Home - fablabnepal1/Desktop-Braille-Printing-Machine GitHub Wiki

Welcome to the Desktop-Braille-Printing-Machine wiki!

This wiki is the Desktop Braille printer user manual and programmer's guide. We developed it and are maintaining it, but it's an open wiki. If you want to post wiki-type stuff, feel free to do it here. Please let us know via a github Issue if it's anything major. GitHub Issues are good for requested changes, discussions, and software bugs.

Background

Of the estimated 36 million total worldwide population of blind individuals, slightly more than 7 million worldwide under the age of 50 are blind. Braille code is set of dots, designed to help the visually impaired people to perform reading and writing activities. Commercial braille printers are available in the market, but they are very expensive. Thus, alternatives are needed for the replacement of commercial braille printers.

This project is an attempt to use spare parts from old printers to develop a working braille printing machine to print on a A5 size paper.

Getting Started and Basic Setup

After the machine has been assembled, the following steps are done to print on braille script:

1. Use Braillerap to generate Gcode .

This site converts English to Braille and generates g code on the basis of a given text. We can define the size of the paper on this site also.

Picture20

2. Conditioning and reviewing Gcode for correctness.

3. Power the braille printer and connect it to the interface.

A DC power supply between 12 and 30 volts, 24 volts is ideal. It should be capable of providing 4 to 15 amps. Before connecting it to TinyG, turn on the power supply and make sure you have the correct voltage. Incorrect voltage or polarity can destroy the board!

4. Load Gcode into the interface and send it to the machine.

5. Load the paper, manage it, and print on the paper.

Future Recommendations

  • This project has a huge potential for further work, design improvement, and innovation.
  • The scale can be increased in terms of its work.
  • There is a lot of space for design improvement and optimization. It can be redesigned to make it more cost-effective.

Roles and Contribution

  • Daya Bandhu Ghimire, Technical Associate in Fablab@IHK : Designer and developer
  • Pallab Shrestha, Lead Technical Officer in Fablab@IHK : Supervisor

To conclude, design, assembly and fabrication of braille printing prototype is done at fablab nepal lab under impact hub kathmandu. This project has really helped to enhance the skills in product design, CAD AND 3D printing along with handling microcontrollers. It has given insight into CNC machining and the opportunity to build one. Overall, the project was successful.