A Braille Embosser is a “printer” for Braille, the raised dot reading material/code for the blind that is done on paper about the weight of an index card.
My wife is blind and via my contacts with the blind community, I have gotten an older Index Braille Embosser that is at least partly working but for which the maker Index Braille Embossers - Braille Printers - Index Braille no longer has parts. It is also out of style using only tractor feed paper and a narrow kind at that.
Therefore, it is not being offered for repair if it could be, but as a source of parts.
It contains at least two stepper motors for advancing the paper and moving the embossing head which contains at least 3 small solenoids that pound up under the paper raising the dots against a backer bar. It has parallel and serial interfaces. The paper advance motor definitely works but the manual switches for adjusting are twitchy. The embossing head motor sounds like it is working - but it is not visible and and I haven’t opened the machine.
I can take a picture if desired but it won’t reveal much.
I am basically querying any interest before I either dump it on MakerSpace or recycle at BestBuy.
Mike Firth [email protected]
Do you have a picture? Sounds like a fun project to get it up and running.
I am a new user so this software does not allow me to upload images here.
So I have uploaded the images to my flickr.com account IMG_2666r | Reference shots of Index Braille Embosser | mike1942f | Flickr that one being the main shot of the top and back of the unit. For a sense of scale the tractor feeds are set for 9.5 inch paper. Two other images show the back panel detail and top switch panel detail (with some actual Braille characters for the blind user) Click the < beside the image to view others.
If made to work, consider how few computers these days have serial or parallel interfaces and what software might be needed to actually run it.
Mike Firth
Ah. I was evisioning something more mechanical.