BudgetBraillerBlog

Based on the feedback I received from the Clovernook Center and ideas I had before passing off the prototype, I have 4 goals currently.

1. Improve paper feeding
2. Redesign so the braille prints face up
3. Remake the design files in FreeCAD instead of Solidworks
4. Improve the keyboard

Paper feeding is tricky so I’m going to cheat. I ordered some tractor feed braille paper, which will be much easier to control. For those that don’t know, tractor paper is the old style of paper with an extra centimeter or so of paper on both sides of the sheet. These edges are perforated so they can be torn off after printing and have a series of regular holes in them. This improves feeding by allowing a gear to fit into the holes and control the paper without damaging the main page. Later I may come back and work on feeding regular paper, but I think this is a good solution for now.

Redesigning so the braille prints face up is a large change but has been mentioned several times in feedback, particularly for proofreading and so teachers can check what students have typed. This will require a ground-up redesign but will also allow me to incorporate many other small changes I’d like to make along the way.

I used Solidworks for Makers to design the brailler. While I can post .step files and .stl files, it means that the CAD files are locked behind the Solidworks file format. The maker version of Solidworks only costs $55 a year, but not everyone may want to pay that. Recently FreeCAD, a free open-source CAD program, released its version 1.0 and I have heard that it is very good. I’ve started learning to use it so that anyone can easily modify the source files.

Improving the keyboard will consist of two main parts. First, I will add a separate microcontroller to the keyboard so that users can print and type at the same time. The hurdle for that will be learning how to get two microcontrollers to talk to one another, but doing so is very common so there are many guides. The second part will be to design the keyboard to be mountable to the brailler. Then it can used separately or as if it were built into the brailler and can serve as storage for the keyboard during transport.

I think all of these changes will be great improvements to the BudgetBrailler and am excited to get start on them! In other DIY brailler news, I was linked to this article (https://www.brailleinstitute.org/story/a-boss-embosser/), which features an embosser designed by two middle-schoolers. It uses traditional plotter kinematics, with the paper staying in one place and the arm moving in both the x- and y- axes to move around and make the dots. This is mechanically much easier than moving the paper but has the downside that the machine needs to be large enough to contain the paper as well as space for the arm to move around the paper. The most interesting thing to me is that they used a sewing needle to make the braille dots. I will probably experiment with this, although with my design I worry about the exposed needle. Although maybe they’re using the eye of the needle rather than the point? I’ll have to try to find out more about their project. It’s a very innovative solution that I would not have thought would work though, so incredible work by them!

Last month I left my precious prototype of the BudgetBrailler, a low-cost open-source brailler I have been working on for the past year, with the Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired for user testing. A big thanks to everyone involved in the user test and for the feedback that was provided. I’m very happy with the feedback and how the BudgetBrailler is working. This is a complex project which will no doubt take years to perfect. My key take-aways are that the paper feeding needs to be completely revamped, the keyboard needs to be improved, and there were some inconsistencies in the dot spacing and quality. I’ll make a detailed post soon about the next steps I’ll be taking to improve the project. Below is the raw feedback from the various test users, names included with permission, followed by a line-art image of the BudgetBrailler in its current form.

User 1: Brennen
The whole thing is amazing, the spacing of the keys looks really good. The portability of the device compared to a regular brailler is amazing as well.
Routing of the keyboard cord to the front of the brailler would be helpful.
At some point having a battery for Bluetooth capability and portability would be great.
Adding some kind of feature to stop the paper from rolling in when it gets all the way in would be great.
Making the space at the front of the Brailler under the lid, a bit more open would be good because when the Brailler types out what it wants to type out and rolls the return carriage back and tries to advance the paper. The paper gets stuck under the lid.
If the braille dots could be a little bit sharper, just by a little bit that would be awesome as well.

User 2: David
I think this concept is a very good idea. The paper loading process is a little difficult and time-consuming. In my opinion, loading the paper manually like on a Perkins Brailler would be easier.
Proofreading what is written on the paper is very awkward because you have to look under the paper and read backwards to check your work.
It would also be nice if the keyboard was built into the unit instead of having to deal with the cable that gets in the way of loading paper.
The dot quality could be a bit crisper.
I like the fact that the machine returns on its own, but there needs to be a way to know how much room is left at the end of the line in case you need to use a hyphen and split words between lines.
I wonder if chords, key combinations along with the spacebar could be incorporated in to the unit to avoid having the second row of keys.
The typing sounds are a bit loud for a classroom environment, so this should also be addressed.
All and all, I really like the concept. The Perkins Brailler has been the mainstay for so long, that it’s difficult to imagine a whole new design. The more people that give feedback, the better. Don’t give up.

User 3: Ryan
Make the brailler a more rounded shape
Paper should be fully enclosed in the machine when loaded
Paper should also be able to be locked down while being typed on
The device should not get hot
There should be a built-in keyboard in the device
The keyboard should only have one spacebar instead of two space bars
Text to speech functionality should be built in to the device for editing purposes
A manual in multiple formats, such as audio and braille should be implemented
And the narrator should be Ryan
Dedicated space to tuck the cables away is important
There needs to be an alternative option for the keyboard cable. The concern is that the current ribbon cable option could short out.
Typing needs to be faster and the machine needs to begin typing while the person is typing
A smoothing agent needs to be applied to external plastic parts
Should have a carrying handle Along with an integrated battery
The paper should load automatically when the load button is pressed
Adding a battery low warning would be great
Should have end of life circuitry to prevent possible fire hazard

User 4: Tina

Pros:
• Low cost
• Light weight
• Portable
• Auditory beep lets you know when the machine is ready.
• Some parts may be replaceable by the user as they wear out.

Cons:
• The user cannot proofread the braille tactually as they type, as a result the ability to make corrections is impaired.
• How will someone who is deaf or severely hard of hearing know when the machine is ready if they can’t hear the beep?
• The size and spacing of the braille dots is not consistent.
• Machine does not accept 11-1/2” x 11” paper
• Plastic moving parts wear out and/or can be easy to break.

The first post on the blog got an unbelievable amount of interest and I wanted to address some common questions about the project. For the rest of this post I will shorten BudgetBrailler to BB because I’m lazy.

Do I know braille? Nope. My first exposure to the blind community came last year and I saw this as a way to use my hobby to help people. As soon as I had a semi-functional prototype I got some basic user testing to make sure that the project was on the right track. I have researched how braille works but I’m sure I have a lot to learn, so if I write something that seems inaccurate let me know! I love to learn!

Can you make a BB? Yes but only if you have decent DIY electronics experience, are willing to be a guinea pig for the process, and understand that the design will change. The GitHub repository has a bill of materials, STLs, wiring, and draft instructions but none of these are in a particularly accessible format yet. As the design is still changing fairly often I haven’t done much more than the basics with those documents. The electronics require soldering and take me at least 4 hours. The 3D printing requires a 256mm bed, I use a BambuLab P1S, and takes 15-20 hours of print time for all the parts. The actual assembly is not too bad by comparison, taking me about an hour. The cost of parts is about $180 for the current version. No one but me has built one as of yet so I would be excited if you do!

What is the BB capable of? My current goal is to replicated the functionality of a mechanical Perkins brailler. As of now the keyboard is similar to a Perkins, having keys for the six dots and space, with additional keys for things like backspace, carriage return, and print. Due to hardware limitations you cannot type and have it make dots at the same time. You must type out what you want, tell the brailler to print, wait for it to finish, then continue typing. I know this is annoying and I know how I will solve this problem in future versions.

What will the BB be capable of? The BB is electronic and runs custom code, so once the basic hardware is working the sky is the limit. Act as an embosser and take braille ASCII files. Controls for margin size, dot spacing, 8 dot brailler, or anything else that is requested. The microcontroller has wifi and bluetooth so connectivity with a phone and making the keyboard wireless. If you have suggestions for what you would like to see, let me know so I know what to prioritize.

When can we expect a final product and how will we get it? I don’t know yet. It took me a year to get to this point but the BB is starting to work consistently. The current version is out for user testing at Clovernook Center after which I will incorporate their feedback and hopefully finalize a first version for some more widespread testing later this year. As of now the project will be strictly DIY, but I will be working to make it beginner friendly by simplifying the electronics and improving the instructions. I talked with a company at MRRF that makes kits of open source projects, so that may be an option to make the BB more available.

How can you get involved? With the next version I plan to make a small number of BBs and send them to people for user testing. This will likely be limited to the US for logistical reasons. If you live outside the US or are interested in building your own, I would like the next version to start including testing of the instructions as well. If you want to be involved in the development of the BB and have DIY electronic skills, visit the project’s GitHub page, build your own, and give me feedback!

Can you pay me? Okay, no one asked this but I figured I’d address it anyway. I am not currently accepting any form of payment. The current stage of the project there is not a significant financial burden on me and I like contributing to making the world a better place. If the project scales up I may sell parts, kits, or even assembled BBs. Regardless, the project will always be open source so anyone will be free to build their own.

If you have any further questions or ideas, please contact me at johann.strnat@gmail.com.

The BudgetBrailler project can be found at github.com/gglobalwarming/BudgetBrailler

At Midwest RepRap Festival (MRRF) 2024 I met the non-profit group See3D, a group which sources 3D prints from volunteers for distribution to blind/visually impaired people. At their booth they had a Perkins Brailler on display. At the time I simply thought it was interesting to see, but it lived at the back of my head for a few months before I looked up what one cost. A manual brailler costs a little under $1,000 and electric braillers cost significantly more. Given that I was just at a 3D printing festival and you can build a 3D printer for under $200, I decided to try to design one.

The basic design goals I came up with were:

• The embosser should cost $100-200.
• The embosser should be open source and open hardware.
• The embosser should be entirely 3D printed or made with off-the-shelf components.
• The embosser should be simple. There should be as few parts as possible and, except for the electronics, no complex mechanisms.
• The embosser should have an optional case to protect the user and the embosser.
• The embosser should be well documented. This includes a bill of materials, detailed instructions, code, wiring diagrams, and stl and CAD files for all printed parts.

Over the next year I worked on a prototype, got some preliminary user testing, and was able to show a working prototype at MRRF 2025. The basic design uses an ESP32 microcontroller to control the brailler, a stepper motor turning a pair of rollers to move the paper, a second stepper motor moving a toolhead through a belt, and a solenoid linear actuator on the toolhead to punch dots into the paper, and a custom keyboard to input commands. The bill of materials for the prototype was ~$180 with significant room for cost downs. Documentation of the GitHub at https://github.com/gglobalwarming/BudgetBrailler.

This blog will be dedicated to documenting the progress of the project as well as detailing some of my design process. I’m excited to see the BudgetBrailler improve and hope you are too! If you would like to get involved in designing or testing the project please contact me at johann.strnat@gmail.com.