Page 2 of 37

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 2:09 pm
by Philipp
Hallo Wonko,
I know the Xaar 1001 well.
The inks have a return, therefore, the nozzles do not clog as easily. It is also more expensive.
I have the problem with the printhead that I would like to have more ink per drop. But the XAAR system provides a maximum of 8 gray levels. Could your driver create more grayscale (about 16). So 16 drops to a sinle point?
Philipp

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 8:46 pm
by Wonko
Yes, the 1001 is a whole different monster in itself. It has a completely different interface as far as I can tell, but no documentation seem to exist, and unless someone will pay Xaar for the documentation and a developer kit, I see no way to get to that information.

Is your printhead mounted in some kind of commercial printer? The easy way to double the amount of ink on the paper is to slow down the ink head advance to half the speed. Maybe you can contact the maker of your printer, or find some other print settings?

If you have built your own printer, maybe you can give me more details on the electronics used, and we can figure something out?

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 9:41 am
by Philipp
Yes you are right,
the 1001 is a monster. For a small test printer XAAR 128 would be more interesting, and much cheaper. I am also interested in the potential that you win by an own drive.

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 1:04 pm
by NecDET
Hello Wonko,

Do you have possibility to share details of Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead ?
Would you please add how you do with Aurdino ?

Kindly ask help about this

Thank you



Wonko wrote:Well, since we all have spent so much time on stupid print heads, I have decided to reverse engineer the protocol of an industrial printhead. Sure, it's 200 Euros for a single head in a single color at only 200 dpi, but these babies are industrial strength, giving them supposedly a much longer life span and the ability to print solvents via piezzo, and hopefully UV resin as well.

To make a long story short: yes, I made it work. I can control each and every nozzle at full speed with an off-the-shelf Arduino and close to zero additional parts. Yay!

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 4:42 pm
by dragonator
I know I am still really really interested in the Xaar 128. Not for pure powder printing, but the Xaar is better than the HP45 in a lot of important ways.

Wonko, are you still here and are you willing to share it (if not here, at least somewhere).

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 11:23 am
by Wonko
Hi. Yes, sorry, I am still here, but we have a medical emergency. I'll be back in a few weeks.

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:03 pm
by Kyle
Hey all, I saw this thread a few weeks back and decided to try for myself. I have a working configuration, aside from daily nozzle clogs, and have started posting my notes on the RepRap Wiki here: http://reprap.org/wiki/Getting_Started_with_Xaar_128.

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:57 pm
by david
Nice work to get the xaar128 working. If you google carefully, you should be able to find a complete copy of XAAR128's user manual, by which you should be able to build your own circuit. However, for the same price of xaar 128 you can get a xaar 126. Xaar 126 was a better design than 128, runs longer more tolerant to the fluid. However, its manual is hard to find. Does anyone has detailed information for xaar 126? My apologizes for hijacking the thread. Should start a new one if there is more interest.

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 1:25 pm
by evomotors
Kyle wrote:Hey all, I saw this thread a few weeks back and decided to try for myself. I have a working configuration, aside from daily nozzle clogs, and have started posting my notes on the RepRap Wiki here: http://reprap.org/wiki/Getting_Started_with_Xaar_128.
Can you share Arduino code and connection diagram?

Re: Hacking the Xaar 128 printhead

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 7:09 pm
by dragonator
Now I am getting really interested. I do like the XAAR, not for 3DP purposes, but for other projects I still want to do.

@david, you said something about being able to find proper manuals? Would you be willing to share links, because I am coming up dry on google. If the XAAR 126 is better, I am interested, but I think the 128 is a good starting point.