After modifying your inkjet printer for specialized tasks, you’ll quickly realize the need for a reliable material feeding system. Without it, consistently feeding materials becomes cumbersome, and you’ll need a way to integrate the crucial feed sensor. Especially when processes like heat treating printed materials are involved, hands-free operation becomes essential. This guide details how to construct a simple rail system for your modified inkjet printer, ensuring smooth and automated material feeding. While you can adapt this to your specific needs, here’s a breakdown of the system I implemented.
A critical component of this system is the feed sensor. This sensor is indispensable for proper printer operation as it detects the material’s presence, signaling to the printer the precise moment printing should commence. It’s also important to note that the printer’s software expects a slight delay between the feed rollers engaging and the sensor being triggered. We’ll delve into the specifics of this timing when discussing the carrier piece. For mounting the sensor, I chose a location where the carrier material would consistently pass through. Since I was adding a plywood deck to level the printer’s rear, integrating the sensor into this deck near the carrier’s path seemed like the most logical approach.
As illustrated, I used layers of scrap plywood to build a level platform at the back of the printer. This decking effectively covers the ink waste reservoir and the power supply area, creating a uniform surface. The process involved measuring these areas and layering plywood until they were level. As shown, this required a couple of layers over the waste ink reservoir, topped with a larger piece spanning the entire area. Once the deck was complete, I cut a corner from the top layer to accommodate the feed sensor, aligning it with the intended path of the carrier material. This ensures the material activates the sensor as expected by the Inkjet Printer Printer.
The primary purpose of this decking was to provide a stable base for attaching support rails. These rails enable a simple “lay-and-go” system where the carrier and copper-clad material are placed in the tray, and the printer takes over the feeding process. For the rails, I used aluminum bent into a 90-degree angle, cut to match the length of my anticipated carrier piece. These rails were then securely epoxied to the plywood decking, with a third piece added across the back for enhanced support and stability.
With the feed system assembled, testing its functionality was the next crucial step. This involved creating the carrier material. I repurposed a sheet of anodized aluminum, which proved to be an excellent carrier material. Initially, I measured the print gap at approximately 9 inches and planned a carrier similar to standard paper size, around 9 inches by 11.5 inches. However, further research into the feed sensor revealed a critical detail: the carrier needs a notch, roughly 3.5 inches long, to create the necessary delay between the rollers and sensor activation. Armed with this information, I modified the carrier design to a 9-inch by 14.5-inch rectangle with a 3.5-inch notch cut into one corner.
After cutting the notched carrier, I installed the printer drivers on my computer. For the initial functionality test, I taped a piece of paper onto the carrier and initiated a print cycle. The inkjet printer printer performed flawlessly, and everything printed correctly. This successful test paved the way for proceeding with PCB printing, confident in the reliable material feed system.
