PosterBot: Make a Marker-Writing Robot out of an Old Inket printer and an iRobot Create

Step 4 Adding the carriage to the robot at large

This step, of all of them, will be the one that will vary the most from what I'll outline here. Every print carriage is different, and depending how you attached your marker lowerer, you may need to mount it in an entirely different way.

So with that in mind, let me show you how I mounted my carriage.

First, I cut the bass wood in a way that would let me attach it to the cargo bay. I epoxied the pieces together and added paper to help strengthen the joint.

Next, I drilled holes in the wood that lined up with the holes on the cargo bay. I was able to screw down the wood pretty securely

This next step gets a little fuzzy: I added balsa wood extenders and smaller pieces to take some of the stress. It just so happened that my print carriage was just high enough that I was able to raise it an 1/8th of an inch (by cutting the extender and reattaching it to the top of itself) in order to get the marker in just about the perfect marking position. You can trim this position by moving the rubber bands that hold the marker.

I also painted all the wood white. It was amazing how a little paint made the robot look so much better.

You'll also need to run wires out from the control board to the motors. I recommend taking the extra wires from your serial cables and using them. I used hot-melt glue to attach them at the right points to keep them from getting tangled.