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[tlug] "Mechanics..."



Computers tend to be thought of as electronic devices, and that they are, but there is still a fair bit of mechanics to them.

Printer. I'm on printer number three (not counting a fourth printer (color ink-jet) that is used once a year for New Year's cards) and this third printer is experiencing the same problem that took down printers one and two - namely nearly always grabbing a handful of paper instead of just one page and then jamming. The first printer (an HP) was an ink-jet printer, so I was happy to upgrade to a B&W laser printer (also HP) - well... happy to upgrade, but not very happy about having to do so only one year after buying the first machine. Anyway, the second machine had the paper feed arranged at an angle, with gravity helping to push the paper into the machine, so when it started grabbing bunches of paper, I figured it was at least partly due to the gravity aspect, but now that my latest B&W laser printer (an Epson this time) is doing the same thing with it's purely horizontal paper feed, I'm looking for some other cause.

One interesting side note about the HP laser printer is that the first toner cartridge I changed was interesting to break apart (shortly before the machine went bad) to see how it was put together and what parts were within the black plastic casing. I wrote about that experience at the time - in 1999 - as follows:


99/08/17  Nishi-Shinjuku
"More Like a Printing Press!"

I changed the toner cartridge in my Hewlett Packard 6L LaserJet printer on Saturday, and yesterday I got to thinking about what was inside the "cartridge", so after removing the only two screws I could find on it, I half opened... and then fully broke it open and took it apart. Inside, other than prodigious amounts of left-over toner power (don't try this inside!), there were three rollers, the largest being the lightest, about one inch in diameter and coated with... something that is a very nice greenish turquoise color. Another (smaller diameter) roller is quite heavy, and is a magnet (it sticks to the refrigerator...). I was contemplating how to get the third roller out, but as I turned the cartridge one way and the other, piles of toner began puffing out here and there, so I gave up on that and was about to put it in a plastic bag when a gust of wind blew toner all over me.... Fast loosing enthusiasm for further exploration, I hurriedly stuffed the main cartridge in the plastic bag I had, and began to clean up the toner that had spilled over the edges of the paper I had laid out (I was at least rudimentarily prepared for toner leaks). Happily, the mess wasn't actually too difficult to clean up. The toner brushed off of my clothes, and the toner on the concrete of the balcony cleaned up with wet paper towels fairly easily.

It was a mess, but I'm glad I went to the trouble. The setup within the cartridge looks like that of an offset printing press; more complicated than I had imagined. The general reliability of modern machinery requires little thinking about the inner workings of it, but when you can see the technology, the way you can with the mechanical gears and rollers in a printing press, you have more respect for the complexity of it. The trouble with our very complex computers is that the complex circuitry of computer chips is virtually invisible, and thus less appreciated. I suppose that instead of getting bent out of shape too much when our technology doesn't work, we should appreciate it when it does...


Back to the cause of the paper feed going bad... the only thing that comes to mind is the air... I once bought some old enlarging equipment from a guy who used to live in Los Angeles, California, and he claimed that the rubber parts were in bad condition due to the polluted air in LA (we were up in Northern California at the time of the conversation). Since the rubber feed rollers on the old machines that I've broken down have had a damaged surface (hard to explain exactly, the surface looks slightly different and isn't as smooth as it was when the machines were new), I have to wonder if that could be cause rubber degenerating faster than it should.

In any case, there is still a way to use my Epson LP-900 - I put in about ten sheets at a time, and then when I print something, I lightly rest a finger on the edge of the paper sitting in the feed tray, and just after the first page is pulled in (with several pages below it pulled in slightly (a half centimeter or so - further in than they should be), I forcibly pull the paper out and realign it before it gets sucked into the machine as one bunch. With each sheet of paper printed, I repeat that. It's not something I should have to do, and I never had to when the machine was new, but it beats (for now anyway) having to buy a new printer and for the time being - when operated that way - it almost never jams.


Even Plugs?!

I've added a couple of internal bits to one of my computers, requiring internal DC power connections, so I solved the lack of internal extra plugs by buying an adaptor that plugs in between the power supply and the hard drive. It worked fine, with the caveat that the female side of the plugs are tighter and the male-side pins seem to be of a larger diameter than the originals. Not a big deal, as it's still possible to plug them in and even (with more effort) to unplug them. All fine and good, but today I tried to plug in an accessory adaptor cable for yet another device that needs internal DC power (a USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394 board), but the new plug wouldn't go into the adaptor cable I put in previously, and it wouldn't connect! I tried to force it, but it just wasn't going in, so I finally rearranged things so the two new cables didn't have to be connected with each other, but even then, the first attempt at connecting an old plug to one of the new female connections pushed the pins out of the plug case! I was able to shove them back in and (supporting the wires in back this time) get all four of the pins plugged in that way... but I got into a slightly stormy frame of mind at one point. Just plugging in a cable shouldn't require that much effort!

All of that said, I should add that getting into the old OptiPlex computer was a breeze, and getting the new board plugged in only required bending the metal end piece back slightly so the board would line up correctly with the slot it needed to plug into.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/




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