Change to software flow Re: Ink Calibration

[Craigus]

Hi All,

I have been experimenting with dispensing an Acrylic Paint onto Copper Clad FR1 PCB.

Note: This will also be useful for a Silk Screen layer as well.

My problem is the paint is reasonably fast drying and some of my layouts take a while to generate a plan after ink calibration. During the time it takes to generate the plan the dispensing nib can caulk up and will not dispense once the job starts. I have worked around this by licking my finger and applying a small amount of saliva onto the nib to keep the paint wet

Would it be possible to have the Ink Calibration routine after the tool plan generation instead of before so that you can move straight onto dispensing once the ink is calibrated???

[cborn]

Nice job!

Here’s an idea for Troy and the team to look into in their spare time - remember those Roland X-Y plotters we used to use? Once they finished plotting one color they would go and park the pen, with the nozzle set down on a soft rubber pad to seal it and stop it drying out.(I still have one under my desk!)

There is room on the V-One for one or more “parking” locations to the left of the calibration points. Should be easy enough to set some up, could be rubber or even a damp sponge/fabric like an ink-stamp pad (something else you don’t see anymore!), stuck down with double-sided tape. Probe for their location and height (once off and remember), you could have a parking spot for conductive ink, another for solder paste, an other for your acrylic ink.

[freezedream]

Really nice result! Does the dried paint stand up alright to the etch bath? Also, I thought that printing can be started directly after the calibration is completed. I don’t think I understand what the tool plan generation is that you mentioned or why it takes so long.

[troy]

Hey @Craigus,

first,
we don’t officially support this scenario.
What I’m going to suggest might result in some broken nozzles.

I’m not sure why it takes a long time to generate the plan that step goes through all the selected toolpaths and creates a big list of all the commands we need to send to the printer. This is done after you hit START because that’s when I know you’ve committed to the current set of selected toolpaths. As for the slowness, my best guess would be the circular shapes, which generate lots of tiny lines.
(@freezedream, that should answer your questions)

Some ideas:

• print the circuit (panel) in phases. That is, select one quarter of the panel, print it, then select the next quarter. If that doesn’t work, try selecting fewer features in each phase. Obviously, this is not as good as clicking START once (and grabbing a coffee)

• I really like @cborn’s idea of a soft rubber pad. A damp sponge might work too (damp, meaning, not dry and does not drip). You can send commands to the printer from the console to lower the dispenser to the pad/sponge – hit alt-c to open the console. while connected to the printer, type ‘V?’ to list the standard commands, you will want V1 (absolute move) and V2 (relative move), V0 will output the current location (but it’s echoed often enough that you can just read it from the output). I suggest using the probe to experiment with these commands, once comfortable, you the dispenser. – The idea would be that you enter a command to lower the dispenser into the sponge after the calibration step, when you hit start in the dispense step the plan will generate while your tip is safely in the sponge… the first command in a dispense plan is ‘raise to max height’, so the nozzle should exit the sponge before heading to the board.

I like the sponge since it seems easier to find and requires less precision when figuring out the height to lower to.

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If you try this let me know how it goes. I like hacking the v-one, you never know, a feature might pop out.

[Craigus]

Thanks @troy,

I am wondering if the delay from pressing start and the job beginning is due to using an Intel Celeron NUC?
I know its not a high end machine but I had it available for the job so put it to the task of being dedicated to the V-One printer. I’d have thought that even with its low specs it would have been up to the task for calculating the drawing coordinates?

@cborn, I like your idea of a sponge and will experiment with this asap. At the moment i am putting a few drops of water in the dispenser cap before storing. this is to keep the air off the tip while not in use.

@freezedream, I am about to etch the board in the next day or two (Have been away due to long weekend here so thought best to come back to it this week). I will report on the outcome for you. I believe it will be fine as long as the paint has satisfactorily cured before immersing in any etching fluid (I use ferric chloride). The board has several areas that need to be manually filled in. For this purpose I use a Staedtler Lumocolor Permanent Marker which is impervious to ferric chloride.

[cborn]

@troy An observation on the delay in the plan generation step - I’m doing solder paste on the MeterHead board (the one with the problematic big holes I’ve talked to you about before), it is working fine, no delays at all, then I go to add extra paste on six pads that are a bit light, and it just sits there “Generating Plan” for 30 seconds to a minute, I’m thinking it has locked up, then it carries on as normal.
This board only has 16 pads, I had just printed a group of 10 with no delays, and the previous identical board had no delays. I’ve never seen this before, I wonder what triggers it?

Latest v2.7.0 software.

(Also using a plastic nozzle, I opened it up a bit with a 0.4mm drill, set Z up to 0.12mm, which seems to work ok. Would be nice to be able to save as named settings.!)

[troy]

That sounds pretty nuts. Not sure what could cause that. if you can send that gerber to mike, I can include it while assessing the new planner (which is where my time is going rn).

Yeah, custom inks would be nice. Closest thing is for now is to override the settings for an ink/paste you don’t own.

Thanks for the info @cborn!