A technical view of Mini Mobile
Portable robotic printer, Mini Mobile, works by travelling across the surface of paper as it prints.
Gizmag reported on the Mini Mobile portable robotic printer, which has been designed by Zuta Labs of Israel, which is currently trying to raise $400,000 (€290,000) on Kickstarter to fund the project, with over $330,000 (€239,000) now raised and less than a month left to reach the target.
The idea for the printer came from Tuvia Elbaum, founder of Zuta Labs, who wanted to “provide users with a means of printing on the go” after he found he wanted to print on the go from a smartphone or tablet rather than waiting until he got home or to the office.
Elbaum explained: “When I went online to look for a portable printer, I only found printers that are either too big to really carry around or too small to print on a standard A4 page […] I noticed that all the printers had to have the paper feed through the device, so I thought why not put the cartridge on a robot and let it run around by itself, and that will allow the printer to be really small and yet print on any size paper?”
After looking at several different possibilities “from using rails that come out of the robot and help with stabilising the printer, to having the robot hover over the paper”, Elbaum and his team came up with today’s design, which uses “an inkjet for the printing” – although it can only currently print in black and white – as well as Bluetooth for connecting to mobile devices. It also uses a “high-resolution optical sensor” commonly used in mice; and a “rechargeable battery with an on/off switch” allowing it to run for one hour on a full charge.
The device, which is 10 centimetres x 11.5 centimetres and weighs around 300 grams, can print on “any size of paper” using an “omni-wheel system” to allow it to move around the page; reaching print speeds of 1.2 ppm at a resolution of 96 x 192 dpi, although the article states that the final product is expected to deliver a higher resolution.
Zuta Labs is trying to raise money for the project to fund the “custom-made parts […] to build the final prototype and for then going into production”; although Elbaum said that even if the target isn’t reached the company will be “well-placed to still continue having received offers from investors, accelerators” and “big tech companies”. He added that in future he hopes the device will be able to print in colour and on a range of different surface types.
The first of the printers are expected to be shipped in January next year.