So I had an old inkjet printer lying at home that no longer worked. So I opened it up and found a few opto sensors and normal motors controlling to carriages.
I connected the motors to a motor shield and wrote a small code to control it with a joystick.
Here's a video of it.
I'm clueless how to use the opto sensor with arduino, and am looking for inputs and ideas to develop on this 
Post your program code here.
What do you want to use the printer parts for? You certainly won't be able to do printing with an Arduino.
A printer that I dismembered had cheap DC motors and an incredibly fine optical encoder disk and strip. If yours is like that I doubt if an Arduino would have the performance to detect the optical stripes unless the encoder is moving very slowly. I have never tried to use mine.
My guess is that the printer manufacturers spend (spent might be a better word) a great deal of money on software that allows them to use cheap motors. It pays off when you need to buy 2 million motors.
...R
Robin2:
A printer that I dismembered had cheap DC motors and an incredibly fine optical encoder disk and strip. If yours is like that I doubt if an Arduino would have the performance to detect the optical stripes unless the encoder is moving very slowly. I have never tried to use mine.My guess is that the printer manufacturers spend (spent might be a better word) a great deal of money on software that allows them to use cheap motors. It pays off when you need to buy 2 million motors.
Indeed. Only a couple of days ago I pulled a cheapo Canon printer scanner to see if I could get some parts - maybe a stepper motor or three that I might be able to the pulleys off. It's a changing world..... They had been replaced by cheap motors with optical encoders with plastic ribbon or disk, one of which was beyond my understanding, and all I got was a glass plate from the scanner. After throwing the rest out, I realised that the optical encoder that I couldn't understand was probably where the fault lay, and it may have been fixable.
(pardon the hijack)
Nick_Pyner:
to see if I could get some parts - maybe a stepper motor or three
That's what I was hoping to get also.
...R
All those printers have a beautifully polished stainless steel rod that the carriage moves on. Save that for use in your metalworking shop. You do have a shop, don't you?
Paul
Paul_KD7HB:
All those printers have a beautifully polished stainless steel rod that the carriage moves on. Save that for use in your metalworking shop. You do have a shop, don't you?
That describes the usefulness of a salvaged printer so wonderfully
...R
