Hi,
As mentioned in the RoadTest for the DK-STRT-4CGX15N-0B Dev kit, we would like you to tell us what you would build if you had the opportunity. When the RoadTest closes I will choose a short list and create a poll for you to vote in. Winners of the poll will receive the kits,
Good Luck,
Ally
Well, here's my idea...
A couple of years ago I bought a pair of broken HP Laserjet III printers for scrap. One had a blown laser, the other had a fried power supply and a thick coating of disintegrated air filter all over its innards. I stripped them for spares, and the spares ended up in my "Quality Used Parts" box.
Fast forward a few years, and I'm running a photo-lab at work (think "One Hour Photo"). The machine we're using is a Fuji Frontier, a massive hulk of a machine which uses three lasers to expose a sheet of photo paper, then processes it in RA-4 chemistry to produce a print. On one particularly slow day, I started thinking: what if I took the laser scanner off the Laserjet, bolted on a 405nm BluRay laser diode (instead of the infra-red diode the LJ3 uses as-standard), and used black and white photo paper (which is VERY sensitive to blue light). Could I build my own B&W printer (though obviously without the process chemistry -- I'd do the processing using developing trays)?
This would involve:
- Sending analog data (~12 bits per pixel) to the laser at around 30MHz
- Keeping the scanner motor running at a fixed speed within a decent tolerance
- Transferring data to/from a host PC or an SD Card
- (possibly) JPEG decoding
- LUT processing (applying a lookup table to the data sent to the laser in order to correct the black and white points)
- Keeping track of where the sheet of paper is in the mechanism, and driving the three stepper motors accordingly
No doubt there would be a lot of "fun" involved in making this work on a commercial MCU. In the LJ3, most of this sort of work was done by a set of microcontrollers and ASICs...
Still, looks like a fun project. And definitely a candidate for a "weirdest project" award 
Well, here's my idea...
A couple of years ago I bought a pair of broken HP Laserjet III printers for scrap. One had a blown laser, the other had a fried power supply and a thick coating of disintegrated air filter all over its innards. I stripped them for spares, and the spares ended up in my "Quality Used Parts" box.
Fast forward a few years, and I'm running a photo-lab at work (think "One Hour Photo"). The machine we're using is a Fuji Frontier, a massive hulk of a machine which uses three lasers to expose a sheet of photo paper, then processes it in RA-4 chemistry to produce a print. On one particularly slow day, I started thinking: what if I took the laser scanner off the Laserjet, bolted on a 405nm BluRay laser diode (instead of the infra-red diode the LJ3 uses as-standard), and used black and white photo paper (which is VERY sensitive to blue light). Could I build my own B&W printer (though obviously without the process chemistry -- I'd do the processing using developing trays)?
This would involve:
- Sending analog data (~12 bits per pixel) to the laser at around 30MHz
- Keeping the scanner motor running at a fixed speed within a decent tolerance
- Transferring data to/from a host PC or an SD Card
- (possibly) JPEG decoding
- LUT processing (applying a lookup table to the data sent to the laser in order to correct the black and white points)
- Keeping track of where the sheet of paper is in the mechanism, and driving the three stepper motors accordingly
No doubt there would be a lot of "fun" involved in making this work on a commercial MCU. In the LJ3, most of this sort of work was done by a set of microcontrollers and ASICs...
Still, looks like a fun project. And definitely a candidate for a "weirdest project" award
Phil, how about a 3D laser printer for acrylic cubes 
So you would have 2 or 3 lasers that form a dot when all are aimed to the same spot but that they are not hot enough to do anything individually.
Elias
Hi Phil,
Sounds very interesting. The weirder the idea, the better in my opinion. Use Lego and felt tip pens like this guy and you have my vote!
