How to convert a laser printer into a CISS. Converting an inkjet printer for the production of printed circuit boards. Review of flagship textile printer models
Fabric printing at home
Using a regular inkjet printer, which most readers have at home, you can apply inscriptions and designs to clothing, as well as make flags, pennants and other unique products small size.
Image transfer media
Almost any inkjet printer or MFP - both modern and long since discontinued - allows you to print images on special media for transferring to products made from cotton and mixed fabrics that can withstand prolonged heating. The structure of such media includes a dense paper base and a thin elastic layer that is attached to the fabric when heated - it is on its surface that ink is applied during the printing process.
Each of the world's leading inkjet printer manufacturers offers branded printing media for transferring images onto fabric. Thus, Canon’s product line includes T-Shirt Transfer media (TR-301), Epson has Iron-On Cool Peel Transfer Paper (C13S041154), and HP has Iron-On T-Shirt Transfers (C6050A). Retail packages of the listed media (Fig. 1) contain ten sheets of A4 format.
In addition, third-party manufacturers also produce media for transferring images onto fabric. For example, the well-known company Lomond in our country offers several options: Ink Jet Transfer Paper for Bright Cloth (for light fabrics), Ink Jet Transfer Paper for Dark Cloth (for dark fabrics) and Ink Jet Luminous Transfer Paper (suitable for dark and light fabrics, and thanks to fluorescent additives the image glows in the dark). The listed Lomond media (Fig. 2) are available in packs of 10 and 50 sheets in A4 and A3 formats.
Preparing the image
Image preparation and output can be performed in any raster or vector graphics editor. However, it is necessary to take into account that due to the peculiarities of both inkjet technology and the thermal transfer process itself, the image transferred to fabric using a special medium will be noticeably different from the same image printed by the same printer on regular, and even more so on photo paper. In particular, the image transferred to fabric is characterized by lower contrast, smaller color gamut and worse reproduction of light shades compared to a control print made even on ordinary office paper. In order to minimize losses when preparing raster images (photos, reproductions, etc.), it is necessary to increase their contrast and saturation. When creating and editing vector images for shading objects and outlines, it makes sense to use clean, saturated colors, and, if possible, avoid using light shades and very fine lines.
Photos, as well as vector and raster drawings with big amount halftones and gradient transitions will look best on items made of white fabric with a fine texture. The fact is that a fabric color other than white can significantly distort the colors of the original picture. For this reason, to transfer images to melange or colored fabric, it is advisable to create monochrome designs or images with a limited number of colors.
For the most effective use of special media, several individual small-sized images can be arranged on one sheet like pattern pieces, leaving gaps 10-15 mm wide between their boundaries.
Seal
So, the image is ready. In the printer settings, select the thermal transfer media, the format and orientation of the sheets used (Fig. 3). In order for the inscriptions transferred to the fabric to be read normally, and for the images to “look” in the same direction as the original, they must be printed in a mirror image. To do this, activate the option of mirroring the printed image in the printer driver settings (in Russian versions it can be called “mirror” or “flip horizontally”, in English - flip or mirror). If the driver of the printer you are using does not provide such an option, look for it in the print settings of the program from which you plan to print the drawing (Fig. 4 and 5). To check that the settings you have chosen are correct, use the preview mode.
Transferring an image to fabric
An ironing press is best suited for transferring a printed image onto fabric - it will ensure the most durable fixation of the design. However, if you don’t have such a device among your household utensils, you can use a regular iron.
Prepare a work table with a flat, hard surface that is resistant to prolonged heat (an ironing board, unfortunately, will not work for this purpose). In addition, you will need a piece of clean cloth.
Cut out the image printed on a sheet of special media, retreating 5-6 mm from its borders.
Set the iron control to the maximum power position. If your model has a steamer, turn it off. Leave the iron on for a while until it reaches maximum temperature.
Since power and temperature conditions irons differ from one model to another, the optimal transfer time will have to be determined experimentally. To do this, it makes sense to print a few small test images and try to transfer them onto a scrap piece of fabric.
After making sure that the iron is warm, place a previously prepared piece of clean cloth on the work table and carefully smooth it out so that there are no wrinkles or folds left. Then place the item you plan to transfer the design onto on top of this fabric. Prepare the surface for transferring the image by ironing it.
Place the cut out print face down where you want it to go according to your design. To best fix the image, it is advisable to use the widest part of the iron's working surface. When transferring a large image, it is best to smooth the sheet in several passes, slowly moving the iron pressed tightly to the table along the long side of the design (Fig. 6). The duration of one pass should be about 30 seconds.
Turn the iron 180° and repeat the above procedure, starting from the opposite edge. Then carefully iron the edges of the transferred image, moving the iron pressed firmly around the perimeter of the image.
using an iron
After completing the above steps, allow the product to cool for one to two minutes, and then carefully peel off the paper backing by grabbing it at any of the corners. Please note that it will be much more difficult to remove the base from a completely cooled product.
If you plan to apply several images or inscriptions to the same product, you must place them in such a way that they do not overlap each other.
Care of finished products
Items with images printed using the described method are best washed in cold water using detergent for colored items. Before you upload T-shirts and shirts with translated images to washing machine, you should turn them inside out. Be prepared for the colors in the image to become less vibrant and saturated after the first wash - this is quite normal.
Well-fixed images can withstand several dozen washes with minimal loss of brightness and saturation. However, optimal preservation is ensured by hand washing.
The simplest, most accessible and giving good results A method for producing printed circuit boards at home is the so-called “laser-iron” (or LUT). A description of this method can easily be found using the corresponding keywords, so we will not dwell on it in detail, we will only note that in the simplest version, all that is needed is access to a laser printer and the most ordinary iron (not counting the usual materials for etching boards). So, there are alternatives this method No?
Developing a variety of electronic devices, used, for example, when testing monitors, we used several methods for mounting electronic components. At the same time, printed circuit boards as such were not always used, since when creating prototypes and devices in a single copy (and often this turned out to be both), subject to inevitable errors and modifications, it is often more profitable and more convenient to use factory-made breadboards, performing wiring with thin stranded wire in Teflon insulation. Even the most famous companies do this in a similar way, as demonstrated by the prototype of the AIBO toy robot from Sony.
Stores sell relatively cheap double-sided tinned and even very high quality breadboards with metallized holes and a protective mask on the jumpers.
Note that such development boards allow special effort achieve high installation density, since there is no need to worry about routing conductive paths. However, for example, when developing power blocks and when using elements with non-standard pin spacing or their geometry, as well as when using surface-mounted elements (which we are not doing yet), it becomes difficult to use ready-made breadboards.
As an alternative to breadboards, we used methods of cutting foil in the gaps between conductive pads and the mentioned LUT method. The first method is applicable only in the case of the most simple options wiring, but does not require anything at all except a sharp knife and a ruler. The LUT method gave generally good results, but I wanted some variety. We considered the method of use to be too labor-intensive and require the use of caustic chemicals, which is not always acceptable at home. The incident allowed us to learn about another method - the direct method. inkjet printing template on foil fiberglass (keywords to search on English language- Direct to PCB Inkjet Printing).
The method is divided into the following stages:
- The actual seal pigmented
- Thermal curing of the printed template. In this case, the ink becomes resistant to the etching solution.
- Removing ink from a circuit board.
There is also an alternative option:
- Printing in principle any ink the PCB template directly onto the foiled fiberglass laminate, usually using a modified inkjet printer.
- Powdered toner from a laser printer/copier is sprayed onto the still wet ink, and excess toner is removed.
- Thermal curing of the printed template. In this case, the toner fuses and reliably adheres to the foil.
- Etching areas of foil unprotected by the template in the usual way, for example, using ferric chloride III.
- Removing caked toner from a circuit board.
We did not consider the second option due to our reluctance to work with powder toner, which could stain everything around with an accidental wrong move or a sneeze. All of the implemented direct inkjet template printing methods we found used Epson inkjet printers. Also, the type of ink, or rather the type of dye used in it - pigment, is strongly associated with the printers of this manufacturer, so we began our search for a suitable printer with the Epson catalog. Apparently, Epson has, or at least had models capable of printing on media with a thickness of up to 2.4 mm (and not only on CDs/DVDs), for example, the Epson Stylus Photo R800, but this the model is no longer produced, and we didn’t know in advance whether we would be able to use any of the modern analogues (obviously not cheap). As a result, it was decided to look for the cheapest model that uses pigment ink. The model was found - Epson Stylus S22. This printer also turned out to be the cheapest among all Epson printers - its price was less than 1,500 rubles, then, however, it increased noticeably: in Moscow retail (ruble equivalent - in the tooltip) - N/A (0) .
A quick inspection showed the need to make significant changes to the design of the printer, since it involved printing on flexible media with its bending when moving from the top loading tray to the output tray. The sequential modification described below was synthesized from several iterations, since after the next assembly it became clear that certain changes needed to be made to the design. Therefore, the possibility of slight inaccuracies in the description of this process cannot be excluded. The modification has two main goals. Firstly, to ensure a straight supply of media without bends or height differences, for which you need to change, and in fact create anew, the supply and receiving trays. Secondly, to ensure the ability to print on thick materials - up to 2 mm, for which it is necessary to raise the assembly with the print head and its guide slides. So:
1. Unscrew the two screws on the back wall and remove the casing, releasing the latches that still cling to the bottom.
2. Disconnect the control panel cable from the main board, unscrew the two screws securing the control panel,
release the control panel cable and put it aside. It will still come in handy, unlike the housing casing.
3. Unscrew the 4 self-tapping screws of the paper feed unit, release the wires going to the carriage motor, release the feed roller gear lock, remove the feed roller stand and the entire feed unit, remove the side paper clamp - these parts will no longer be useful.
4. Unscrew the self-tapping screw on the absorbent pad tray and on the power supply, disconnect the drain hose from the tray and the cable from the power supply on the main board, remove the absorbent pad tray and the power supply. Put them aside - they will come in handy later.
5. Unscrew the two self-tapping screws with the rollers pressing the emerging sheet, remove this assembly and move it to a pile with “extra” parts.
6. On the right, unscrew the self-tapping screw and the screw securing the slide along which the print head moves.
Remove the spring that presses the slide.
Remove the carriage ruler spring (stamped tape) and the ruler itself.
Unscrew the two screws securing the main board,
and press it away from the slide (be careful with the paper sensor!). Unscrew the screw securing the slide located under the main board.
Unscrew the screw securing the slide on the left.
Disconnect the feed motor connector (J7) from the main board.
Disconnect the spring on the left side of the slide.
Remove the slide assembly with the print carriage and main board.
7. Unscrew the self-tapping screw of the broach shaft lock on the left,
remove the shaft and its retainer.
8. Remove all additional guides at the beginning of broaching, which are attached to the clamps.
9. Using a hacksaw blade and needle files, cut out a window in the bottom from the side posts, to the bottom of the feed tray and to the feed shaft. In this case, it is convenient to use the existing grooves and holes in the bottom. Cut off the burrs with a knife and remove the sawdust.
10. Now you need to create a direct feed tray. To do this, you can use two pieces of aluminum corner 10 by 10 mm, 250 mm long, and part of the original paper support in the feed tray (you can use any rigid plate of a suitable size). The corners are attached using M3 countersunk screws as shown in the photographs below. Grooves should be cut out on the vertical planes of the printer body to which the corners are attached so that the feed tray can be moved slightly up and down to fine-tune its position.
On the right corner you need to cut off the vertical corner, otherwise the right pressure roller will rest against it. You also need to cut a groove on the pallet opposite the paper sensor (although, apparently, you don’t have to do this).
And put a piece of tube on the antenna of the paper sensor, thereby lengthening it a little.
11. Disconnect the feed shaft position sensor (one screw), cut off the stopper on the sensor body, and secure it by moving it as far down as possible.
During subsequent assembly, make sure that the disk with the streaks is placed in the middle of the sensor slot and does not touch its edges.
12. Under the three mounting points of the slide, place two washers with a hole of 4 mm, each 1 mm thick. When using wide washers in two places, they need to be filed down so that they do not rest against the body elements.
13. Remove the pressure rollers, put 2-3 layers on them (at least 3 layers on the central pair of rollers) of heat shrink tube, shrinking the intermediate layers with a hot air gun or other heating method. Use a file to deepen the grooves for the rollers so that they rotate freely. Insert the rollers into the holders.
14. In the parked position, as well as during the process of cleaning the nozzles and initializing new cartridges, a pad with a rubber gasket is pressed against the bottom surface of the print head, where the nozzles are located. There is a tube connected to the bottom of the pad that goes to the vacuum pump. When cleaning, the pump sucks ink from the cartridges, and during storage, the nozzles are protected from the ink drying out in them. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the rubber gasket fits tightly to the head, but due to the upward movement of the slide and the print head, this condition may not be met. It is necessary to increase the movement of the pillow in the crib. To do this, you will have to remove or at least move the pump - unscrew the two screws and press out the two latches.
Then remove the spring that tightens the crib pad, remove the crib-cushion assembly, and disconnect the tube extending from the pad. Next, use a knife to trim the sections of the body of the pad and the bed by about 1.5 mm in the right places, increasing the vertical stroke of the pad. Then put the unit back together. Since when using non-original cartridges, automatic cleaning of nozzles and initialization of cartridges led to strange results, we decided to disconnect the pump from the pad, for which we used a piece of tube and a tee. To remove excess ink or when manually washing the pad, you can connect a syringe to the tee, or simply hold its outlet with your finger and, turning the feed shaft back (by the gear on the front left), turn on the printer pump.
15. Reassemble the printer in reverse order. When installing the feed shaft, carefully clean the seats from chips and dust and apply a layer of grease to them and to the corresponding areas of the shaft. After installing the shaft, you need to adjust the feed tray. By loosening the screws securing the tray to the side walls of the case, using a rigid plate of a suitable size (for example, a piece of fiberglass), you need to ensure that the movement of the plate from the feed tray along the feed shaft and along the shaft in the output tray is smooth, without differences in height. You should also ensure that the feed tray guides are strictly parallel and perpendicular to the feed shaft. Having found this position of the feed tray, the screws should be tightened and preferably secured on the nut side with a drop of varnish. Then continue assembly. On the right side, due to the upward shift of the slide, the mounting hole will not coincide with the hole in the housing rack - you can file the hole and secure the slide with a screw, or you can leave it as is.
We installed the absorbent pad tray, having previously shortened its right post, in its original location, fixing it at two points with hot-melt adhesive. The power supply did not fit in its original position, so we did not find anything better than simply securing it with a plastic tie on the left post of the printer frame. We screwed the control panel to the lug on the power supply.
The original output tray causes the sheet to come out kinked, so it needs to be improved to ensure that the sheet comes out smoothly and horizontally. To do this, just place something a little less than 3 cm high under the tray, and put a couple of thick magazines or a stack of paper on the tray. However, after some time we replaced this design with a tray made from the casing of a non-working DVD player. What needs to be done with the casing to turn it into a tray is clear from the photographs, however, here everyone can use their imagination and available material.
Result:
Shift the slide up to b O a larger value than described above is associated with some difficulties. Problem areas are at least the feed shaft position sensor, the right bracket of the carriage ruler, and the parking unit. Perhaps something else too. As a result, the thickness of the material on which a modified printer can print is somewhere around 2 mm or a little more, therefore, with a PCB 1.5 mm thick, the substrate should not be thicker than 0.5 mm, and it should be rigid enough to move blanks for printed circuit boards. Thick cardboard, for example, from a folder for papers, turned out to be a suitable and affordable material. The liner must be cut exactly to the width of the input tray, as any horizontal movement will affect the printing accuracy. In our case, the substrate turned out to be 216.5 by 295 mm in size. The original feed unit cannot be used, so the liner must be manually placed under the pressure rollers, but the paper sensor must not be activated. Because of this, a cutout will have to be made in the substrate for the paper sensor antenna, in our case at a distance of 65 mm from the right edge, 40 mm deep and 10 mm wide. In this case, printing begins at a distance of 6 mm from the bottom of the cutout, that is, 6 mm before the edge of the media that the printer detects. Why this is so - we do not know. To secure the workpieces to the substrate, it is convenient to use double-sided adhesive tape. Pressure rollers press the substrate against the feed roller with great force, so for smooth printing, the rollers should not ride or move off the workpiece. To ensure this condition, before, after and possibly on the sides of the workpiece, it is necessary to glue material with the same thickness. This will also make it easier to position the workpiece for serial and/or duplex printing.
The original cartridges ran out quite quickly, but overall the results using the original ink were very good. However, it was decided to purchase refillable cartridges and compatible inks.
The soul did not rest on this; attempts were made to modify the ink in order to increase the content of the polymer component in it. As a result of these experiments, the nozzles with black ink were clogged by 90%, with magenta ink by 50%, one nozzle in the “yellow” row did not work, and only the nozzles of cyan ink remained fully functional. However, for printing templates, one color is enough. Since magenta ink showed the best results, it was they that were refilled in the cyan cartridge.
1. Prepare the surface of the workpiece. If it is relatively clean, then it is enough to degrease it with acetone. Otherwise, degrease, clean with an abrasive sponge, and, to form an oxide layer, place in the oven for 15-20 minutes at a temperature of 180°C. Then cool and degrease with acetone.
2. Using double-sided adhesive tape and auxiliary scraps of textolite, secure the workpiece to the substrate.
3. Convert the template to a pure color that will be used for printing. In our case - in blue (RGB = 0, 255, 255). Carry out a test print (not the entire template, but only the dimensional points, for example corners), if necessary, correct the position of the template in the program used for printing, wash off the previous result with acetone, repeat the correction procedure if necessary.
4. Print the template on the workpiece. The best results were obtained with the following settings:
5. Air dry the workpiece for 5 minutes; you can use a hairdryer to speed it up. Then detach the workpiece from the substrate and carry out preliminary fixing in the oven for 15 minutes (the time from turning on the oven) at 200°C at peak. Cool the workpiece.
6. For precise positioning of the second layer, you can drill several holes of small diameter, for example, 1 mm in diameter, at the attachment points of the future board. Secure the workpiece with the surface for the second layer facing up, and apply double-sided adhesive tape to the completely painted areas of the first layer. If the workpiece is tightly sandwiched between two plates at the front and back, then using double-sided tape is not necessary. Degrease the workpiece with acetone.
7. Perform positioning and printing - repeat steps 3 and 4.
8. Air dry the workpiece for 5 minutes; you can use a hairdryer to speed it up. Then detach the workpiece from the substrate, secure it on stands, for example, made from paper clips, place it in the oven, and carry out the fixation for 15 minutes (the time from turning on the oven) at 210 ° C at peak. Cool the workpiece.
9. Inspect the workpiece, paint over areas with a suspiciously thin layer of ink (for example, near holes or stuck dust particles) with a waterproof marker. Etch the workpiece. To ensure that the surface of the workpiece maintains a distance from the bottom of the container, you can insert toothpicks into the holes (1 mm in diameter used to position the second layer), so that the sharp tip extends 1.5-2 mm, and bite off the thick one to the same height. When etching, periodically turn the board over and check its readiness.
Wash off the ink with acetone.
Important notes.
1. In order for the ink used to become resistant to the etching solution, it must be kept for about 15 minutes (the time from turning on the stove) at a temperature of about 210°C at peak (obtained using a thermocouple located next to the workpiece). The interval is narrow, since when it is exceeded by 5-10°C, the textolite begins to collapse, and when it is too low, the ink is washed off with the etching solution. The exact conditions in a particular case must be determined empirically. For control, you can use a cotton swab test. If a cotton swab moistened with water easily washes off the ink, then you need to increase the temperature; if it does not wash off, or only slightly stains, then resistance to the etching solution has been acquired. If even a cotton swab moistened with acetone has difficulty removing the ink, it means that the resistance to the etching solution is very good. This way you can select the ink and curing conditions that give the best results. Note that we used an electric grill stove, turned on only the upper heating element, and when the ink was finally fixed, the stove thermostat was set to 220°C.
2. Printing reproducibility reaches about 0.1 mm, so if necessary, you can print it a second time on top of the first side of the template, with intermediate drying directly on the substrate with a hot air gun (with adjustable temperature) or a household hair dryer set to maximum temperature. Drying is necessary so that the pressure rollers do not lubricate the previous layer.
3. The production of two sides can be done sequentially. First, print and secure the first side, and protect the foil on the second, for example, acrylic paint from a can. Etch the first side, wash off the protection from the second with acetone, print and secure the second side, protect the first with paint, etch the second side, and wash off the protection from the first.
4. You need to print as follows: first send the print job, wait until the printer reports that there is no paper, then carefully slide the substrate with the workpiece secured under the pressure rollers, turning the feed shaft by the gear in front on the left, and then press the continue printing button. If there are short breaks between printing sessions, the printer will not perform a short cleaning procedure, so you can first load the substrate with the workpiece, and then send the job to print.
5. Particular cleanliness must be observed, since any speck of dust that gets on wet ink on the workpiece can lead to a defect.
Several double-sided printed circuit boards were produced using this method, and although the tracks at However, rather than 0.5 mm were not used, the possibility of obtaining tracks with a width of 0.25 mm was demonstrated in test areas, and this is clearly not the limit of this method.
P.S. An example of a double-sided board with 0.25 mm tracks (during the design, the standards of 0.25 mm were laid down for the width of the tracks and for the gaps, but during manual finishing the distances between the tracks were increased as much as possible). Note that when making double-sided boards, it is apparently still safer to print and etch the sides sequentially. Side 1:
Side 2:
Three types of defects can be noticed:
1. Linear distortion, which is apparently caused by the fact that one side was printed in a fast two-pass mode, and the other in a slow single-pass mode. That is, it is better to print both sides in the same mode.
2. In some places the tracks are slightly wider due to ink spreading. This defect can be avoided by carefully preparing the surface - degrease with a piece of cloth soaked in acetone, then wipe thoroughly with a dry cotton swab.
3. On one edge, the tracks and contact pads were noticeably more etched. This happened due to overheating, as a result of which the ink became very dark and began to peel off. This means that it is necessary to carefully monitor the uniformity of heating (choose a place in the stove where the heating is more uniform) and in no case allow overheating - the ink should darken noticeably, but not acquire a dark sulfur tint.
However, these defects did not turn out to be critical and as a result, without any wiring correction, we received a fully functioning device.
Small business, which is based on the idea of printing on fabric: T-shirts, canvases, tablecloths, is increasingly gaining popularity in the post-Soviet space. People love bright, exclusive things at a low price and willingly use printing services on textile materials. In order for the image to be of high quality, with high resolution, the question of choosing a special printer should be the main task of the entrepreneur: this is what will make you a name and generate income. If a printer for printing on fabric is purchased for home use, do not rush to spend your hard earned money. There are several reasons for this.
It’s another matter if the purpose of the acquisition textile printer –creating or expanding a business . In this case, there is no risk of downtime or drying out of the device; it is the volume and service life of the printer that is important. If the printing volume is about 200-300 products per day or small batches, but within 3-5 years without loss of quality, you need to think about purchasing professional equipment. The professional category includes a printer based on Epson 4880 with A2 print format. The ability to draw small patterns combined with the ability to fill large areas (40 by 80 cm) allows you to work with many materials: cotton, linen, leather, silk, knitwear. This model will cost the buyer 500-600 thousand rubles, and is the most reliable option in the Epson line of textile printers. The parts in the model are predominantly metal, and the print life is an impressive 20 thousand prints. There are several more worthy pro-class models on the Russian market:
Epson F2000, several DTX-400 models from DekoPrint, a couple of models from Brother, Kornit, American I-Dot, and Texjet from Polyprint. When choosing a printing device, you need to pay attention to the possibility and cost service Note: The printer is a complex device, repairs and maintenance should be performed at a service center by professionals. Be sure to ask the sellers how they work if you need warranty repairs.
Refueling and repair
Brother and Epson F2000 printers do not allow the use of non-original consumables. The manufacturer guarantees the quality and reliability of the device only if it uses original cartridges, which the user must buy as soon as the old ones run out. But the price of the original Supplies for all printing devices without exception is prohibitively high, so before purchasing, be sure to check with your nearest service centers availability of ink and the ability to refill cartridges. When choosing a printer for textiles, pay attention to the number of colors - this will allow you to significantly save on refills or replacing cartridges in the future. For high-quality full-color printing, 4 colors (black, cyan, magenta, yellow), one cartridge per color, and four cartridges for white are sufficient. White has the highest consumption. Choosing textile printer by 8-9 colors, remember that print quality and brightness will not change much, but ink costs will double. The most common problem with ink-based printing devices has been and remains the problem ink drying out while idle- when no one is using the printer.
To avoid clogging and drying of the nozzles, the printers are equipped with an ink recycling system and micro-cleaning during downtime. Recirculation does not allow the ink to travel the full path from the cartridge to the spray nozzles and can only prevent the ink from thickening, but not from drying out the print head. The function is useful, but it does not eliminate the danger. Much more important is the presence of a micro-cleaning function in the device: in automatic mode and without your participation, the printer itself will pass ink from the cartridges to the nozzles. Yes, a small amount of ink will go down the drain, but the user will protect his printer from a serious problem.
Sometimes drying out pigment ink in the nozzles cannot be completely eliminated, and the only solution is to replace the print head, the cost of which is comparable to the price of a new printer. It is worth paying attention to the printer delivery package: what is included in its package. An unpleasant surprise from many printer manufacturers may be the absence of printer ink in the basic kit when purchasing. There is no way to print without ink, so you will have to look for high-quality ink in specialized stores. You should not skimp on ink - the quality of your products and the service life of your device directly depend on the quality of the consumables. Just like in cars: a sports car will not produce full power on bad fuel, and the power unit will quickly become unusable.
Textile printer - choose wisely
Important nuances that you need to pay attention to when purchasing a textile printer:
— format and resolution;
— estimated circulation;
— brand (manufacturer);
— number of colors and possibility of refilling in the future;
— declared print life of the device;
- compatibility with operating systems and programs that you use at work, the availability of drivers;
- Energy consumption;
- weight of the device.
Do not make spontaneous purchases - carefully study the offers, read the forums, seek advice from service engineers: they will provide comprehensive information about the weak points of a particular model. The comfort of your work with a textile printer, maintenance costs and its service life depend on this.
Lately I've been looking for ways to make PCB manufacturing easier. About a year ago, I came across an interesting article that described the process of modifying an Epson inkjet printer for printing on thick materials, including. on copper textolite. The article described the modification of the Epson C84 printer, however, I had an Epson C86 printer, but because... I think the mechanics of Epson printers are similar for everyone, so I decided to try to upgrade my printer. In this article I will try to describe in as much detail as possible, step by step, the process of upgrading a printer for printing on copper-bonded PCB.
Necessary materials:
- Well, of course you will need the Epson C80 family printer itself.
- sheet of aluminum or steel material
- staples, bolts, nuts, washers
- a small piece of plywood
- epoxy or superglue
- ink (more on this later)
Tools:
- a grinder (Dremel, etc.) with a cutting wheel (you can try with a small monkey)
- various screwdrivers, wrenches, hexagons
- drill
— hot air gun
Step 1. Disassemble the printer
The first thing I did was remove the rear paper output tray. After this, you need to remove the front tray, side panels and then the main body.
The photographs below show the detailed process of disassembling the printer:
Step 2. Remove the internal parts of the printer
After the printer body is removed, it is necessary to remove some internal parts of the printer. First, you need to remove the paper feed sensor. We will need it later, so do not damage it when removing it.
Then, it is necessary to remove the central pressure rollers, because they may interfere with the feeding of the PCB. In principle, the side rollers can also be removed.
Finally, you need to remove the print head cleaning mechanism. The mechanism is held on by latches and can be removed very easily, but when removing, be very careful, because different tubes fit to it.
The printer disassembly is complete. Now let's start “lifting” it.
Step 3: Removing the print head platform
We begin the process of upgrading the printer. The work requires accuracy and the use of protective equipment (you need to protect your eyes!).
First you need to unscrew the rail, which is fastened with two bolts (see photo above). Unscrewed? We put it aside; we will need it later.
Now notice the 2 bolts near the head cleaning mechanism. We also unscrew them. However, on the left side it is done a little differently; the fasteners can be cut off there.
To remove the entire platform with the head, first, carefully inspect everything and mark with a marker the places where you will need to cut the metal. And then carefully cut the metal with a hand grinder (Dremel, etc.)
Step 4: Clean the print head
This step is optional, but since you have completely disassembled the printer, it is better to clean the print head right away. Moreover, there is nothing complicated about it. For this purpose I used regular ear sticks and glass cleaner.
Step 5: Install the print head platform. Part 1
After everything has been disassembled and cleaned, it is time to assemble the printer, taking into account the required clearance for printing on the PCB. Or, as jeepers say, “lifting” (i.e. lifting). The amount of lifting depends entirely on the material you are going to print on. In my modification of the printer, I planned to use a steel material feeder with a PCB attached to it. The thickness of the platform for supplying material (steel) was 1.5 mm, the thickness of the foil PCB, from which I usually made boards, was also 1.5 mm. However, I decided that the head should not press hard on the material, and therefore I chose a gap size of about 9 mm. Moreover, sometimes I print on double-sided PCB, which is slightly thicker than single-sided.
To make it easier for me to control the level of lift, I decided to use washers and nuts, the thickness of which I measured with a caliper. Also, I bought some long bolts and nuts for them. I started with the front feed system.
Step 6: Install the print head platform. Part 2
Before installing the print head platform, it is necessary to make small jumpers. I made them from corners that I sawed into 2 parts (see photo above). You can of course make them yourself.
Afterwards, I marked the holes for drilling in the printer. The bottom holes are very easy to mark and drill. Then, I immediately screwed the brackets into place.
The next step is to mark and drill the upper holes in the platform; this is somewhat more difficult to do, because everything should be on the same level. To do this, I placed a pair of nuts in the places where the platform joins the base of the printer. Using a level, make sure the platform is level. We mark the holes, drill and tighten with bolts.
Step 7. “Lifting” the print head cleaning mechanism
When the printer finishes printing, the head is “parked” in the head cleaning mechanism, where the head nozzles are cleaned to prevent them from drying out and clogging. This mechanism also needs to be raised a little.
I secured this mechanism using two corners (see photo above).
Step 8: Feed System
At this stage, we will consider the process of manufacturing the feed system and installing the material feed sensor.
When designing the feed system, the first challenge was installing the material feed sensor. Without this sensor the printer would not function, but where and how to install it? When paper passes through the printer, this sensor tells the printer controller when the beginning of the paper has passed and based on this data the printer calculates the exact position of the paper. The feed sensor is a conventional photosensor with an emitting diode. When paper passes (in our case, material), the beam in the sensor is interrupted.
For the sensor and feed system, I decided to make a platform out of plywood.
As you can see in the photo above, I glued several layers of plywood together in order to make the feed flush with the printer. In the far corner of the platform I attached a feed sensor through which the material will flow. I made a small cutout in the plywood to insert the sensor.
The next task was the need to make guides. To do this, I used aluminum corners, which I glued to the plywood. It is important that all angles are clearly 90 degrees and the guides are strictly parallel to each other. As the feed material, I used an aluminum sheet on which the copper-plated PCB will be placed and fixed for printing.
I made the material supply sheet from an aluminum sheet. I tried to make the sheet size approximately equal to A4 format. After reading a little on the Internet about the operation of the paper feed sensor and the printer in general, I found out that for the printer to work correctly, it is necessary to make a small cutout in the corner of the material feed sheet so that the sensor is triggered a little later than the feed rollers begin to spin. The length of the cutout was about 90mm.
After everything was done, I attached a regular sheet of paper to the feed sheet, installed all the drivers on the computer and made a test print on a regular sheet.
Step 9. Filling the ink cartridge
The last part of the printer modification is dedicated to ink. Regular Epson ink is not resistant to the chemical processes that occur during etching of a printed circuit board. Therefore, you need special ink, they are called Mis Pro yellow ink. However, this ink may not be suitable for other printers (non-Epson), because... other types of printheads may be used there (Epson uses a piezoelectric printhead). The online store inksupply.com offers delivery to Russia.
In addition to ink, I bought new cartridges, although of course you can use old ones if you wash them well. Naturally, to refill the cartridges you will also need a regular syringe. Also, I bought a special device for resetting printer cartridges (blue in the photo).
Step 10. Tests
Now let's move on to printing tests. In the Eagle design program, I made several printable blanks, with tracks of varying thicknesses.
You can evaluate the quality of printing from the photographs above. And below is a video of printing:
Step 11: Etching
For etching boards manufactured using this method, only a ferric chloride solution is suitable. Other etching methods (copper sulfate, hydrochloric acid, etc.) may corrode Mis Pro yellow ink. When etching with ferric chloride, it is better to heat the printed circuit board using a heat gun, this speeds up the etching process, etc. Less “eating” of the ink layer.
The heating temperature, proportions and duration of etching are selected experimentally.
