harry dalek wrote:I have a Question for any one with a ink jet printer has any one got an encoder to work with a print out from one of these ? I know my HP is a no goer just wondering if other brands models might use different ink that isn't transparent to IR light ...if so this is useful information.
Yes Harry - I have.
After the frustration of your dilemma and the fact that it just didn't make sense to me I was keen to try it myself. I have a friend in Sydney and I was going to use hers as a test machine as I am going up tomorrow for an ex-works XMas dinner.
Then inspiration struck me - I remembered someone had given me a printer to "fix" about a year ago (with my new house "love" jobs have dropped down the priority list somewhat).
I dug it out and discovered it was a HP PSC 1210 all-in-one. I powered it up and noticed the "check cartridge" light was blinking.
I ran a test page and - you guessed it - the black ink cartridge was empty/faulty.
A quick check on the internet and I found that a replacement from anywhere close would cost me over $30 - blow that. I stumbled over a head cleaning process involving soaking the nozzle in warm water for a minute.
I dried it off and put it back in and the light was still blinking. I did another test page and hey presto! the black ink was working. I quickly did a copy of an encoder I had printed out elsewhere (I could print directly because of the "check cartridge" fault) - the quality was rubbish but I though good enough for a test. BTW Harry, the black ink cartridge is a HP 56. The results are shown below.
Now, an HP technician has informed me that even when the black cartridge is being used that the colour cartridges are used also to produce a better black - this could explain the IR reflectivity - now this may be the case for Harry's printer as it is meant to be "photo quality" - but it is definitely not the case for my printer because a) it will work WITHOUT the colour cartridge in (a tri-colour version) and b) there is a copy black AND a copy colour button on the unit - not conclusive but suggestive. I have asked the HP technician for more information because he has obviously made a generalisation that is patently untrue. In addition I would have thought that the colour inks would only be used to produce grey not pure black - we'll see.
I attach also, a paper that, if any one is still following this issue, may explain to them, in a round-about way, what I have been trying to but in a better way.
So Steve, there may be hope for us on the 21st yet.
EDIT: BTW Harry does your printer have both a black and colour button? If so it may well be worth producing an encoder a "black" copy.