anominous's Journal: Recycling (or re-purposing) a dead printer.

I have a printer - an Epson Stylus Photo 790 to be exact.

It ceased to function many moons ago, when the print head gave up the ghost. It's mechanically/electrically sound, just doesn't squirt ink any more!

So, to me, it's now a USB interface with precision control of 2 stepper motors, plus other (potentially useful) stuff :)

I have a couple of ideas for projects - but the current stumbling block is how to control it. The printer driver will be of no use, it's not intended to be used in such a way; I want to be able to step both motors backward and forward, on command.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I'm comfortable in C# / VB (sorry, pls don't bash me for MS background!) - but I've no experience at all in driver development.

Many thanks,

Rob.