A tale of a cheapo ink cartridge ...

[Arfa Daily]

"Randy Day" <randy.day@sasktel.netx> wrote in message
news:MPG.2e2e510b47f24bdd9896a1@aioe.org...

In article <Ba%wv.337455$f_5.303052@fx08.am4>, arfa.daily@ntlworld.com
says...

[snip]

Sounds like some form of I2C; you'd have +v(piezo),
gnd, Clock and Data going to all 6.


No piezo on these cartridges, so Vcc, Gnd and I2C ??

Yes.

We can't rule out a proprietary setup, but I2C
is a strong possibility; it's built into a lot
of off-the-shelf microcontrollers, and only
needs 2 external resistors to operate.

We can't assume that the Vcc going to the
cartridges is used as Vcc for the I2C lines;
you'd have to measure the voltages on each
line.

I'm assuming that the 'chip' on each cartridge is a simple dedicated
microcontroller, so some level of Vcc would be required to run that, and it
would make sense to design the chip to run off a rail that would provide
suitable levels for the bus signals as well

I leave the logistics (of attaching a meter
and/or 'scope probe to a moving print head)
ENTIRELY to you!

And I, in turn, leave this to Jeff L who has these things piled high
(literally !) at his place ...

Arfa

 

[Tim Streater]

In article <DK7xv.145986$dh5.84659@fx34.am4>, Arfa Daily
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

I'm assuming that the 'chip' on each cartridge is a simple dedicated
microcontroller ...

But what is the chip on each cart *for* ? My first decent inkjet, Canon
iP4000, didn't have chips on its carts. Subsequent ones do.

I'd assumed it was so that e.g. Canon could force you to use their
carts, but the 3rd party people seem able to supply carts with chips
OK, so I'm left wondering what the point is.

--
"People don't buy Microsoft for quality, they buy it for compatibility
with what Bob in accounting bought last year. Trace it back - they buy
Microsoft because the IBM Selectric didn't suck much" - P Seebach, afc

 

[Michael Black]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, tim..... wrote:

"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c2jmsbFfgiuU1@mid.individual.net...
Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Fredxxx <fredxx@nospam.com> wrote
William Sommerwerck wrote
Jabba wrote

Vote with your wallet, don't buy inkjets.

If you want color, there's no inexpensive alternative. Is there?

Boots and other online printing services. Even cheaper.

Not when you include the cost of driving to pick it up.

If quantity requires then get a colour laser with an eye on the cost of
replacing toner cartridges.

Ink-jets are remarkably unreliable.

Mine arent.

I have to say that hasn't been my experience, either. All of the HPs that
I've owned over the years have been remarkably reliable given the level of
use and abuse that they get.

I've stuck with Canons myself and have only ever had the one failure just
recently, of the main logic card.
Mate of mine has gone thru 3 Canons now, all with some sort of electronics
failure.

I've had 2 printers in my lifetime

what do you guys do to get through so many?

1982, my first printer, a dot matrix, cost five hundred dollars Canadian.
It was horribly slow, didn't do descenders properly, and was about as
cheap as I could get.

1984, a daisy wheel printer, spent about four hundred dollars on it.
Needed it because the dot matrix was no good for anything but rough drafts
and program listings. It was like a typewriter with the keyboard removed
and a serial interface added. It was slow too, fast enough that I
couldn't go and do anything before I had to roll another sheet of paper
in, but slow enough that I'd just wait for that next sheet of paper.

1989 a second dot matrix, only about $300. This one was much faster, and
could do "near letter quality" that was good enough for me. So it
replaced both of the previous printers, the daisy wheel had failed anyway
because some plastic gear had worn out.

1994 about. A used Apple Imagewriter dot matrix printer, paid about $20
for it. I think I still have it, it's the sort of thing (like the first
dot matrix) that would jsut keep running and running. Cost a lot new, you
see that in it's lack of flimsiness. I needed it because I was using a
Mac at the time.

2001, my first inkjet. Paid about $15 at a garage sale, the seller even
warned me that the cartridge needed refilling. So I got a refill kid,
spent about as much as the printer for two fillings. This was an Apple
Stylewriter, still a sturdy printer (and people paid lots for them
originally). I used up the first refill within a month, the novelty of
being able to print graphics fast and easily taking control. But then I
saw that when the ink got wet, it smeared, which meant the second refill
was barely used, and I never used an inkjet since.

2001, that fall. I got a TI I think it was laser printer for $20 at a
school rummage sale. I used it until the toner ran out, more novelty of
laser printing. But, it was an off-brand and old, and since there seemed
to be some printing problem (I wasn't sure if refilling the toner would
fix that or not), I decided not to spend money on refilling it.

About 2003. An HP 4P laser printer, $15 at a Rotary Club "garage sale".
It had a very short page count, the door over the ram expansion slots was
missing and the toner cartridge was a generic (as if the original had been
swapped before the printer was donated to the sale). I used up what was
left of the toner cartridge, and over the next few years was printing
quite a bit, because it was cheap, so I bought two refilled cartridges,
though the second one is still in use a decade or so later. I see no sign
that this is going to die, especially since that period of peak printing
is in the past.

If the laser printer dies, I'd just poke around until I found another one.
Those too are being tossed, I assume in many cases because they are now
cheap and so nobody is fussing over the waste. Since I can find one lying
on the sidewalk, the cost of a refilled cartridge isn't so bad, since
someone else has paid for the printer.

There was a period when I kept bringing home inkjet printers found on the
sidewalk, the plan had been to put one into use for color, but I just
couldn't be bothered. The cost of the cartridges, the reality that I
don't print enough color to use up the cartridges before they dry out, the
fact that the ink smears, even free the inkjet printers aren't appealing.
Though, one time when I needed something like 24Vdc power supply, I found
just what I needed when I opened up one of those inkjet printers.

Michael

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Costco and most (I assume) drug stores offer true photochromic prints from
digital files. If you're within reasonable distance from such a retailer, I
don't see the point in owning a color printer -- other than for business
purposes.

 

[tim.....]

"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c2kbhlFjj6jU1@mid.individual.net...

tim..... <tims_new_home@yahoo.co.uk> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Fredxxx <fredxx@nospam.com> wrote
William Sommerwerck wrote
Jabba wrote

Vote with your wallet, don't buy inkjets.

If you want color, there's no inexpensive alternative. Is there?

Boots and other online printing services. Even cheaper.

Not when you include the cost of driving to pick it up.

If quantity requires then get a colour laser with an eye on the cost
of replacing toner cartridges.

Ink-jets are remarkably unreliable.

Mine arent.

I have to say that hasn't been my experience, either. All of the HPs
that I've owned over the years have been remarkably reliable given the
level of use and abuse that they get.

I've stuck with Canons myself and have only ever had the one failure
just recently, of the main logic card.

Mate of mine has gone thru 3 Canons now, all with some sort of
electronics failure.

I've had 2 printers in my lifetime

Yebbut, your lifetime is a hell of a lot shorter than some of ours.

That's irrelevant

what relevant is the amount of time that it has been reasonable for
individuals to own their own printer, and my adulthood covers all of that
period

tim

 

[Randy Day]

In article <53c4db3d$0$26237$c3e8da3$f69059ea@news.astraweb.com>,
dennis@nowhere.invalid says...

[snip]

I leave the logistics (of attaching a meter
and/or 'scope probe to a moving print head)
ENTIRELY to you!

One end of the cable doesn't move.

True, but where's the geek cred in hitting
a stationary target?

 

[Jeroni Paul]

I found a color laser printer and a color dot matrix printer, both in good working condition. The laser printer had a paper tickness lever incorrectly set and that was the likely reason to be discarded.

It is amazing the things you can get for free.

On Monday, July 14, 2014 6:15:05 PM UTC+2, Michael Black wrote:

People throw things out for secondary reasons, they got a new one, they

are moving and decide it's not worth moving the old thing, they think they

own that cable box or whatever and no longer want it.



I found a 60gig iPod 2 or 3 years ago, and when I plugged it in, there was

a message about needing to charge the battery. Wait, that was after I

found a cable and plugged it in. But it didn't charge. SOmeone at the

time mentioned needing a higher current source, but I just put the whole

thing aside. Indeed, the same box the iPod was in also had a soldering

iron, so I assumed someone had been planning to change the battery, and

then backed out.



I came across that iPod again last week, tried it with a "usb charging

cube" and it not only charged up, but plays fine, complete with someone's

music collection, some of which actually interests me. So I assumed,

precisely because this was a good find, that there had to be something

wrong with it. I still can't figure out why someone tossed it.



Michael

 

[Rod Speed]

Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> wrote

Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote

I'm assuming that the 'chip' on each cartridge
is a simple dedicated microcontroller ...

But what is the chip on each cart *for* ?

In theory to make it harder to refill the carts.

My first decent inkjet, Canon iP4000, didn't
have chips on its carts. Subsequent ones do.

But the non genuine carts come with chips.

I'd assumed it was so that e.g. Canon could force you to use
their carts, but the 3rd party people seem able to supply carts
with chips OK, so I'm left wondering what the point is.

It does stop people injecting more ink into the existing cart.

Not that many bother anymore with the
non genuine replacement cart so cheap.


The industry is clearly making their money on the ink,
not the printers themselves with the low end inkjets.

 

[Rod Speed]

"Michael Black" <et472@ncf.ca> wrote in message
news:alpine.LNX.2.02.1407150928360.29153@darkstar.example.org...

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, tim..... wrote:


"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c2jmsbFfgiuU1@mid.individual.net...
Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Fredxxx <fredxx@nospam.com> wrote
William Sommerwerck wrote
Jabba wrote

Vote with your wallet, don't buy inkjets.

If you want color, there's no inexpensive alternative. Is there?

Boots and other online printing services. Even cheaper.

Not when you include the cost of driving to pick it up.

If quantity requires then get a colour laser with an eye on the cost
of replacing toner cartridges.

Ink-jets are remarkably unreliable.

Mine arent.

I have to say that hasn't been my experience, either. All of the HPs
that I've owned over the years have been remarkably reliable given the
level of use and abuse that they get.

I've stuck with Canons myself and have only ever had the one failure
just recently, of the main logic card.
Mate of mine has gone thru 3 Canons now, all with some sort of
electronics failure.

I've had 2 printers in my lifetime

what do you guys do to get through so many?

1982, my first printer, a dot matrix, cost five hundred dollars Canadian.
It was horribly slow, didn't do descenders properly, and was about as
cheap as I could get.

1984, a daisy wheel printer, spent about four hundred dollars on it.
Needed it because the dot matrix was no good for anything but rough drafts
and program listings. It was like a typewriter with the keyboard removed
and a serial interface added. It was slow too, fast enough that I
couldn't go and do anything before I had to roll another sheet of paper
in, but slow enough that I'd just wait for that next sheet of paper.

1989 a second dot matrix, only about $300. This one was much faster, and
could do "near letter quality" that was good enough for me. So it
replaced both of the previous printers, the daisy wheel had failed anyway
because some plastic gear had worn out.

1994 about. A used Apple Imagewriter dot matrix printer, paid about $20
for it. I think I still have it, it's the sort of thing (like the first
dot matrix) that would jsut keep running and running. Cost a lot new, you
see that in it's lack of flimsiness. I needed it because I was using a
Mac at the time.

2001, my first inkjet. Paid about $15 at a garage sale, the seller even
warned me that the cartridge needed refilling. So I got a refill kid,
spent about as much as the printer for two fillings. This was an Apple
Stylewriter, still a sturdy printer (and people paid lots for them
originally). I used up the first refill within a month, the novelty of
being able to print graphics fast and easily taking control. But then I
saw that when the ink got wet, it smeared, which meant the second refill
was barely used, and I never used an inkjet since.

2001, that fall. I got a TI I think it was laser printer for $20 at a
school rummage sale. I used it until the toner ran out, more novelty of
laser printing. But, it was an off-brand and old, and since there seemed
to be some printing problem (I wasn't sure if refilling the toner would
fix that or not), I decided not to spend money on refilling it.

About 2003. An HP 4P laser printer, $15 at a Rotary Club "garage sale".
It had a very short page count, the door over the ram expansion slots was
missing and the toner cartridge was a generic (as if the original had been
swapped before the printer was donated to the sale). I used up what was
left of the toner cartridge, and over the next few years was printing
quite a bit, because it was cheap, so I bought two refilled cartridges,
though the second one is still in use a decade or so later. I see no sign
that this is going to die, especially since that period of peak printing
is in the past.

If the laser printer dies, I'd just poke around until I found another one.
Those too are being tossed, I assume in many cases because they are now
cheap and so nobody is fussing over the waste. Since I can find one lying
on the sidewalk, the cost of a refilled cartridge isn't so bad, since
someone else has paid for the printer.

There was a period when I kept bringing home inkjet printers found on the
sidewalk, the plan had been to put one into use for color, but I just
couldn't be bothered. The cost of the cartridges, the reality that I
don't print enough color to use up the cartridges before they dry out,

I don't print much at all and don't find the Canon BCI3 carts dry out at
all.

the fact that the ink smears, even free the inkjet printers aren't
appealing.

I don't see it smearing as long as you let it dry after printing.

I don't bother to print photos at all and if I did, I'd use a commercial
printer.

Though, one time when I needed something like 24Vdc power supply, I found
just what I needed when I opened up one of those inkjet printers.

Generally PC power supplies are better for that
sort of thing because they are packaged properly.

 

[Rod Speed]

tim..... <tims_new_home@yahoo.co.uk> wrote

Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
tim..... <tims_new_home@yahoo.co.uk> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Fredxxx <fredxx@nospam.com> wrote
William Sommerwerck wrote
Jabba wrote

Vote with your wallet, don't buy inkjets.

If you want color, there's no inexpensive alternative. Is there?

Boots and other online printing services. Even cheaper.

Not when you include the cost of driving to pick it up.

If quantity requires then get a colour laser with
an eye on the cost of replacing toner cartridges.

Ink-jets are remarkably unreliable.

Mine arent.

I have to say that hasn't been my experience, either. All of the
HPs that I've owned over the years have been remarkably
reliable given the level of use and abuse that they get.

I've stuck with Canons myself and have only ever had
the one failure just recently, of the main logic card.

Mate of mine has gone thru 3 Canons now,
all with some sort of electronics failure.

I've had 2 printers in my lifetime

Yebbut, your lifetime is a hell of a lot shorter than some of ours.

That's irrelevant

Nope, it explains why some of us have had more printers than you have.

what relevant is the amount of time that it has been
reasonable for individuals to own their own printer,
and my adulthood covers all of that period

No it does not with the biggest printers like the
LA180 that was as big as a washing machine.

With all of mine the reason I moved on to a different
one was because the replacement did more than what
it replaced. In the case of the last inkjet it was because
it would print on CDs and DVDs as well as paper.

In theory I am still lacking in one area. The inkjet printers
that are later than the latest I have will actually photocopy
the CD/DVD with what is printed on it since they have a
scanner as well as the printer which makes if very easy
to make a copy of a commercial CD or DVD. But since
I don't get software that way anymore or music either,
I don't have any need to do that.

 

[Sjouke Burry]

On 15.07.14 21:50, Rod Speed wrote:

"Michael Black" <et472@ncf.ca> wrote in message
news:alpine.LNX.2.02.1407150928360.29153@darkstar.example.org...
On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, tim..... wrote:


"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c2jmsbFfgiuU1@mid.individual.net...
Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Fredxxx <fredxx@nospam.com> wrote
William Sommerwerck wrote
Jabba wrote

Vote with your wallet, don't buy inkjets.

If you want color, there's no inexpensive alternative. Is there?

Boots and other online printing services. Even cheaper.

Not when you include the cost of driving to pick it up.

If quantity requires then get a colour laser with an eye on the cost
of replacing toner cartridges.

Ink-jets are remarkably unreliable.

Mine arent.

I have to say that hasn't been my experience, either. All of the HPs
that I've owned over the years have been remarkably reliable given the
level of use and abuse that they get.

I've stuck with Canons myself and have only ever had the one failure
just recently, of the main logic card.
Mate of mine has gone thru 3 Canons now, all with some sort of
electronics failure.

I've had 2 printers in my lifetime

what do you guys do to get through so many?

1982, my first printer, a dot matrix, cost five hundred dollars Canadian.
It was horribly slow, didn't do descenders properly, and was about as
cheap as I could get.

1984, a daisy wheel printer, spent about four hundred dollars on it.
Needed it because the dot matrix was no good for anything but rough drafts
and program listings. It was like a typewriter with the keyboard removed
and a serial interface added. It was slow too, fast enough that I
couldn't go and do anything before I had to roll another sheet of paper
in, but slow enough that I'd just wait for that next sheet of paper.

1989 a second dot matrix, only about $300. This one was much faster, and
could do "near letter quality" that was good enough for me. So it
replaced both of the previous printers, the daisy wheel had failed anyway
because some plastic gear had worn out.

1994 about. A used Apple Imagewriter dot matrix printer, paid about $20
for it. I think I still have it, it's the sort of thing (like the first
dot matrix) that would jsut keep running and running. Cost a lot new, you
see that in it's lack of flimsiness. I needed it because I was using a
Mac at the time.

2001, my first inkjet. Paid about $15 at a garage sale, the seller even
warned me that the cartridge needed refilling. So I got a refill kid,
spent about as much as the printer for two fillings. This was an Apple
Stylewriter, still a sturdy printer (and people paid lots for them
originally). I used up the first refill within a month, the novelty of
being able to print graphics fast and easily taking control. But then I
saw that when the ink got wet, it smeared, which meant the second refill
was barely used, and I never used an inkjet since.

2001, that fall. I got a TI I think it was laser printer for $20 at a
school rummage sale. I used it until the toner ran out, more novelty of
laser printing. But, it was an off-brand and old, and since there seemed
to be some printing problem (I wasn't sure if refilling the toner would
fix that or not), I decided not to spend money on refilling it.

About 2003. An HP 4P laser printer, $15 at a Rotary Club "garage sale".
It had a very short page count, the door over the ram expansion slots was
missing and the toner cartridge was a generic (as if the original had been
swapped before the printer was donated to the sale). I used up what was
left of the toner cartridge, and over the next few years was printing
quite a bit, because it was cheap, so I bought two refilled cartridges,
though the second one is still in use a decade or so later. I see no sign
that this is going to die, especially since that period of peak printing
is in the past.

If the laser printer dies, I'd just poke around until I found another one.
Those too are being tossed, I assume in many cases because they are now
cheap and so nobody is fussing over the waste. Since I can find one lying
on the sidewalk, the cost of a refilled cartridge isn't so bad, since
someone else has paid for the printer.

There was a period when I kept bringing home inkjet printers found on the
sidewalk, the plan had been to put one into use for color, but I just
couldn't be bothered. The cost of the cartridges, the reality that I
don't print enough color to use up the cartridges before they dry out,

I don't print much at all and don't find the Canon BCI3 carts dry out at
all.

the fact that the ink smears, even free the inkjet printers aren't
appealing.

I don't see it smearing as long as you let it dry after printing.

I don't bother to print photos at all and if I did, I'd use a commercial
printer.

Though, one time when I needed something like 24Vdc power supply, I found
just what I needed when I opened up one of those inkjet printers.

Generally PC power supplies are better for that
sort of thing because they are packaged properly.

Please tell us how to get 24 volts out of PC power supplies..........

 

[polygonum]

On 15/07/2014 21:12, Sjouke Burry wrote:

Please tell us how to get 24 volts out of PC power supplies..........

Heavy Goods PCs.

--
Rod

 

[F]

On 15/07/2014 21:12 Sjouke Burry wrote:

[136 lines trimmed]

> Please tell us how to get 24 volts out of PC power supplies..........

FFS learn to trim.

--
F

 

[Rod Speed]

"Sjouke Burry" <burrynulnulfour@ppllaanneett.nnll> wrote in message
news:53c58b32$0$22269$703f8584@textnews.kpn.nl...

On 15.07.14 21:50, Rod Speed wrote:


"Michael Black" <et472@ncf.ca> wrote in message
news:alpine.LNX.2.02.1407150928360.29153@darkstar.example.org...
On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, tim..... wrote:


"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c2jmsbFfgiuU1@mid.individual.net...
Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Fredxxx <fredxx@nospam.com> wrote
William Sommerwerck wrote
Jabba wrote

Vote with your wallet, don't buy inkjets.

If you want color, there's no inexpensive alternative. Is there?

Boots and other online printing services. Even cheaper.

Not when you include the cost of driving to pick it up.

If quantity requires then get a colour laser with an eye on the
cost
of replacing toner cartridges.

Ink-jets are remarkably unreliable.

Mine arent.

I have to say that hasn't been my experience, either. All of the HPs
that I've owned over the years have been remarkably reliable given
the
level of use and abuse that they get.

I've stuck with Canons myself and have only ever had the one failure
just recently, of the main logic card.
Mate of mine has gone thru 3 Canons now, all with some sort of
electronics failure.

I've had 2 printers in my lifetime

what do you guys do to get through so many?

1982, my first printer, a dot matrix, cost five hundred dollars
Canadian.
It was horribly slow, didn't do descenders properly, and was about as
cheap as I could get.

1984, a daisy wheel printer, spent about four hundred dollars on it.
Needed it because the dot matrix was no good for anything but rough
drafts
and program listings. It was like a typewriter with the keyboard
removed
and a serial interface added. It was slow too, fast enough that I
couldn't go and do anything before I had to roll another sheet of paper
in, but slow enough that I'd just wait for that next sheet of paper.

1989 a second dot matrix, only about $300. This one was much faster,
and
could do "near letter quality" that was good enough for me. So it
replaced both of the previous printers, the daisy wheel had failed
anyway
because some plastic gear had worn out.

1994 about. A used Apple Imagewriter dot matrix printer, paid about $20
for it. I think I still have it, it's the sort of thing (like the first
dot matrix) that would jsut keep running and running. Cost a lot new,
you
see that in it's lack of flimsiness. I needed it because I was using a
Mac at the time.

2001, my first inkjet. Paid about $15 at a garage sale, the seller even
warned me that the cartridge needed refilling. So I got a refill kid,
spent about as much as the printer for two fillings. This was an Apple
Stylewriter, still a sturdy printer (and people paid lots for them
originally). I used up the first refill within a month, the novelty of
being able to print graphics fast and easily taking control. But then I
saw that when the ink got wet, it smeared, which meant the second refill
was barely used, and I never used an inkjet since.

2001, that fall. I got a TI I think it was laser printer for $20 at a
school rummage sale. I used it until the toner ran out, more novelty of
laser printing. But, it was an off-brand and old, and since there
seemed
to be some printing problem (I wasn't sure if refilling the toner would
fix that or not), I decided not to spend money on refilling it.

About 2003. An HP 4P laser printer, $15 at a Rotary Club "garage sale".
It had a very short page count, the door over the ram expansion slots
was
missing and the toner cartridge was a generic (as if the original had
been
swapped before the printer was donated to the sale). I used up what was
left of the toner cartridge, and over the next few years was printing
quite a bit, because it was cheap, so I bought two refilled cartridges,
though the second one is still in use a decade or so later. I see no
sign
that this is going to die, especially since that period of peak printing
is in the past.

If the laser printer dies, I'd just poke around until I found another
one.
Those too are being tossed, I assume in many cases because they are now
cheap and so nobody is fussing over the waste. Since I can find one
lying
on the sidewalk, the cost of a refilled cartridge isn't so bad, since
someone else has paid for the printer.

There was a period when I kept bringing home inkjet printers found on
the
sidewalk, the plan had been to put one into use for color, but I just
couldn't be bothered. The cost of the cartridges, the reality that I
don't print enough color to use up the cartridges before they dry out,

I don't print much at all and don't find the Canon BCI3 carts dry out at
all.

the fact that the ink smears, even free the inkjet printers aren't
appealing.

I don't see it smearing as long as you let it dry after printing.

I don't bother to print photos at all and if I did, I'd use a commercial
printer.

Though, one time when I needed something like 24Vdc power supply, I
found
just what I needed when I opened up one of those inkjet printers.

Generally PC power supplies are better for that
sort of thing because they are packaged properly.

Please tell us how to get 24 volts out of PC power supplies..........

Plenty of them have a pair of 12 V rails.

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 15/07/14 21:12, Sjouke Burry wrote:
> Please tell us how to get 24 volts out of PC power supplies..........

put a load on the 5V and then pick off the +12 and -12??


--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. – Erwin Knoll

 

[Johny B Good]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 19:43:43 +1000, "Rod Speed"
<rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote:

====snip====

The first of them that I personally owned, an LA180 was as big
as a washing machine and I could barely put one in the back
of a Golf alone, and I was completely stupid to have done that.

Wow! I thought I was the only one daft enough to buy such a monster
from my local 'Government Surplus' dealer.

I had to rewire the parallel interface (including adding an inverter
or two) to make it 'Centronics Compatable' for connecting to my
Transam Tuscan S100 Bus machine.

It only printed unidirectionally but the bi-directional version
wouldn't have sped it up very much since the carriage return action
was so swift it was more akin to its predecessor, a Teletype Model 33
ASR.

I think it eventually got replaced by an HP Deskjet 960C and I
eventually hauled it out of my basement 'shack' to sneak it onto the
back of an untaxed wagon that had been illegally parked across the
road for the past couple of months ( I thought that if we'd had to put
up with this eyesore which was seemingly being pointedly ignored by
the authorities for the last two months or so, I might as well get
some utility out of it

That was replaced by a much smaller dot matrix printer
that I only stopped using when I got the first inkjet printer
that produced a much better result and cost peanuts.

I gave up on inkjets long before they 'got cheap'. The plain fact is
I simply didn't do enough printing to stop the heads clogging up
between jobs. I'd have done much better using a good old fashioned
impact dot matrix or daisywheel printer and a small box of re-inkable
ribbons (cartridge or open spool). The price of the consumables for
all inkjet printers is hundreds of times greater than that of the
impact based technology which, imho, is a total disgrace.

I stopped using that when PCs no longer supported the interface.

Presumably you're talking about Major OEM branded ready built PCs
like Dell and HP/Compaq et al. The latest MoBos I bought brand new
about four years ago still sported the centronics/LPT header to
connect a printer connector backplate to. I suspect this may no longer
be true today. I guess I'll find out in a year or so's time when I
next upgrade my machines.

I replaced that with a decent USB inkjet and had that
work fine for years. Its just had an electronics card failure
and since I had picked up a spare at a garage sale for just
$5 it wasn't worth even changing a failed cap. It's the only
one that has actually died rather than become obsolete.

The last inkjet I purchased was a Canon Pixma iP4000 about 5 or 6
years ago which I'd specifically chosen for it's inclusion of the
centronics interface (to match a printserver) and the ability to print
onto CD-R /DVD-R printable media.

I only renewed the 5 ink tanks twice using cheap compatable carts
before I realised home printing with inkjet technology had become a
mug's game (and this was just for black ink printing, no colour photo
follies).

I really only used it to print optical disk media labels to make them
look a little more presentable than the freehand permanent marker
labelling I had used. I only needed to print in black ink but, it
turns out that the black ink cart is totally ignored when printing on
optical disks and the photocolour 'black' mix is forced onto the user.

Once I realised there was no way to get around this reliance on the
colour carts to print onto optical media, its days as a printer were
numbered until I finally finished off the black ink printing to paper.
Now it just sits on it's little table in mute testament to the
futility of inkjet printer technology as sold to the gullible consumer
by the self destructive manufacturers. I'm sure I can't be in a
minority in this regard.

We've had a couple of mono laser printers connected to the LAN over
the past 5 or 6 years, courtesy of my son, now replaced by a colour
laser, also purchased by him. This nicely serves our very modest
printing needs.

Any photos that I might deem worthwhile getting printed will be dealt
with by the likes of Asda or Max Spielman (or whoever) where proper
photo printing technology will provide prints at least as colourfast
as the traditional photo printing from film media (the same chemistry
just raster scanned with laser beams instead of directly projecting an
image from a colour negative).

In my opinion, no home inkjet photocolour grade printer can compete
for cost and quality when asked to print photos. Once you've cast that
'advantage' aside, there's no point in wasting money on another inkjet
except, perhaps, on one designed specifically for printing to optical
media using cheap ink carts (preferably able to use a dedicated black
ink when monochrome is all that is needed rather than force you to
consume an expensive set of colour carts to print the job in photo
black). However, optical media seems to be going the way of the Dodo
(afaiac) so maybe not.

I suppose we're still going to have to 'fiddle' our own fixes to the
'consumerism' driven 'planned obsolescence' of toner carts that rely
on a counter to prematurely declare exhaustion (in one case, according
to the recent BBC programme, "The Men Who Made Us Spend", by a 'safety
margin' factor of three!).

I've no doubt the printer manufacturers will continue to erode
durability of laser printers and carts in their never ending quest to
shake down their 'consumer' and milk the suckers[1] for all their
worth.

The way the Printer Manufacturers are carrying on, the dream of a
"Paperless Office" might finally come true a lot sooner than anyone
would have expected!

[1] Specifically, the suckers referred to in PT Barnum's "There's one
born every minute" quotation that seems to have been taken to heart by
globalised industries and manufacturers.
--
J B Good

 

[Johny B Good]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 02:06:27 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:bb58s91aijh3c4l794fif7mr900ndtceb2@4ax.com...
On Mon, 14 Jul 2014 10:01:21 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Yep, that's the style of cartridge, and I think the same as you, two wire
bus plus piezo drive. And yes. Shorted bus was a good one, and certainly
something I wouldn't have suspected right off. Hence why I bothered to
tell
all here !

Thanks. I learned something new.

Do you still have the bad magenta 02 cartridge? If so, try an
ohmmeter test on the contacts. I'm curious if the cart can be tested.

--
Jeff Liebermann

I do, and I'll see what can be read across the contacts. Since we decided
what the contacts might be, I've had another little think about that, and
have now decided that it's not piezo drive on two of them, because these are
HP cartridges without the heads built in. Straight vanilla ink only. So how
about supply, ground, and two-wire bus ?

That does seem to be the most obvious bus topology (if it's good
enough for USB...).
--
J B Good

 

[Johny B Good]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 02:07:44 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:6bk8s9pn4ljh7p0melcjfjuslv2mutrvs0@4ax.com...
On Mon, 14 Jul 2014 10:01:21 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

http://upload.ecvv.com/upload/Product/20129/China_Refillable_ink_cartridge_HP02_compatible_for_Photosmart_C5140_C5150_C5180_C5185_C6150_C6180_C715020129121800026.jpg
I have such a printer in the office that I can check the connector
wiring with an ohms guesser (on Tues).

Yep, that's the style of cartridge, and I think the same as you, two wire
bus plus piezo drive. And yes. Shorted bus was a good one, and certainly
something I wouldn't have suspected right off. Hence why I bothered to
tell
all here !
Arfa

Would you believe a 4 wire bus? I removed the 02 carts from an HP
C7250 printer, and ran my ohms-guesser between corresponding pins
between cartridge contacts. 4 contacts per cart and all 4 wires are
on a bus between all 6 carts.


--
Jeff Liebermann

I'm still thinking two-wire bus - see my reply to your post above

I'm with you on this one, Arfa. A 2 wire bi-directional bus with
another pair of wires for power, a la USB, except there's no reason
for it to be limited to a supply voltage of 5v - it could be 12 or 24
volts to allow the chip to control the heater or piezo elements as
well as calculate the ink consumption with a wide safety margin
(factor of 3 or 4, anyone?) to signal the exhaustion point.

The motive for 'chipping' the cartridges may have initially been to
prevent third party refills but once you've gone down this route, it
leaves the possibility open to simplify the wiring in the 'flexible
ribbon cable'.

Modern chip technology makes adding the necessary signal processing
required to simplify the wiring a zero cost option in the cost cutting
exercise of using a cheaper, more durable flexible ribbon cable.
--
J B Good

 

[Rod Speed]

Johny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> wrote

Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote

The first of them that I personally owned, an LA180 was as big
as a washing machine and I could barely put one in the back
of a Golf alone, and I was completely stupid to have done that.

Wow! I thought I was the only one daft enough to buy such
a monster from my local 'Government Surplus' dealer.

I bought mine new, but I was flogging DEC LSI-11s with them and
other hardware, mostly to accountants and operations like that.

The LS120 was much heavier and I was never actually stupid enough
to try putting one of those into the back of the Golf by myself.

I had to rewire the parallel interface (including adding
an inverter or two) to make it 'Centronics Compatable'
for connecting to my Transam Tuscan S100 Bus machine.

I used mine on the DEC LSI-11 that I also had at home, serial.

It only printed unidirectionally but the bi-directional version
wouldn't have sped it up very much since the carriage return
action was so swift it was more akin to its predecessor, a
Teletype Model 33 ASR.

I didn't have one of those at home, just at work.

> I think it eventually got replaced by an HP Deskjet 960C

Mine was initially replaced by an LA50
on the DEC Rainbow that I added later.

and I eventually hauled it out of my basement 'shack' to sneak
it onto the back of an untaxed wagon that had been illegally
parked across the road for the past couple of months ( I thought
that if we'd had to put up with this eyesore which was seemingly
being pointedly ignored by the authorities for the last two
months or so, I might as well get some utility out of it

I've still got at least one LA120 or something in the big pile of stuff.

That was replaced by a much smaller dot matrix printer
that I only stopped using when I got the first inkjet printer
that produced a much better result and cost peanuts.

I gave up on inkjets long before they 'got cheap'.
The plain fact is I simply didn't do enough printing
to stop the heads clogging up between jobs.

I likely print even less than you do and don't
find that the Canon ip3000 clogs up at all.

I'd have done much better using a good old fashioned
impact dot matrix or daisywheel printer and a small
box of re-inkable ribbons (cartridge or open spool).

I wouldn't, basically because I did print quite a few CDs and DVDs.

The price of the consumables for all inkjet printers is hundreds
of times greater than that of the impact based technology

Not when you use the cheapest generic carts off ebay.

They in fact cost a lot less than the ribbons for the LA50
used to. It still works but I haven't used it for decades now.

> which, imho, is a total disgrace.

That's why I deliberately bought one of the last of the Canons
that doesn't use chipped carts, for the very low price on ebay.

I stopped using that when PCs no longer supported the interface.

Presumably you're talking about Major OEM branded
ready built PCs like Dell and HP/Compaq et al.

No, I have always assembled my own using components.

The latest MoBos I bought brand new about four years ago still sported
the centronics/LPT header to connect a printer connector backplate to.

My latest doesn't. Is only a year or so old.

> I suspect this may no longer be true today.

Yeah, it wasn't when I was picking a motherboard,
at least with the other things I wanted.

I guess I'll find out in a year or so's time
when I next upgrade my machines.

I replaced that with a decent USB inkjet and had that
work fine for years. Its just had an electronics card failure
and since I had picked up a spare at a garage sale for just
$5 it wasn't worth even changing a failed cap. It's the only
one that has actually died rather than become obsolete.

The last inkjet I purchased was a Canon Pixma iP4000 about
5 or 6 years ago which I'd specifically chosen for it's inclusion
of the centronics interface (to match a printserver) and the
ability to print onto CD-R /DVD-R printable media.

Yeah, that's the last is the main reason I changed from
the previous BJC-4310SP which likely still works fine.

I only renewed the 5 ink tanks twice using cheap
compatable carts before I realised home printing
with inkjet technology had become a mug's game

I don't believe that, particularly for printing on CDs and DVDs.

> (and this was just for black ink printing, no colour photo follies).

I do prefer to print colored stuff colored. I don't print photos.

I really only used it to print optical disk media labels
to make them look a little more presentable than the
freehand permanent marker labelling I had used.

Yeah, I did it for that reason too. My writing is so bad
that people would whinge about the product key.

I only needed to print in black ink but, it turns out that
the black ink cart is totally ignored when printing on optical
disks and the photocolour 'black' mix is forced onto the user.

I don't get that with the ip3000. I normally print in blue tho for no
particular reason, just looks better than black on CDs and DVDs.

Once I realised there was no way to get around this reliance on the
colour carts to print onto optical media, its days as a printer were
numbered until I finally finished off the black ink printing to paper.
Now it just sits on it's little table in mute testament to the futility
of inkjet printer technology as sold to the gullible consumer by
the self destructive manufacturers. I'm sure I can't be in a
minority in this regard.

I still print a bit of stuff, but mostly for others who don't have a
printer.

We've had a couple of mono laser printers connected to
the LAN over the past 5 or 6 years, courtesy of my son,
now replaced by a colour laser, also purchased by him.
This nicely serves our very modest printing needs.

I don't print enough to warrant feeding one of those
even if I got one for peanuts in a garage/yard sale
and they don't print to CDs and DVDs. I print much
more of those than I ever print on paper for myself.

Any photos that I might deem worthwhile getting printed will be dealt
with by the likes of Asda or Max Spielman (or whoever) where proper
photo printing technology will provide prints at least as colourfast
as the traditional photo printing from film media (the same chemistry
just raster scanned with laser beams instead of directly projecting an
image from a colour negative).

True. I just don't print photos at all except when I chose to front the
magistrate after having got booked doing 160KM, to show him that
there was no danger doing that speed there. Didn't end up actually
needing to show him the photos, he let me off after I lied to him.

In my opinion, no home inkjet photocolour grade printer
can compete for cost and quality when asked to print photos.

True.

Once you've cast that 'advantage' aside, there's no point in wasting
money on another inkjet except, perhaps, on one designed specifically
for printing to optical media using cheap ink carts

Yeah, that's the reason I got that printer.

(preferably able to use a dedicated black ink when monochrome
is all that is needed rather than force you to consume an expensive
set of colour carts to print the job in photo black).

I just use one of the colors and print in that.

However, optical media seems to be going
the way of the Dodo (afaiac) so maybe not.

Yeah, I don't use it much anymore. Can be convenient
to post them, we can post them for the normal letter
stamp. You can do that with SD cards too, but with
the blanks you don't care if they come back or not
and they work better for the techklutzes that usually
can manage to put a DVD into something they have
to play the TV program that they missed or that they
have got me to download for them.

I suppose we're still going to have to 'fiddle' our own fixes to
the 'consumerism' driven 'planned obsolescence' of toner carts
that rely on a counter to prematurely declare exhaustion (in
one case, according to the recent BBC programme, "The Men
Who Made Us Spend", by a 'safety margin' factor of three!).

I just ensure that I don't buy those by researching them
properly before buying them, but that has changed a
bit now with that stuff showing up at garage sales
and facebook buy sell swap groups for peanuts.

I've no doubt the printer manufacturers will continue
to erode durability of laser printers and carts in their
never ending quest to shake down their 'consumer'
and milk the suckers[1] for all their worth.

Yeah, but it will be interesting to watch how
many bother to print much into the future.

I print almost nothing now, just the CDs and DVDs mostly.

The last thing I printed was a blowup of my driver's license
that I needed when claiming some unclaimed money of mine.
Their system did have a decent online form to fill in, but
printed that and wanted a copy of that sort of proof of
identity stuff posted to them. You couldn't upload that.

I've just done something similar for someone I know
who had to submit some documentation for a permanent
resident visa who doesn't have a printer or net service either.

The way the Printer Manufacturers are carrying on, the
dream of a "Paperless Office" might finally come true
a lot sooner than anyone would have expected!

Yeah, it will be interesting to watch.

Specifically, the suckers referred to in PT Barnum's "There's
one born every minute" quotation that seems to have been
taken to heart by globalised industries and manufacturers.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 11:53:22 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

I'm assuming that the 'chip' on each cartridge is a simple dedicated
microcontroller, so some level of Vcc would be required to run that, and it
would make sense to design the chip to run off a rail that would provide
suitable levels for the bus signals as well

Yep. That's what I just found. HP C7250 AIO printer.

There are 4 pins on each cart. I'll arbitrarily number them 1-4 from
top to bottom.
1 +3.3v DC
2 Data cartridge --> printer
3 Data cartridge <-- printer
4 Ground
I verified that the +3.3v DC and ground were there full time when the
printer was powered on. The ground pin shows DC continuity to the
shield on a nearby USB jack, which was convenient for grounding the
scope probe. I saw short bursts of data during power up and during
power down. After the data burst on pin 3 (data into the cart), where
was a very short burst on pin 2 from the cartridge back to the
printer. I couldn't capture the bursts because my ancient Tek 422
scope doesn't have storage. That's certainly NOT I2C.

I didn't want to try printing with all the scope probes and
connections attached.

Offhand, the system looks incredibly crude. No clock, no time sync,
no rolling code, no real security. Probably just some bits to
identify the type and color of the cart, and a challenge/response
system to identify that it's a genuine HP car. Oh yes, the date of
manufacture so that HP can declare the carts useless because the ink
has "expired". It wouldn't take much to clone the chips.

However, I have a better idea. It wouldn't be too difficult to rip
the chips off the carts, run 4 wires to a PIC controller, and give the
printer whatever response it needs to keep it happy.

And I, in turn, leave this to Jeff L who has these things piled high
(literally !) at his place ...

Worse than that. One of my customers called about 2 weeks ago with a
problem. He's recovering from surgery and needs two bedrooms full of
eJunk cleared out so the daughter in law and the grand brats can move
in and help him out while he recovers. I now have a museum of antique
eJunk, most of which is in immaculate condition. Another customer
moved offices, and used my office doorstep as their recycling and
eWaste depository. I sacrificed one workbench and one desk, turning
both into vertical storage, almost to the ceiling. Hopefully, the
fire marshall will not come visiting.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558