IoT Printer

thingiverse

This is an IoT roll printer that connects seamlessly with IBM Bluemix (Node red) to receive information, allowing it to display the time, weather, pollen numbers and tweets in real-time. It leverages three servo motors to control the pen that writes and a precision stepper motor to wind up the paper roll. The durable housing is crafted from laser-cut acrylic and plywood. The plotter itself is an innovative adaptation of the Plotclock by joo. Our team of six skilled engineers from Technical University of Denmark designed it as part of the Mechatronics Design course (41030). We applied our expertise to transform the original design into a fully functional printer. How I Designed This We began by importing the original Plotclock design by Joo into PTC Creo Parametrics. From there, we added the casing and custom parts for securing the paper roll and other essential components. Parts used The entire project uses laser-cut plywood and acrylic, except for the electronics, which can be easily sourced online. The following parts were crucial to our design: * NodeMCU (esp8266) * 3x Servo motors * Sharp 1A51HR photo interrupter * Stepper motor 45x45mm (sourced from an old printer) * Power supply with a 5v output (reused from another device) * EasyDriver (Stepper motor driver) * Receipt roll * Acrylic 3mm - approximately A3 size * Plywood 3mm - 450 x 140mm How to assemble The case is assembled first and glued together. The other parts are designed for easy installation, often referred to as "plug and play." Two lids can be removed for quick access to the electronics and for changing the receipt roll. It may require some grinding due to the press fit. With lids removed How to operate When connected to power and the internet, it will display time and weather at specific times, all programmed in Node Red. It also allows users to send tweets directly to the printer.