Controlling a Scanner/Printer Motor in VB.net

Question

0.00/5 (No votes)

See more:

Hi,
I am in the posses of building and programming a 3d printer. I am making it using an old scanner (HP Scanjet 3570c) and an old printer (Epson Stylus Color 1160). I would like to use the existing unmodified circuitry and drivers to control the stepper motors used to drive these devises from a vb.net program. Is this possible? If so how?

So maybe something like this peso code:

MoveX(F,100) – Moves the scanner motor 100 steps Forward
MoveY(B,100) – Moves the printer motor 100 steps Backwards

Sorry if this is explained badly it’s slightly difficult to explain

Kris

Posted 2-Feb-12 7:44am

monorailkid

Add a Solution

Comments

ZurdoDev 2-Feb-12 14:41pm

You need to start with the documentation from the manufacturer.

2 solutions

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

CPallini · Answer 1 · 2012-02-02T09:41:00

Solution 1

You probably have to develop you own driver for that (I strongly doubt the manufacturers expose such low level details to user programs). That won't be, in my opinion a simple task.

Posted 2-Feb-12 9:41am

CPallini

Dave Kreskowiak · Answer 2 · 2012-02-02T13:52:00

You're going to have to write your own drivers for this. You cannot do it in managed code either. This means no VB.NET or C# or any other language targeting the .NET Framework. The best option is C/C++.

The only way you're going to pull this off is to get the low-level hardware documentation from HP and EPSON. This still will NOT be free and you're going to have a ton of work ahead of you writing this driver.

I hope you've got experience using the Windows DDK and debugging device drivers.