Narrow-Bandwidth Television Association

That printer is not worth fixing, and certainly not worth a $30 ink cartridge.

I have that exact model and it's a piece of junk. As soon as we've used up the last of the ink cartridges we have it's going to the tip.

Actually I don't like InkJet printers in general as the are problematical at best and worse, extremely expensive to run. But then I don't have a need for photo quality colour printing as many do, especially those with young children to watch grow up. It's cheap B&W laser printers for me - I don't bother to even replace toner - it isn't worth it anymore. B&W laser printers can be had for less than the average price of an InkJet ink cartridge.

However, this InkJet printer has one advantage over Harry's, and, it appears, some other models, in that it works as one would expect, when printing out black.

M3DVQ wrote:...As soon as we've used up the last of the ink cartridges we have it's going to the tip.

Spend a few minutes and rip out the stepper motors...could be useful. My Canon S800 printer is also on it's 'stay of execution', when its ink is depleted it's going to be dismembered.

Steve A.

Gary, interesting comments regarding Laser v InkJet. I didn't realize they were that reasonably priced these days. I bought the S800 as it was (in its day) a good photo quality colour printer. BUT, not only does it require six separate ink cartridges, but at intervals the print-head needs replacing! That alone is one third of the cost of the whole machine!

I don't print anywhere near as many photographs as I thought I would and frankly it's cheaper to take a flash-drive down to the local photo/print shop and get them to do it. So a mono (preferably A3) printer would fit the bill as a replacement.

Out of interest are there small laser printers ? and do they still make them ? i can only tell via the monsters from a few years ago ...3 or 4 times the size of my printer i have now ..i will keep my eye out for one ,i wouldn't of scapped the last one if i knew it could do something the ink jets couldn't.

Sort of gone off track on what i am doing here i am still working on that camera rebuild i am just trying another head amp and just mounted the dome sensor see if i can get that going .
I swapped seeing the size of raster its around the size of that sensor ...
Very bad time of year for nbtv to many events not enough experimenting time....

Yes they are normal size for a printer - see the second printer here:

http://www.msy.com.au/default.jsp?category=90

for an example.

I have the Brother HL-2140 - price $60-$70 - works well although I have read the toner doesn't work well for PCB manufacture - I haven't confirmed that yet though. Fine for encoders. Excellent B&W prints.

I see the 2130 version is only $48 at Hardly Normal - not sure what the difference is though.

PS: I sympathise with the unfortunate distractions to be found around this time of year... Christmas? bah! humbug!

gary wrote:PS: I sympathise with the unfortunate distractions to be found around this time of year... Christmas? bah! humbug!

Move to Thailand mate. It simply doesn't happen here. I work, kids go to school, wife goes off to her TV station as usual. It's just another day...brilliant!

Steve A.

Oh but the heat and humidity... and then, of course, there is:

Magha Puja
Vesakha Puja
Asalha Puja
Uposatha
Vassa

dear me...


Edit: oh and I forgot - Thai food

Just got time to read back comments, and found Klass's comment on Dec 16th about IR Transparency. I too was in this situation at about the same time, and we had been sold some "Super Opaque" plastic material.
The samples worked brilliantly!
The stock we ordered was a different story, and it took about a week to realise that the stuff was transparent, and not as the sample.
Solution? Milled Ali block and Araldite (2 tube, of course!)
Black plastic was banned after that!
The detectors used were the flat Mullard Photo-resistors, in a low speed setting.
Happy Days!
Alan.

Steve Anderson wrote:Spend a few minutes and rip out the stepper motors...could be useful. My Canon S800 printer is also on it's 'stay of execution', when its ink is depleted it's going to be dismembered.

Oh yes, everything that goes to the tip goes through my workshop first to be gutted for parts. I have boxes full of computer front panel lights, old heatsinks, hard disk magnets, small motors, etc etc

waste not want not


In fact, that's just reminded me, does anyone want an old computer CD drive for an nbtv project? I was having a purge of my big box of clutter so that the lid would shut and found a couple of drives that are pretty ancient and I'm sure will never be needed in a computer again, but they're the kind with the play and skip buttons (and 3.5mm jack and volume wheel) on the front so you can select a track to play and plug a compatible colour decoder circuit into the S/PDIF output.
I have a couple if anyone wants one (actually I have three, but I want one to experiment with myself!) I can bring them to the convention.

Of course you probably all have a similar box of junk that you can't bear to throw away but can't get rid of so don't need any of mine

Steve Anderson wrote:

gary wrote:PS: I sympathise with the unfortunate distractions to be found around this time of year... Christmas? bah! humbug!

Move to Thailand mate. It simply doesn't happen here. I work, kids go to school, wife goes off to her TV station as usual. It's just another day...brilliant!

Steve A.

What hell your living in paradise kids that don't know about christmas !

We need this idea to catch on !

The rest of us poor NBTVers will be living in Hell of no hobby just cooking cleaning visting trying to fit all the paper and rubbish from the presents in the bins....arrrr the end of year hoildays don't you look forward to them?
No wonder steve lives in Thailand ...i hear Antarctica not big on christmas either any where else

They make up for at Sonkran which is the start of the Thai New Year on April 13. It's also known as the Water Festival but has mutated from a gentle sprinkling of rose-water onto elders and respected people's hands to all-out water warfare.

Packs of kids and teenagers roam the streets with water pistols/guns that Arnie would be proud to use. With 20-litre tanks on their backs they can give anyone a thorough soaking...and it is anyone. And as an obvious foreigner here I'm a #1 target!

For several days prior and afterward I hibernate at home, I don't go anywhere having stocked up on supplies earlier.

Steve A.

Sonkran? I missed that one!

gary wrote:What would be interesting, down the track, when your black ink cartridge needs replacing, is to cut it open and test the remaining ink for IR reflectivity - I would be interested to know if the ink is a dark grey ink that the colour inks make blacker or if it is a true black that the colour inks make lighter - or whether, indeed, for some unfathomable reason they have developed a black pigment ink that reflects IR.

Hi Gary
After doing a bit of a clean out of my wifes computer desk i found an old cartridge Black one so with all the work we have done trying to track down the problem i think its worth doing a test on it .
Let you know how it gos.

I managed to get a little ink out of this thing enough to do a test and to me it looks like the Black only ink used in the HP printer i use is still the problem..

Why is it so ? because we wanted to know well Gary and i at least .

It's just remarkable, and I still say there is more to this than meets the eye (ha ha). Making a black pigment that is IR reflective is like making a light switch that only attenuates 50 Hz, or producing silence by building a 10-20kHz notch filter. It's unthinkable. I'll get to the bottom of it if it is the last thing I do.