Hacking the HP45

Powder and inkjet printing
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dragonator
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by dragonator »

Not really dropping it, but I have not yet found time to use it. The suggestion came after I had my own controller working.
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dragonator
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by dragonator »

I haz presents

In exchange for the HP C8855m documentation I got a carrier, HP C8855m and the stuff required to hook it up.

This is great because of a couple of things. I now have an original carrier that I can base my own on. The current version is bulky and requires some cutting in the HP45 to make it fit. Also I can use an original C8855m for comparison, though that will be a bit later.

Right now I am busy integrating the HP45 in Oasis. I already have ink, a line buffer and movement. All I need to do now is link them.
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JaseSerre
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by JaseSerre »

Hi...i am a new user here. In my case I got a pretty good handle on how they utilize both the thermal sense and the 10x resistors. There is only one thing I cannot figure out by reading up on them is how those two pins are grounded. I'm pretty sure they both get a positive voltage pulse tuned with a trim pot, but I cannot figure out where that current would drain to until I scope the thing.

pcb prototyping
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dragonator
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by dragonator »

The head is common ground. All the pins drain to the same 14 ground pins on the printhead.
Philipp
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by Philipp »

Hello dragonator,
I got today the first drops from the printhead, thanks to the support of my friend. We have built an adapter board, with which we can put the teensy directly on to the printhead controller. The board also has a voltage regulator for the power supply of the Teensys. So it is very comfortable with the cabling.
I will use the teensy only for the "image processing". The machine is controlled by a raspery PI. The advantage of this configuration is that we have to guide fewer lines along the moving axes.



Best regards
Philipp
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eric_Q
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by eric_Q »

dragonator wrote:There is now a line buffer in the Firmware. This means that I can store more complicated shapes in the tiny memory of the Arduino Mega. I then went on to write a shape generator because I am not going to fill a 176-bit wide 150 bit long buffer by hand. I started of with a square generator. This is a function that can make squares with different line thicknesses and sizes. It works quite well:

IMG_20160514_142451.jpg

I wanted to do circles next, but quickly thought against it. I do not want to mess with floating points and sines just yet. Instead I wrote a simple character set for the inkjet. It is actually lcd characters with 5x7 squares to make the characters, but I can scale them to any multiple of 5x7. A function can insert characters into the line buffer with a certain size. It works quite well:

IMG_20160514_161105.jpg

IMG_20160514_161109.jpg




I am now convinced that I can get enough control over this printhead to do fun things with it. Left for today is making a schematic of the current setup and uploading the current firmware. Tomorrow I will try add hardware and firmware to test the condition of the nozzles. In the near future I will open a tread for an HP45 controller (and maybe one for the next generation 3DP).
Hi, dragonator

someone said that, if you check every ink dot with magnifying glass(about 8x), every ink dot is consist of four small ink dot, is that?
just like the following:
no magnifying glass: ●
use magnifying glass: ∷

do you have the same result??
best regards.
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dragonator
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by dragonator »

I have tried a (relatively weak) magnifying glass quickly, but I do not see any more than just the 1 dot. It also makes little sense to me how a single printhead that ejects ink through a single hole would make 4 tiny dots.

With color on the other hand I can see how that could be. Each of the dots you speak of would be each of the color. Each dot however is placed by a different printhead.
eric_Q
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by eric_Q »

Thanks for your reply a lot.
I encounter a problem. when i print a barcode with hp45 header, i found that the barcode is not straight. I check out the software for a good while, and found nothing clue. unfortunately, i have no idea with the driver. The driver is not researched by me.

BTW. I cannot attach an image in the reply. how do i?

best regards.
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dragonator
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by dragonator »

That really depends on what controller you are using and in what orientation you are printing the barcode.

After the first few posts (2-3?) you should be able to attach images. These images can not be any bigger than 512kB.
mahjam
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Re: Hacking the HP45

Post by mahjam »

dragonator wrote:Attached are the Gerber files and the HP45 V1.01 controller source in beautiful Fritzing format. Good luck with it. If you are looking for me, I will be designing Oasis.
Hi i have a problem.when i open "
HP45 Controller V1.01 20161019.fzz" with FRITZING 0.9.3 64 bit dont open correctly.plz tell me how i fix this problem.
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