Big Printer
The other day I wondered what people have done with their InkShields. 1 2 Then I got to wondering what people were doing to mount their InkShield printer heads and move them around. Then I thought… hey! It would be pretty awesome to attach an InkShield printer head to a Polargraph / DrawBot gondola.
I could see how an InkShield might improve a Polargraph. You could theoretically have a small sensor to test the ink levels and pump more ink in from a larger reservoir – and never worry about a pen running out of ink again.
I could see how a Polargraph might improve an InkShield. With a DrawBot string setup, you wouldn’t need a huge or expensive XY gantry – just a lot of string, two motors, and some other bits and bobs.
Posts in the DrawBot Adventure Series
- Wanna make a DrawBot?
- DrawBot Resources and Links: Updated 2013/04/01
- DrawBot, the Adventure Begins
- DrawBots for the slow learner
- DrawBot - Parts Ordered!!!
- DrawBot - The Breakdown
- DrawBot - Parts Shipped!!!
- DrawBot - What would you draw?
- DrawBot - The Plan!
- DrawBot - The Hacks
- DrawBot - Giant Unicorn?
- DrawBot - The Delivery?
- DrawBot - The Delivery, Part II
- DrawBot – The Delivery, Part III
- DrawBot – The Assembly, Part I
- DrawBot – The Software, Part I (and an existential conversation)
- DrawBot – The Delivery, Part IV
- DrawBot – The Assembly, Part II
- DrawBot – The Assembly, Part III
- DrawBot – The Assembly, Part IV
- DrawBot – Design Considerations
- DrawBot – Halp!!! No - seriously, a little help?
- DrawBot – The Face Palm
- DrawBot – The Delivery, Part V
- DrawBot – The Silver Lining of Failure
- DrawBot – The Delivery, Part VI
- DrawBot – The Assembly, Part V
- DrawBot – The Assembly, Part VI
- DrawBot – Printed Parts
- DrawBot – The Assembly, Part VII
- DrawBot – The Operation, Part I
- DrawBot – The Assembly, Part VIII
- DrawBot – The Breakdown, Part II
- DrawBot – Printing!
- DrawBot – Printing, Part II
- DrawBot – Why are you crying?
- DrawBot – Calibration
- DrawBot – Pen Selection
- DrawBot – How to Recover from a Stalled Print!
- DrawBot – Drawing Success(ish)!!!
- DrawBot – Pen Selection, Part II
- DrawBot – Onwards and Upwards!
- DrawBot – Another Successful(ish) Drawing!, and an Update
- Restarting a Stalled DrawBot Drawing
- TSP FTW!
- Speedier DrawBot Drawings
- Two new DrawBot links! And an update!
- Excellent DrawBot Slides
- Another Drawing Robot!!!
- DrawBot Practice Tip: A Watched Pot
- The biggest inkjet printer ever
- Why do DrawBots draw on walls?
- Maze Code + Polargraph?
- All New Polargraph on the way!!!
- Ideas for improving my DrawBot
- DrawBot Aesthetic Re-Design Ideas
- The Eagle Has Landed
- Every Body Needs a Skull
- I think I know what I want to draw next...
- This project is not going to overengineer itself
- Overengineered Spools
- Overengineered Stepper Motor Mounts, Filament Guides
- Overengineered Bolt Endcaps, Case Holder
- Sourcing DrawBot Parts
- DrawBot - A Tour!
- DrawBot - A Preview
- Arduino Powered Drawing Robot Poll
- Building an Arduino Drawing Robot - On The Cheap
- DrawBot - Printed Parts Tour
- Unidentified Foam Object
- Arduino Powered Drawing Robot - Take 2 (Or 3)
- DrawBot, now ACTUALLY wall mounted!
- A Study of Drawing Robot Pen Holders and Design Considerations
- Drawing Robot Pen Holders, Calligraphy Pens, and Thought Experiments
- Ideal Qualities in a Drawing Robot Pen Holder
- Enough talk! Finally a pen holder!
- DrawBot Pen Holder Post Mortem
- To Maker Faire!!!
- Skipping! How could I forget the skipping?!
- Drawing Robot Penmanship
That would give you a much higher resolution than Polargraphs have now and speed up printing.
The problem I would expect is that you would suddenly need to keep the gondola vertical (or at least the same orientation). Suddenly having the gondola rotated 5 degrees compared to straight up and down would be an issue.
@Michael Cook: I haven’t had a lot of trouble keeping the gondola vertical. I use several AA batteries as weights on my gondola which keep it vertical. It does have a little side-to-side motion, but that’s one of the tradeoffs, I suppose.
I just got my Polargraph working well in the last week or so. The gondola stays mostly vertical, but I’ve seen it a few degrees off. I don’t have any weights on it though.
You could have some fun with an ink shield though. You could print on surfaces (like directly on walls) that you’d never be able to print on normally.
@Michael Cook: Do you have pictures or a blog post about your ‘bot?! Please e-mail with them so I can add them to my DrawBot page! I’d love to see what you’re working on. Also – what gondola design do you use? I’m using John Abela’s, but I think I need to design something for my particular setup.