Did Your Printer Run Out Of Ink? Use Coffee Instead
Ted Kinsman invented a special printer that uses coffee instead of ink. The device works with an Arduino processor combined with an X Y axis table, siphon, valve, reed switch, plastic bottle, and some scraps. The printer features options to control the size and spacing of drops and can create up to 70 different shades of drops.
Using a cup of coffee, the printer can produce an image with about 8,000 drops. It takes about an hour to finish and a whole day to dry. Ted uses leftover coffee as the medium, but this printer can work with various liquids as well.
Ted is a professor at the School of Photographic Arts & Science at Rochester Institute of Technology. For many years he had been dreaming of building a machine that could paint for him. He has no plans to sell his artworks but hopes to inspire students to develop an interest in science.
As he said in the RIT University News, “This is just for fun to show them that microprocessors are not scary and they can do a lot of fun things with microprocessors, if they just start thinking about creative projects.”