Forum:How To Move?

There is one standard way of printing, and that is to move the printhead it's self linearly, back and forth across the page while scrolling the page through the mechanism.

Pros

Simple

Cheep

Effective

Proven

Small footprint

Cons

Proven (where is the fun in that?)

requires flexible medium to print onto (no printing onto sheets of steel)

However, I'm sure there are several other ways, and here is one I have thought up:

X,Y axis printer - two rods - the X and the Y, are held in slots/rails and are driven in directions by standard DC motors (maybe by a worm screw, maybe by belt, who knows?), with the printer heads underslung in a cradle (designed to take different "head cartridges" maybe?), using a pair of sleeves in the X,Y, axis to guide it.

Another idea would be to use a delta robot design. This would allow fast printing with only three motors, and drastically reduces the amount of rollers and other paper-handling hardware necesary. A delta robot would be ideal here because the weight of the printer cartridge is very low, especially with a resovior fed design. Also, x/y axis designs tend to be picky about every joint lining up perfectly, as well as requiring acme rod ($$$) to move quickly. Delta robots are simple, and can move on three axes quickly.

Pros

Easy to modify to do different tasks

Non-standard

Allows for non-flexible printing medium

Allows for the possibility of the cradle holding, for example, rows of print heads or other devices (say, scalpel blades and a servo to control it?)

Cons

Large footprint

Untested

Not exactly simple