Compact printing press for nurses, helpers, teachers and anyone else who needs to leave small notes for people who read braille.
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Just over lay a piece of paper and rub for the braille to transfer.
Should be carried with a Grade 1 braille cheat sheet (coming soon)
Completely open hardware just please credit me, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
Current STL files below. The tolerances quite generous. Give it a go and let me know how you get on :) Keep small parts away from children.
Here is an ultra compact version I tested. I set the openscad file to standard library size braille which works well, but a couple of easily avoidable issues arose. Firstly I set the tolerance too low. I thought 0.2 mm would be fine for my printer, but the pieces fit too tight. Secondly I made the depth for the tiles too low and they become too fiddly. I would recommend to anyone making these that they print a 2 cell wide test print with at least a 3mm cell thickness, and share there findings for others to get the best results.
File is uploaded in the files section. If you want a file made with any particular dimensions and can't get on with openscad, just ask.
On the file just place a "!" at the start of a piece you want to save and export stl in openscad.
From top to bottom.
Full line spacer bar, cell space, single dot, and double dot.
Frame (10 line by 20 cells in this example)
Drawer
Sleeve for just frame
Sleeve for frame and parts drawer
With this seeming so popular, i thought I should get to work on the nest version.
I am in the process of moving this design from the inkscape/123d process I was using before to fully parametric Openscad. I haven't inserted the correct braille specs in yet, but this will be easy to adjust. When done it will take just changing a few variables at the top to change between standard/large print as well as being able to specify how many cells wide and how may lines you need. I am also adding optional slip case and drawer. As well as the code I will release a couple of printable STL files based on popular suggestions for the less technical. I also added a variable for your printers tolerance so everything will fit snugly and not waste filament on bad prints.
Here is my code so far....
haydn jones
// frame size
lines=8;
cellsWide=12;
drawer=true;
// measurments
framethickness=3;//border
basethickness=1;//x axis
cellthickness=3;//x axis
cellheight=5;
cellwidth=6;
linespace=2;//space between lines
tolerence=0.3;
dotheight=0.6;
dotdiameter=1;
dotdistancex=2;
// parts
resize(newsize=[(((cellsWide*cellwidth)+(framethickness*basethickness))/(cellsWide*cellwidth))*((cellsWide*cellwidth)+tolerence),(framethickness*2)+(lines*cellheight)+((lines-1)*linespace)*(((lines*cellheight)+(tolerence*lines))/(lines*cellheight)),framethickness+basethickness]) frame();
sleve();
drawer();
translate([0,0,cellthickness+basethickness+10]) fullbar();
translate([0,cellheight+10,cellthickness+basethickness+10]) blankcell();
translate([cellwidth+10,cellheight+10,cellthickness+basethickness+10]) onedot();
translate([(cellwidth*2)+20,cellheight+10,cellthickness+basethickness+10]) twodots();
module frame(){
module barrepeat(num) {
for (i = [0 : num-1])
translate([ 0, i*(cellheight+linespace), 0 ]) children(0);
}
module notches(){
module notchrepeat(num2) {
for (i2 = [0 : num2-1])
translate([ 0, (i2*(cellheight/3)), 0 ]) children(0);
}
notchrepeat(3) rotate([0,90,0]) cylinder(cellwidth*cellsWide,dotdiameter/2,dotdiameter/2);
}
difference() {
cube([(framethickness*2)+(cellsWide*cellwidth),(framethickness*2)+(lines*cellheight)+((lines-1)*linespace),basethickness+cellthickness]);
translate([framethickness,framethickness,basethickness]) {
barrepeat(lines) fullbar();
}
translate([framethickness,framethickness+((cellheight/3)/2),basethickness]) {
barrepeat(lines) notches();
}}}
module sleve(){
}
module drawer(){
}
module fullbar(){
cube([cellsWide*cellwidth,cellheight,cellthickness]);
}
module onedot(){
cube([cellwidth,cellheight/3,cellthickness]);
translate([(cellwidth-dotdistancex)/2,cellheight/3/2,cellthickness]){
cylinder(dotheight,dotdiameter/2,dotdiameter/2);
}}
module twodots(){
cube([cellwidth,cellheight/3,cellthickness]);
translate([(cellwidth-dotdistancex)/2,cellheight/3/2,cellthickness]){
cylinder(dotheight,dotdiameter/2,dotdiameter/2);
translate([dotdistancex,0,0]){
cylinder(dotheight,dotdiameter/2,dotdiameter/2);
}}}
module blankcell(){
cube([cellwidth,cellheight,cellthickness]);
}
Thanks :) I am really surprised how popular this project it, i am going to revise it in the morning. Next version will be parametric on openscad.
William
Hexabitz
marcin
Salim Benbouziyane
Hi, how about using the space between the rows, for the seeing people? Like putting the normal letters as "engraving" into the dead space. Here is some quick openscad mockup for this:
module letterA(){ // Hope it is really an A
difference(){
cube([cellwidth+7,cellheight,cellthickness]);
translate([cellwidth+5,0.7,cellthickness-0.4])scale(0.4)rotate([0,0,90])linear_extrude(height = 1)text("A");
translate([cellwidth,0,-3])cube([7,5,5]); // this is for the alignment on the bars
}
translate([(cellwidth-dotdistancex)/2,cellheight/3/2,cellthickness]){
cylinder(dotheight,dotdiameter/2,dotdiameter/2);
}
}
This way, humans who can't read braille can use it too :). (Maybe redraw the engraving after printing with a pen for more contrast).
Also, I would suggest of putting some notches into the drawer, so the blocks will not fall out by accident. It would also allow you to skip the step with the paper and just leave the populated drawer to be read.
How do you transfer the dots into the paper? Would suspect, a rubber paint roller would do the job perfectly.
Spinning the idea further, you could also write a small generator for often used words, making it less work to use :)