Printers survive 83 alone

I might have posted here 3 months ago looking for help on how to
schedule a print job for every month I was gone, so my inkjet printer
heads wouldn't dry out. I spend over an hour the night before I left
trying to write a bat file that woudl do this, but I failed^^.

So I was very happy when I returned, printed a test pattern I'd
downloaded 3 months ago, and it came out just about perfect.

All the more strange since the black and yellow? heads on one of them
had dried out in February and I had to soak them in alcohol with a paper
towel slipped under the heads. (The process worked well. Details on
request).

You couldn't use either printer to forge Rembrandts, and the Epson was
somewhat darker** than the Brother, but both showed good white, good
black, good grey scale, good rainbow, and good darkness scale for every
color. I can't imagine it was any better when it was new. And with
bootleg ink in both printers.


***I had bought an all-in-one Epson Wi-Fi inkjet printer, and a year or
two later I found on the grass next to the curb about a mile from my
house a similar Brother printer. I talked to the guy who lives in the
house which the printer was in front of and he really did throw it
away^^^. I don't know why. Maybe he wanted a better one, but this one
is between 150 and 200 dollars. At the time it had two empty of four
ink cartridges but worked fine after I replaced them. ^^^Not only that,
it had been on the curb for, if I can recall, I think he said 4, 6
hours, maybe a day, before I took it, which shows IMO how few people
know good stuff when they see it. (Even I thought it must be broken.)

And the Brother I found on the street is actually better than the Epson
printer I bought because it can print straight from the cell phone and a
couple things like that. OTOH, even though I have no reason to think
they can't work, I haven't managed to set up either faxing or scanning
to the PC on the Brother, so I have to keep the Epson.


**I think with one or both printers, one can adjust saturation etc. I
can't remember but they have complicated software that came with them.
I didn't change anything because I'm visually stupid.

^^The .bat file would have to do three things:
A) It would have to run on a schedule, and I did manage to put an
entry in the Scheduler that would start it once a month (even though the
PC appears not to be running in between. There is a separate checkbox if
you want a scheduled item to run even if the computer is sleeping.
Hibernation is one form of sleep.). I would have preferred every three
weeks, and that can be done by scheduling the bat file for every week,
and writing to an external file. Perhaps adding one every time: 1, 2, 3
and on 3, the third week, printing the test pages and resetting the
counter to 1. (But plainly since it lasted 83 days, once a month is
probably adequate.)
B) It would have to print the file, and people on one of these ngs
showed me how to print a file from a bat file, but only the printer's
own test page. In the case of the Epson, that's all black with a little
blue. It would have to print to both printeres, but that just
requires a second line.
C) It would have to put the computer back in hibernation. That's
not hard with this line:
C:\....\pstools\psshutdown.exe -h
PSTools is a free set of utility programs from Mark Russinovich,
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/.../bb842062.aspx

I got all three steps, at least for the printer


So:
Echo on
rem Meant to run monthly or more often to keep printers from drying
out.

rem Didn't work but I don't remember why, I think it wouldn't come
fully out of hibernation. That might be why I didn't implement the whole
thing.

rem The next two lines only print the printer's own test page, which is
black with a little blue and does not have enough color.
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /k /n "Brother MFC-J625DW Printer
(Copy 1)"
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /k /n "WorkForce 645(Network)"

rem This sets the abilitty to hibernate to on, just in case it was not
on already.
powercfg /hibernate on

C:\Downloads\pstools\psshutdown.exe -h


rem C:\data\pics\testprintcolor.png This was a good color test
print, has all colors.
rem C:\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState I forget
the purpose of this.

micky wrote on 6/3/2017 11:03 AM:
I might have posted here 3 months ago looking for help on how to
schedule a print job for every month I was gone, so my inkjet printer
heads wouldn't dry out. I spend over an hour the night before I left
trying to write a bat file that woudl do this, but I failed^^.

So I was very happy when I returned, printed a test pattern I'd
downloaded 3 months ago, and it came out just about perfect.

All the more strange since the black and yellow? heads on one of them
had dried out in February and I had to soak them in alcohol with a paper
towel slipped under the heads. (The process worked well. Details on
request).

Requesting details, please.

In message , micky
writes:
I might have posted here 3 months ago looking for help on how to
schedule a print job for every month I was gone, so my inkjet printer
heads wouldn't dry out. I spend over an hour the night before I left
trying to write a bat file that woudl do this, but I failed^^.

So I was very happy when I returned, printed a test pattern I'd
downloaded 3 months ago, and it came out just about perfect.
[]
_Some_ printers, if you leave them powered, will start up, and clean the
heads, at intervals - I think some of them once a day; people have come
back after a _long_ time away and found that the printer has used up a
complete set of cartridges doing this. Are you sure yours didn't just do
that?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"What happens if I press this button?" "I wouldn't ..." (pinggg!) "Oh!" "What
happened?" "A sign lit up, saying `please do not press this button
again'!"(s1f2)

micky wrote:

I might have posted here 3 months ago looking for help on how to
schedule a print job for every month I was gone, so my inkjet printer
heads wouldn't dry out.

For long term storage, keep the cartridges humidified. Take the
cartridges out of the printer, put them (nozzles up) in an airtight
plastic tub that has a lid. Do NOT use a plastic bag. Put a damp cloth
in the tub and attach lid. Store the tub out of sunlight, like in a
drawer.

While the cartridges are stored outside the printer, pull the power cord
to the printer to prevent it from running a self-test or calibration at
periodic intervals or when repowering (by you because you powered it off
during non-use or after a power outage). My aunt complained about ink
getting dumped into a waste tank (aka diaper aka spittoon) every time
she powered up her Epson. Also, different printers waste different
amounts of ink. Brothers seem to be frugal. HP Envy (that I have now)
wastes less ink for maintenance than does HP Photosmart. I had a Canon
Pixma (forget the model number) that wasted more than my HP.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/m...-ink/index.htm

When the heads gets clogged, use 99% isopropyl alcohol in a swiping
motion that rotates the towel, like rotating a wetted towel-wrapped
finger as you swipe across the head. The ink inside the cartridge does
not dry out. It's the ink in the head that can dry out and clog the
heads but most times an alcohol cleaning resolves the problem.

I dislike printers that have the heads separate of the cartridges. I
want new heads when I put in new cartridges. I print maybe once per
week, like my grocery shopping list, so my print volume is low. I'd
rather not deal with clogged heads that are part of the printer.
Whether due to ink dried in the head, a defect in logic inside the
cartridge, out of ink, or any cause of problem, replacing the cartridge
also replaces the head. I have bought non-brand cartridges but from
plants that buy new (virgin) cartridges to then fill them with their
ink. Reused/recycled cartridges are too flaky, plus my print volume is
too low to validate the small difference in price.

http://wirthconsulting.org/2015/10/3...o-not-dry-out/

Cartridges that dry up and get clogged after storage for 3 to 6 months
are also likely to clog up even if a print job is sent once per week.
Crappy ink is, well, crappy ink. Cheap bulk ink ranges from $100/gallon
for black or color down to $30/gallon for black and up to $130/gallon
for color. High-quality ink costs more as do differing formulations for
different printer brands, like $250/gallon for 3rd party bulk ink
targeting HP printers. The cartridges cost under a dollar in large lots
to a few pennies apiece in volume manufacture. Ink formulations are
patented any why non-brand manufacturers have to use some different
formulation or pay royalty to use someone else's. "printer ink must be
formulated to withstand heating to 300 degrees, vaporization, and being
squirted at 30 miles per hour, at a rate of 36,000 drops per second,
through a nozzle one third the size of a human hair. After all that it
must dry almost instantly on the paper.¡ (statement by HP). Another
factor is archival quality: how well the ink will last on the paper.
Ink is the other "black gold".

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 3 Jun 2017 18:17:24 +0100, "J. P.
Gilliver (John)" wrote:

In message , micky
writes:
I might have posted here 3 months ago looking for help on how to
schedule a print job for every month I was gone, so my inkjet printer
heads wouldn't dry out. I spend over an hour the night before I left
trying to write a bat file that woudl do this, but I failed^^.

So I was very happy when I returned, printed a test pattern I'd
downloaded 3 months ago, and it came out just about perfect.
[]
_Some_ printers, if you leave them powered, will start up, and clean the
heads, at intervals - I think some of them once a day; people have come
back after a _long_ time away and found that the printer has used up a
complete set of cartridges doing this. Are you sure yours didn't just do
that?

No, not sure at all! Wasn't even saying otherwise. I didnt' think of
that, but that's probably it.

I don't like it doing that once a day. Once a week or once every two or
three weeks would be often enough, I would think. But it was better to
do it however often than while I was away for 80 days than to have to
buy a new printer.

And I didn't check before but I see the Brother is almost out of cyan
and magenta ink. I didn't think it was low before I left so that tends
to confirm your idea. But wait, the Epson is ful of M and Y ink and at
more than 80% black and more than 90% cyan. Can it clean the heads
that many times and still have that much ink?


---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 3 Jun 2017 11:42:35 -0400, Alek
wrote:

micky wrote on 6/3/2017 11:03 AM:
I might have posted here 3 months ago looking for help on how to
schedule a print job for every month I was gone, so my inkjet printer
heads wouldn't dry out. I spend over an hour the night before I left
trying to write a bat file that woudl do this, but I failed^^.

So I was very happy when I returned, printed a test pattern I'd
downloaded 3 months ago, and it came out just about perfect.

All the more strange since the black and yellow? heads on one of them
had dried out in February and I had to soak them in alcohol with a paper
towel slipped under the heads. (The process worked well. Details on
request).

Requesting details, please.

Newsgroups: comp.periphs.printers
Subject: Alchohol flushes out clotted jet heads.
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 09:40:41 -0500
Lines: 130
Message-ID:

There's more stuff at that location but here is the main part.

Someone had suggested a recipe for cleaning fluid that included ammonia,
92% alcohol, and a little dishsoap. I explain why I didn't use any of
those. But I did use his paper towel plan.


This time it was an Epson but I think it would work for anything.
I had tried head cleaning and the other thing several times with no
improvement.

I really hated the idea of buying a whole new printer, and sending it in
to be repaired would probably cost as much, and I thought about
disassembling it but some webpage said you need a calibration CD to get
it right again.

Now I have disassembled some precise things and gotten them back
together by just noting the discolored area where the light hit part and
not the assembled part, and better yet by scribing a scratch the whole
length of the line where the two parts come together, to allign with.
And by being careful about everything, but that was machinery and car
stuff, nothing where the width of a pixel could make a difference.

OTOH, it seems to me that as long as the box holding the 4 ink
cartridges is square, if it's moved a couple pixels to the left or
forward or back, that will just move the image on the paper a couple
pixels but everything will look fine. ???

In this case I would scribe both
on the front or back and the left or right of that box. And I can't
believe I won't get the box square, at least on the second try.

Are the screw-attachment holes elongated or extra large or are they just
the right size?

I also wondered if my use of bootleg ink had caused the problem. The
first set of cartridges worked fine, but when I put in the the second
black one and maybe one other color, it said that the cartidges weren't
recognized. That's anti-bootlegger talk where I come from.

I wondered how I got past the first ones. But when I googled, it said
that Epson printers sometimes gave a Not Recognized message just because
the cartridge was empty. I wonder if they do that on purpose to scare
people like me.

I also wondered why only the yellow came out when I did that test
pattern print, since I had just replaced black, and black had been used
frequently.

OTOH, when I wasnt' printing at all, I was careful to print one picture
in all colors every two months, but since I've been printing a lot of
black and white, I pretty much stopped printing any color.

How often do you folks think something in color should be printed to
keep color jets to keep them from drying out??


I used part of a Bounty towel, because they really are the best. They
hold more liquid. Hard to believe that their advertising is so
accurate, but if there is a competitor that does as well, I haven't
noticed it, and I do buy cheaper ones to use with more sludge and
sediment than liquid, or with things that aren't very wet. .

And ammonia was only 1.5 dollars but I didn't know what I would with a
16 oz. bottle after I used a quarter of an ounce (which I guess is what
the recipe said) , so I skipped that. I have windex, but it's lost in
the jungle that is my house.

And dish soap didn't seem like a good idea to me, though maybe I'm wrong
and in a worse situation I would have needed it.

And somewhere, not here, I read that one had to use 92% alcohol, but
that struck me as silly, so I used the 70% that I already had and which
is quite a bit cheaper. I'm curious where 92% is really required?
(Alcohol is hydrophilic and the process of detaching the water molecules
from the alchohol is difficult, although I suppose the attached water of
hydration weakens the effect of the alcohol, he said, arguing against
his prior claim that it was silly.)

I tore a strip as wide as the flat area where the heads went, folded it
once over a piece of paper that I used to push everything under the
heads. I should have measured the width of the heads and marked that
on the paper towel, so I'd know when I had it in far enough, because it
was hard to push it in. I will use slightly stiffer paper next time to
better push in the towel, though of course it can't be very thick.

I removed the pusher paper to allow more of the paper towel to soak up
more alcohol, but it might have been better to at first leave the paper
in to push the upper level of the towel closer to the ink head. Then
it could be removed so that the lower layer of towel could free up its
alchohol into the upper layer.

I found a syringe-like thing that came with some universal ink that I
never managed to use, and now I don't think it's powerful enough?? to
get it in to those new fancy cartridges. At least I only paid half
price, second-hand but never used, at a hamfest.

I poured the alcohol into a cup which was shallow enough that the
"needle" of the bellows thing would reach, then transferred enough
alcohol to soak almost to overflowing the part of the paper towel that
still stuck out, almost 2 inches.

I also used the needle to try to put some alcohol into the nozzles from
above, where the cartridges attached, for the two colors that were not
working at all, but on this Epson Workforce 645, there is no hole at the
end, rather there is an + shaped cut from the end going down 2 or 3 mm.
So I was relying even more on capillary action to get any alcohol in
there. I didn't see any alchohol running down the outside of the little
black tube, so maybe much of it was getting sucked into the tube, like I
wanted.

I waited 20 minutes. The paper was still wet but I was certain a lot
had evaporated and I added about 50% as much as before, or more.

Then waited about 20 or 30 more minutes

Then I put the two new cartridges for those same colors, because the
others were listed as empty. Then I printed a page and it was mostly
red and maybe some other color.

So I used the Epson built-in procedure to clean the heads one more time,
but then it worked!

And it prints beautifully again.

The previous ink came from Tinte, but Amazon no longer has it and I
can't find it anywhere else. This time I bought something from Office
World, but I haven't used any yet. Very cheap stuff but it seems to
work.


Yesterday for the first time, I used the automatic document feeder on a
similar Brother machine and it worked 98% as well as on some big office
machine. I should have been able to figure out without watching how a
small machine makes two sided copies, but I didn't. Now I finally get
it and it's simple. No magic involved.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 3 Jun 2017 12:48:25 -0500, VanguardLH
wrote:


I dislike printers that have the heads separate of the cartridges. I
want new heads when I put in new cartridges. I print maybe once per
week, like my grocery shopping list, so my print volume is low. I'd
rather not deal with clogged heads that are part of the printer.

I agree with you. I don't know why I bought the Epson, since it
doesn't have that. I think I was impressed by all the features for only
$100, and I kept thinking about it. Then one day the price rose in one
step to $150, everywhere at once, in stores, multiple places online. So
I rushed to Office Depot where it was also 150 and asked someone not a
cashier if I could have one at the $100 price, and he said, Yes, if we
have one. And he went in back and they did have one, and I never gave a
thought to the heads. Oh well, so far so good.

Of course, I coudlnt' be picky about the one I found on the street.

Whether due to ink dried in the head, a defect in logic inside the
cartridge, out of ink, or any cause of problem, replacing the cartridge
also replaces the head. I have bought non-brand cartridges but from
plants that buy new (virgin) cartridges to then fill them with their
ink. Reused/recycled cartridges are too flaky, plus my print volume is
too low to validate the small difference in price.

Before my trip, I was printing 12 crossword puzzles a week and doing
almost that many. I printed about 40 extra for the airplane trips, but
I didn't do any of them, so that means no need to print in black and
white now either.

http://wirthconsulting.org/2015/10/3...o-not-dry-out/

Cartridges that dry up and get clogged after storage for 3 to 6 months
are also likely to clog up even if a print job is sent once per week.
Crappy ink is, well, crappy ink. Cheap bulk ink ranges from $100/gallon
for black or color down to $30/gallon for black and up to $130/gallon
for color. High-quality ink costs more as do differing formulations for
different printer brands, like $250/gallon for 3rd party bulk ink
targeting HP printers. The cartridges cost under a dollar in large lots
to a few pennies apiece in volume manufacture. Ink formulations are
patented any why non-brand manufacturers have to use some different
formulation or pay royalty to use someone else's. "printer ink must be
formulated to withstand heating to 300 degrees, vaporization, and being
squirted at 30 miles per hour, at a rate of 36,000 drops per second,
through a nozzle one third the size of a human hair. After all that it
must dry almost instantly on the paper.¡ (statement by HP). Another

Wow. So I can't make my own.

factor is archival quality: how well the ink will last on the paper.
Ink is the other "black gold".


---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

In message , micky
writes:
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 3 Jun 2017 18:17:24 +0100, "J. P.
Gilliver (John)" wrote:
[]
_Some_ printers, if you leave them powered, will start up, and clean the
heads, at intervals - I think some of them once a day; people have come
back after a _long_ time away and found that the printer has used up a
complete set of cartridges doing this. Are you sure yours didn't just do
that?

No, not sure at all! Wasn't even saying otherwise. I didnt' think of
that, but that's probably it.

I don't like it doing that once a day. Once a week or once every two or
three weeks would be often enough, I would think. But it was better to
do it however often than while I was away for 80 days than to have to
buy a new printer.

The "once a day" was just off the top of my head; I don't know if any do
it that often. But I think I did have one printer that disconcertingly
woke up and did something occasionally, if you left the power connected.
[]
---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

Someone'll be along shortly to remind us how to turn that off. (It isn't
an email; that's not a proper .sig separator; and the "reassurance"
isn't.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde

On Sat, 03 Jun 2017 17:06:42 -0400, micky
wrote:


I agree with you. I don't know why I bought the Epson, since it
doesn't have that. I think I was impressed by all the features for only
$100, and I kept thinking about it.


Ink jet printers are cheap to buy, but expensive to use, since the ink
cartridges cost a lot. They're like razors--cheap to buy, but the
company makes its money selling you blades.

As far as I'm concerned, ink-jets are a bad bargain. Lasers are much
better; they cost more in the short run, but less in the long run.

micky wrote:

Wow. So I can't make my own [inkjet cartridges].

Sure you can. Buy a thousand virgin cartridges, buy the ink in bulk,
get the syringes, and start filling up your own cartridges. Come up
with a story at work as to why your fingers are ink stained (a roving
gang of ink-staining vandals pinned you down and dipped your fingers).
You won't save any money or much of it, though, to qualify all your work
over buying the off-brand cartridges that use their own volume purchased
cartridge blanks. They buy cartridges and ink in much larger volumes to
get better discounts, and they have the equipment to do automated
cartridge filling.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=...+ink+cartridge
(no, you get huge volume discounts)

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=...+ink+cartridge
(no, you won't get the best quality ink)

Do a search at eBay on your printer's model number of its cartridges.
Not only will you see filled cartridges being sold but also refill kits.
I've tried a few and maybe was unlucky to get those whose ink wasn't
very good. You can also find unfilled cartridges; however, "empty" is
not the same as "virgin". I suspect "empty" means recycled akd
remanufactured and the condition in the auction might be truthful by
saing "used" or "refurbished".

I don't know if Office Depot still does cartridge filling. Back then
they accepted used cartridges to apply as a $2 core refund against the
ones they already filled and are on their shelves. However, they were
recycling the cartridges instead of sacrificing virgins. I did that
only once because their ink took too long to dry. Walgreens and Costco
will do (or did) cartridge refills, too.

If you're going through inkjet cartridges every week, yeah, it makes
sense to buy cheaper ones or do the refills -- but it might make better
sense to get a laser printer instead. I use up the cartridges in about
a year so I'm only hit once for each cartridge in all that time with the
price hike for a name-brand cartridge replacement. I still have reams
of unopened paper that were bought many years ago (maybe 8 years ago).

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
h**p:// www. avg. c*m

Turn off the spam component of your choice of anti-virus software, or
uninstall the e-mail scanner since it effects to additional protection.
Besides, no one is going to believe your posts are not infected just
because you say so. It looks childish. They don't use a valid
signature delimiter line (which is dash-dash-space-newline) because they
know many recipients enable option to strip or hide true signatures.
They are spamifying your messages.