? If a smaller gear is put on it would make the pump run slower but don't know it this is good or bad. The problem with the syringe is I'm not sure how much to pull on it. Plus I'm not sure if the print heads should be firing when pulling ink. In the SSC utility you have the option of cleaning the black head only or the colored heads only. This leads me to suspect that the print head has to be activated to get the right cleaning action. Any thouhgts on this C88mod?

[wnnelson]

OK i've looked at the pump and if the bottom of the case is cut out it can be lowered and have the gear engaged. Is this worth it? Hmmm. If I can can get a smaller gear it just seems so much easier. I wanted to lower the feed bar so as to not have to hack the frame, so I don't want to hack the base either. I'm trying this as a way to mod the printer without doing a lot of hacking.

[C88mod]

NO! Why would I even think of that? I do remember thinking this may not feed at the same rate but promptly forgot about it. It should not be a problem as there is no pressure on the bar. It just gives the carrier a flat path out. I haven't added a outfeed tray yet, I try to catch it before it hits the floor, sometimes not very well. When I had the front printhead guide rail raised it did not have much support and would bend easy if I did not catch the board in time, this would cause the printhead to bash into the side of it and go into error alert. Lucky nothing jammed up permanate. I'm going to look at that pump again, maybe it could be glued to the base? Maybe cut out a hole in the base to lower it? If a smaller gear is put on it would make the pump run slower but don't know it this is good or bad. The problem with the syringe is I'm not sure how much to pull on it. Plus I'm not sure if the print heads should be firing when pulling ink. In the SSC utility you have the option of cleaning the black head only or the colored heads only. This leads me to suspect that the print head has to be activated to get the right cleaning action. Any thouhgts on this C88mod?

Come to think of it, You are right about when to pull and how much on that syringe,
this cleaning step is too important/critical/fast to leave to human interaction.

I am going to follow kowell's and your advice and make room for that pump.

You are not the only one to lose a printhead from cleaning, what i learned
is never to use pressure, just suction only, as it blew just enough ink/water/ammonia past the tank/printhead gasket and running it wet fried that ribbon, i miss my old C82.

[C88mod]

Ok, i made the pump fit, with moving holes around with a hand grinder
and using JB quick weld for filler/strength.
i put a little dab of grease on the alignment pins and the pumpshaft to keep
the jb from sticking there, so i can remove the pump just in case i need to.
the pump works great!

Now all I have to do is make a tray and start printing on the .060" stuff...

[C88mod]

Hi wnnelson, how bad is that printhead in terms of damage?
thoughts about printing a new polyimide ( capton? ) ribbon might be possible
seeing as i have 1mil copper foil, just need the ribbon material...

[wnnelson]

Good job on the pump. No cutting of the case? I don't like grinding on the metal as the swarf gets into everything. Did you remove the printhead to do this? I'm still going to try the new gear, just have to find the right one. You know when you clean out the garage and say I'll never need this, well I cleaned out a box of gears and belts just 4 months ago, Grrrrrrrr.
I'm not sure if the problem is the printhead nozzles, printhead elecronics, or the main board electronics. I have one of the Epson refubished printers coming next week and then I will try again. I will hook up the bad head and see if it does anything. This could also blow out my main board so I will not try it too soon. It would be great to know what I should expect to see at the printhead ribbon cable. Could be digital info or maybe just cross matrix signals to each head. I may try and hook up to the head and see. Schematics would sure help.

[C88mod]

Good job on the pump. No cutting of the case? I don't like grinding on the metal as the swarf gets into everything. Did you remove the printhead to do this? I'm still going to try the new gear, just have to find the right one. You know when you clean out the garage and say I'll never need this, well I cleaned out a box of gears and belts just 4 months ago, Grrrrrrrr.
I'm not sure if the problem is the printhead nozzles, printhead elecronics, or the main board electronics. I have one of the Epson refubished printers coming next week and then I will try again. I will hook up the bad head and see if it does anything. This could also blow out my main board so I will not try it too soon. It would be great to know what I should expect to see at the printhead ribbon cable. Could be digital info or maybe just cross matrix signals to each head. I may try and hook up to the head and see. Schematics would sure help.

No i left the printhead in place with tape
over the spray holes to keep the ink where it should be while whittling
away at the printer, how worse can it get?

Glad to see you got another printer to hack on, who's/where's your source?
I say, Let sleeping dogs lie and part the bad-head printer out,
since you got another one, imho.

if my memory still serves me correctly and the head looks like my old c82, it's x(8)-bit tristate bus or serial going to the
small controller/driver board on the head itself also the optical positional sensors, vcc & gnd, the ink tank chips as well, just a guess,
there might not be enough connections on the primary ribbon to be even multiplexed though if you count all that and the jets.

As for schematic info, you know that epson would not even tell you that they even built the thing.

[wnnelson]

I'm getting the refurbished printer staight form Epson. $50 free shipping.
I do have some schematics around here for printers but not the C88. I guess some of the Epson techs must leak stuff out once in awhile. I need to go down to the county recycling yard and see if they will let me poke around in their stash of printers. I might find some good stuff. I'm not to sure they will because the place is also a toxic waste dump. Printed anything out yet with your newly modified C88.

[C88mod]

Have not printed anything out yet as i just ran out of ink just turning the printer on.
The pic shows how much ( ~ 8-12 ml ) gets wasted on a cold random start after that minor clean stage.
just firing up the printer it will clean at random times, also when printing, the head will
go extreme left and wizz in the second dump area every 6 passes tor so when printing at 1440 rez.
( the nature on an inkjet, i guess)
I was set back a bit when soldering the mini pcb back on the sensor
(it soldered in 180 out) but its all well now, just have to refill/reset those tanks.
Thats .110" composite cardboard i ripped out from a binder btw. (makes a good working template)
It seems to print on target but just ran out of black, but wont be sure until i refill.

I am also messing around with a couple of old hp 6xx series thermal inkjets
and cheap pigment ink, I will post later...

[wnnelson]

I'm not sure what this is. SSC resetter? Where?
"was set back a bit when soldering the mini pcb back on the sensor (it soldered in 180 out) but its all well now, just have to refill/reset those tanks. "

[C88mod]

I'm not sure what this is. SSC resetter? Where?
"was set back a bit when soldering the mini pcb back on the sensor (it soldered in 180 out) but its all well now, just have to refill/reset those tanks. "

Naw, i had problems with the paper sensor, thats all.

[plexer]

What if you tried to coat the board with a pigment ink of some sort and trace the tracks with the laser, then wash away the ink that hasn't been "nuked"

If you put the pre-coated uv sensitive cooper clad in a laser and using an inverted printout i.e everywhere you want to be etched is black and run this on a co2 laser this works.

You then etch as normal.

I did this on our versalaser.

You could probably coat the board in some other paint or ink and dry it too but these pre coated boards work well.

Ben