January 28, 2007

This weekend I picked up an old copier for $10 to strip for parts.  There were lots of motors, optics, and hardware within, but the real gem was this 11" toner fuser assembly.  The heater element is a 1300 watt quartz light bulb and the rollers are coated with a nice dense silicone rubber.  The little motor you see on the left side is actually for an oil soaked fiber belt that has been removed from the assembly.  The belt either lubricated or cleaned (or perhaps both) the fuser rollers.

With the appropriate motor and temperature controller this assembly will make and ideal tool for transfering toner images to brass sheet or printer circuit boards

Next steps are to fashion a base and couple a suitable feed motor to the assembly.  Then an electronic motor speed controller and a temperature controller will need to be built.