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else in place. I removed the head-cleaning station as it would get in the way of the print head as I
wanted to control it, disconnected the DC and stepper
motors from the logic board and manually moved the
paper-feed mechanism so a head stop was retracted
allowing the print head to move freely. I left the power
supply in place so it could power up the encoder, but
thats just supreme laziness on my part as I didnt feel
like coming up with another 3.3VDC supply to power the
encoder reader.
Below are some pictures of the head-cleaner being
removed.
direction we want the motor to turn, and that will change constantly. The main thing is to be able to tell
the two wires apart. Trace the wires to the logic board where they should be attached with a connector.
You should be able to remove this connector from the logic board without too much difficulty. You may
need to cut the connector from the end of the wires to allow you to connect the motor to the H-bridge
motor driver when the time comes.
One thing I did while everything was still connected was hook up a multi-meter to the terminals on the
back of the motor and measure the peak voltage that was sent to the motor while the printer was doing
its power-up cycle. Depending on your multi-meter this may be tricky without a min/max function, but I
believe the Epson measured close to 35VDC during the high-speed moves. This isnt critical, but good
to give you an idea of what the designers intended. You probably can get away with 24, 18 or even
12VDC just fine with proportionally slower speeds.
Thats about all you need to know about the motor at this point, so on with the encoder reader. This can
be slightly tricky, but armed with a little knowledge you should be able to work it out without too much
trouble.
1) How do I supply power to the encoder reader?
2) At what voltage?
3) How do I get signals out of the encoder reader?
In order to do this its best to remove the encoder reader
from the print head so you can get full access to it. On
the Epson C86, the encoder reader is on the back of the
print head and so the head must be removed from its
guide rails. Be careful not to damage the clear plastic
encoders strip that runs through the reader. I remove the
encoder from the printer first just to be safe.
Once thats done, carefully examine the small circuit
board and locate the reader itself. Its usually black and
U shaped. The circuit board will probably have a few
support components on it which may help us figure out
Encoder Circuit Board
how to use it. You can see in my pictures, the reader is
connected back to the printer logic board by a white flat
cable. Im going to use this as-is to pass the signals back, I simply want to determine which conductors
on that cable are the ones Im interested in.
An encoder sensor is really very simple. It has an LED on one side (probably infrared) and two phototransistors on the other side. The LED shines its light through the encoder strip which has fine lines
etched on it. The photo-transistors are arranged the line width apart so that as the encoder
strip/wheel and sensor move relative to each other. The sensor outputs not only give an indication of
the movement but also the direction of movement.
The schematic below shows the basic components inside the encoder reader, and how it connects to
the outside world.
Youll want to get at the underside of the circuit board to access the leads of the sensor directly. The first
thing I look for is to identify the LED side of the device. This should be easy as the LED side of the
sensor will have two pins while the photo-transistor side will have 3 or 4 pins.
Following the traces from the LED you should be able to work your way back to the connector either
visually or using a DVM to test continuity. Youll probably find that theres a resistor in the circuit as
well, so note that in your schematic diagram (youre taking notes as you go right?) You should now be
able to identify two pins on the connector going back to the logic board. Now you can turn the printer
on, and measure the voltage at the connector noting the polarity to determine which pin is Vcc (~3.3V
5V) and which is GND. On the C86, I measured 3.2V. I could have built a custom power supply to drive
that, but the printers own power supply was doing a fine job so I just tucked the information away for
later reference. Chances are I could have driven that from a 5V supply directly without a problem, but it
might be necessary to change the current limiting resistor to match so you keep the current the same.
Now we can move on to finding the signals from the sensor output. Remember that I mentioned the
sensor will have 3 or 4 pins on its output side. Two of those pins will give us the signals we want. The
remaining one or two pins will be connected to GND and/or Vcc. Now that you know where those pins
are at the
connector, you
can trace those to
find the pin(s)
they attach to on
the output side.
The two pins you
have remaining
are the signal
pins youre
interested in.
Again, trace
these back to the
connector and
make note of
them as Phase
A and Phase
B. It doesnt
matter which is
which, but its
Encoder Schematic
important to
differentiate
between them.
signals back to the logic board and tapping into them at convenient points there. Do what makes sense
for your situation. You can use a standard multimeter to trace the signals.
If you plan to power the encoder board from a seperate power supply, then dont forget to isolate it from
the rest of the logic board by cutting the traces on the circuit board or by other means. If as in my case
youre reusing the printer power supply for that purpose, then all you have to do is tap the 0Vdc
(common) and two signal traces for use with EMC2. Youll notice in the pictures below, Ive tapped four
signals. The black
wire is for 3.3Vdc
supplied from the
printer itself. I just
added this as I was
using 4-conductor
phone wire for the
purpose and thought it
might be useful down
the road, but Ive left it
disconnected at the
Encoder Circuit Board Solder Side
far end of the cable.
Once youve managed to trace and tap into the signals as indicated,
you can reassemble and connect the circuit boards, print head,
encoder reader and encoder strip, motor and drive belt so everything is
ready to run though not yet connected to the PC or h-bridge driver.
To test that youve tapped the right circuit traces, apply power either by turning the printer on of if you
chose to use an external supply, apply power as planned.
Now connect a multimeter (on DC Volt setting) with the negative lead connected to you 0Vdc and
positive lead to one of the two phases. If you have one an oscilloscope, you can use that instead.
Note the voltage read by the meter, then move the print head by hand. Youll see the voltage fluctuate.
When you stop moving the print head, it will settle either high (~5Vdc or ~3.3Vdc) or low (~0Vdc). Then
move the head again, and again when you stop it will settle either high or low. What the actual values
are isnt as important as the fact that the values change as you move the head. If you dont see the
value changing, then just gently tap the head with you finger either left or right, and see if you can get
Next Time
Now that we have a mechanism all prepped
and weve learned what we need to about the
electronics, in the next installment well hook it
all up to EMC2 and start the process of
integrating the electromechanicals with the
control system.
Tapped Signals