I am currently developing a printer for an art project by Theo Deutinger.
In search of alternative printing methods, I have built this tiny plasma printer.
This machine is based on a battery operated plasma lighter.
The circuit board insides the housing generates a high voltage via a small transformer, the primary winding of which is driven by an alternating voltage of high frequency.
With that, the high voltage required to ignite the plasma arc builds up in the secondary winding.
The mechanical components of the plasma printer are mostly 3D printed:
What is needed is a mechanism for paper feed, which is driven by one stepper motor ...
... while a second stepper motor is used for the mechanics that moves the electrodes perpendicular to the paper feed.
The electronics board is composed of two stepper motor drivers, the lighter circuit board and a 3.7V DC converter that replaces the lighter's battery.
My first attempt of controlling the stepper motors didn't really work:
The sparks forming between the electrodes in combination with the cheap electronics generate parasitic signals resulting in random movement of the stepper motors.
My quick and dirty solution was adding another large capacitor, a suppression choke and a resistor in the high voltage circuit of the transformer to reduce the power of that radio transmitter - event with that I won't get the FCC seal of approval for this device ...
At least the software running on the Arduino Uno can now control the steppers as intended.
Let's feed a piece of paper and start printing.
As you can see, the device works in principle - whenever the plasma arc fires, a rather small, black dot is formed on the paper, that becomes larger, with longer burning time of the plasma.
A look through the microscope shows that the diameter turns out to be significantly less than one millimeter, which is needed for high print resolution.
It can also be seen that a hole is created in the center of the printed dot:
Ions and electrons in the plasma are accelerated by the high electric field between the electrodes, causing the destruction of the paper.
The hot plasma also carbonizes the paper around the hole so that a black dot is formed.
That doesn't only apply to the top...
... but also for the back side of the paper.
Since the paper gets burned at each dot during printing, black areas in your print result in a large, burned hole.
So the graphics must be transformed into a grid with a certain distance between the dots - similar to good old newspaper pictures.
There should also a delay between firing two plasma arcs.
Here, a line is printed according to this principle and as you can see, the dots are more or less besides the specified coordinates.
Only a minor part of that error is caused by the simple mechanics of the printer - the main reason for the lack of precision lies in the physics behind plasma arcs:
Same as for a big thunderstorm there is for this miniature version: you never know exactly where the lightning strikes.
With each ignition, the plasma arc takes a slightly different path between the electrodes, which gets even worse when there is a piece of paper between them.
With a microscope the reason for this becomes clear: paper consists of many small, randomly distributed fibers that offer a wide variety of routes through this jungle for the flow of electricity.
The results this very special thermal printer produces are anything but great, but it is definitely fun to watch the device processing a print job.
In future experiments I will use the plasma arc between the electrodes to "drill" tiny holes.
I am currently experimenting with a self-made inkjet printhead and the smaller the hole of a nozzle, the higher the possible print resolution.
Paper is for sure no suitable material for such a printhead, but the performance of the lighter is sufficient to perforate for example plastic films.
Future experiments must show if I can get useful results with such a simple setup.
I certainly haven't made a breakthrough in printing technology with this plasma printer, but it is for sure another interesting device for teaching basic knowledge.
All information about the plasma printer as well as the build instructions are available on my pages.
If you want to support me in developing more machines and in teaching the science behind, you can click the donate button on my pages - many thanks to all existing backers!
Thanks for watching and: "I'll be back!"
