Paintress¶
Paintress is an open-source controller stack for piezoelectric inkjet printheads. It converts images into print data, coordinates printing with Klipper, and drives the printhead through dedicated firmware and a controller board.
Status: experimental, under active development
Paintress is not ready for use. The code is not clean or organised and it changes without notice. Expect rough edges and breakage.
Safety
The hardware drives reactive loads (piezoelectric elements) at voltages up to 42 V DC, and it has not been certified to any safety standard. Read the Safety page before you build or power anything.
Independent project
Paintress is not affiliated with, endorsed by or otherwise connected to the Klipper project. It uses Klipper as its motion platform.
What Paintress does¶
A Cartesian gantry running Klipper moves the printhead across the substrate. A hardware trigger starts each pass at a known X position; the controller then fires the nozzles at fixed intervals while the gantry holds its print speed.
Start here¶
New to the project? Read the Architecture page, then Anatomy of a print.
For a first print, follow Getting started, Installation and Printing. Use Troubleshooting to diagnose problems.
For software integration, see the Serial protocol and Daemon TCP API.
Support the project¶
Paintress is developed and tested independently. Donations help pay for ink, printheads, boards and bench testing. You can support the work on Ko-fi:
You can also help by testing hardware, reporting issues, or contributing code and documentation.