Employer: RIT Industrial Engineering Dept.
Location: Rochester, NY
Position: LabVIEW Specialist
Period: December 2009 - May 2010
The Electrophotographic Development and Transfer Station (EDTS) fixture was a generous donation by Kodak to the Print Research and Image Systems Modeling Laboratory in the Center for Imaging Science at RIT. I briefly mentioned this job in a previous post.
The ultimate goal is to use the fixture as a tool to teach students about the fundamentals of xerography. Additionally, the fixture exposes the internal components of a xerographic printing press, which makes it a desirable candidate for running experiments that require modifying individual components, spaces between components, carriage speeds over specific stations, etc. Xerox expressed an interest in using the fixture to analyze the characteristics of small-particle developer (i.e. toner) and examining its impact on print quality.
I worked directly with the P10503 senior design team and representatives from both Kodak and Xerox. All of the team's documentation can be found on their website. The project poster (PPT) provides a general overview. My primary objective was to modify the existing rudimentary LabVIEW software in order to execute control over all of the various electrical and mechanical components of the fixture. When I began the fixture could not print an image. When I left it could. I call that a success!
Responsibilities and accomplishments:
- Led a 6-person team consisting of mechanical engineers, an industrial engineer, an electrical engineer, and a software engineer.
- Implemented LabVIEW software to control a flat plate xerographic printing fixture through NI DAQ hardware.
- Wired electrical and mechanical components, including stepper motors, DC motors, relays, high voltage power supplies, and electrostatic voltmeters.
