Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET (Z4648252) (04/02/89)
Bounced mail returning from the REPLY TO area causes me to write
a public reply to Ray:
Ray writes:
"In your comments on the Deskjet you mentioned a technique to recharge
the Deskjet cartridges. Could you please elaborate on the details for
those of us who haven't yet figured out the details? This sounds like
a great solution to the water soluble ink problem (and the lack of
different ink colors for that matter) in addition to the cost savings!
Thanks,
Ray"
'Recharging' the DeskJet cartridges is a simple matter. Merely
ream out the airhole at the top to just enough size to allow penetration
with a machinest's hypodermic syringe (typically used for oiling).
When the cartridge feels 'light' in weight (less than 1.5 oz), it
is a candidate for refilling. If it is totally dry, it seems to have
some problem on clearing the nozzles or something--poor candidate.
Currently, I've only been successful using Sheaffer's Skrip jet
black ink. The bottle is really $$$$$. About $1.50 local U.S. GRIN.
You can typically recharge the cartridge five times with one bottle.
Inject no more than two CC's into the cartridge. More than two
CC's will cause gravity to induce a siphone effect and you will lose
all your ink overnight. Inside the cartridge, you'll notice a sponge.
It prevents the siphon. As long as there is no ink pooling on top of
the sponge, you are in good shape. Actually, I inject no more than one
CC. This one cartridge is several months and several reams of paper
old--it has probably gone through 1500 sheets of heavy printing (dark
pages, DTP work) and is still printing with no fuzzies.
Ok, the obvious question: can we get rid of water soluable ink and
use different colors?
I've had some success on Sheaffer's red ink but it is just not
correct. You get streaks. Apparently, the balance of ink concentrate
is not as 'correct' for the cartridge as the jet black is. I haven't
had the ability yet to find permanent ink for testing. The problem
comes from not having any spent cartridges to play with!!!!
India ink will not work. That is an ink which uses suspended
solid particles. No go...
There you have it. Experiment, save bucks, and ENJOY! Oh, by the
way, make sure the air hole is much larger than the needle or injector.
You do not want pressurization to occur. The nozzle area is very fragile
and pressure will destroy the integrity.
Larry Rymal <Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET>neff@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Dave Neff) (04/13/89)
When refilling DeskJet ink cartridges be aware of the fact that the cartridge was designed to be disposable and our thermal resistors and orafices are not designed to last "forever". This coupled with various contaminants which will inevitably get into the "roll your own" refill techniques implies that print quality (mainly weak/clogged/dead nozzles) with degrade over time. You might be able to refill a cartridge a few times, but don't expect to do it forever. One easy way to save money is to print all rough drafts in draft mode. This is both faster and uses less ink. If you print approximately one rough draft for each letter quality draft the cost per page for ink will be less than the cost per page for toner in a LaserJet. Of course if you also refill LaserJet cartridges this saves money, but refilled LaserJet toner cartridges are grounds for voiding your warrantee (for some good reasons). With refilled DeskJet cartridges the worst that can happen is damaging a disposable cartridge or getting ink all over the place :-). As for waterfast ink, if there was a cheap "over the counter" ink that you could squirt into a DeskJet cartridge and get good print quality on plain paper with waterfast results, don't you think HP would be using it :-)? As for our own progress on waterfast inks I am not allowed to give any time frames, but I am allowed to say we have a high priority highly staffed project working on the problem and we are confident that we will have waterfast DeskJet ink cartridges at some point in the future. One more note for you Atari users who think the DeskJet is too slow. We just announced the DeskJet Plus. It will do graphics 5X faster than the DeskJet when the parallel port is used. It also does text faster and picks and moves paper twice as fast. It is priced at $995 and the DeskJet is now priced at $795. I did most all of the performance improvements on the DeskJet Plus and would be happy to provide more details upon request. I suspect that your Atari applications cannot generate graphics as fast as the DeskJet Plus can print it. Presently there is no official way to upgrade a DeskJet to a DeskJet Plus, however it mainly involves a new logic board (faster CPU with more address lines, more ROM and RAM) and a new paper motor, plus a few cheap odds and ends. It is not that hard to insert logic boards and replace the motor (it was "self evident" to me, and I am a CS type). I have presently asked for permission to post the part numbers, cost, and instructions to do an upgrade but I have not gotten permission yet and I probably will not get permission, but who knows. If DeskJet owners scream loudly enough an upgrade may be available, but it would be fairly expensive (probably in the $300 to $400 range). If you do the labor yourself the actual parts might cost somewhere in the low $200 range. There is only one aspect of the upgrade which is "subtle" and could be hard to describe and hard to do yourself. Dave "Mr. DeskJet" Neff hp-sdd!hpvcla!neff