# Craziest hardware fix, Saved Me $350



## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

About 2 years ago, I got a new HP P2015dn.

Great little printer, about 30ppm, duplex, multiple pages on one side.
Network Built In, and you can use the network and USB at the same time

(This was great, so I could have the main computer on VPN, use the USB, and all the others use the network connection).

So about 3 months ago, it start to no longer print, wouldn't communicate with anything (network or USB). The printer had not even gone through it's original print cart, so less then 3k prints.

Out of warranty at HP, so they won't even take the call unless I pay $50.
So started to search. Found out that the Formatter Board for this printer, as a wide spread issue. Hundreds if not a thousand or so posts about the identical problem I have.

Formatter board replacement was about $150, updated model of the printer is about $300. What also hurt, was I just spent $100 on two new toner carts for the printer... so I was determined to fix this thing.

After searching some more, I found this fix.
I was like, "yah right". Not a chance.

After a week or so of searching for something else, everything kept comming back to this one. So eventually I figured, what the heck. I can't break it any more.

I tried it and to my shocking surprise, it worked.
The printer has been going strong now for the last two months since I tried it, without a single problem.

Here is the fix:
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/laser/48992#88

Here is the summarized version of the fix:


Spoiler



Step 1 - Remove side of printer
Step 2 - Remove formatter circuit board from printer
Step 3 - Set Oven to 350 degrees
Step 4 - Place board upside down on 4 balls of foil, on a cookie tray
Step 5 - Bake for 8 minutes
Step 6 - Remove from Oven, let cool for 3+ hours (I let mine sit overnight)
Step 7 - Reassemble printer, and test



I am not kidding, this worked and after talking to a few people, there is only one logical reason why it did:



Spoiler



It appears that the board was not properly "finished" at the assembly plant. I guess typically these boards will go through a heat process similar to the baking above, to make sure all the solder points settle into their slot.

Not warm enough to make the solder a complete liquid again, just enough to make the top layer spread out just a bit more to complete cover the contact point.



I guess this fix goes into the same category as freezing a hard drive


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## pfp (Apr 28, 2009)

WOW! :eek2:


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## dettxw (Nov 21, 2007)

Companies keep forgetting how to perform these basic production tasks. It's just incredible.


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## Herdfan (Mar 18, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> About 2 years ago, I got a new HP P2015dn.


I have the same printer. And yes it is a great printer. The issue I have with it is that any paper I put in the front tray, will not print straight no matter how tight I make the guides. Do you happen to have this problem as well?


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Herdfan said:


> I have the same printer. And yes it is a great printer. The issue I have with it is that any paper I put in the front tray, will not print straight no matter how tight I make the guides. Do you happen to have this problem as well?


I rarely use the front tray for anything other then envelopes.
I'll try it later on, to see if I have the same problem.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Herdfan said:


> The issue I have with it is that any paper I put in the front tray, will not print straight no matter how tight I make the guides. Do you happen to have this problem as well?


Try cleaning the feed rollers with rubbing alcohol. It often livens up the rubber and makes it grab better.


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## Marlin Guy (Apr 8, 2009)

For HP Printers, I recommend a similar fix.

Remove all HP software.
Insert printer into incinerator furnace for at least ten minutes.
Buy a Brother.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Marlin Guy said:


> For HP Printers, I recommend a similar fix.
> 
> Remove all HP software.
> Insert printer into incinerator furnace for at least ten minutes.
> Buy a Brother.


Strange - I usually reccomend the opposite for anything BUT an HP printer.... 

Terminate with extreme prejudice - Lexmark

Can tolerate - Canon


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

I had a similar experience with my Escient Fireball. They wanted $200 for a new motherboard to solve an ethernet communication trouble. I traced back the circuit to an on board chip. I hit it with a can of compressed air upside down to freeze it. Put it all back together and it has worked ever since.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

Its always sweet when you can do somethign to fix things.

There are people who build kit robots that have been using toaster ovens for some time to do the same thing. http://www.seattlerobotics.org/encoder/200006/oven_art.htm

I have done some renovation work on plants with electronics assembly lines and it is pretty standard that silkscreen the board with solder paste, place all the parts with high speed robots, then do an infra-red reflow. This is just doing the same thing essentially. THey must have had an issue with warping or improper solder coverage or a design engineer just did not get it figured out correctly so it did not work when they did it.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

_"Not warm enough to make the solder a complete liquid again, just enough to make the top layer spread out just a bit more to complete cover the contact point."_
Nope. You did just 'pre-baking' process, what is help to reduce moisture, only.
If you'll need do re-flow, take a look for normal profile and be sure you use correct one - it is different for lead and lead free PCB.
At that low temp the solder never will "make the top layer spread out just a bit more". 
Law of physics.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

harsh said:


> Try cleaning the feed rollers with rubbing alcohol. It often livens up the rubber and makes it grab better.


if the feed rollers are rubber, do not use alcohol to clean, use a cleaner specifically made for rubber parts so as not to make them dry out and brittle from the alcohol...you never use alcohol on rubber parts...


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

P Smith said:


> _"Not warm enough to make the solder a complete liquid again, just enough to make the top layer spread out just a bit more to complete cover the contact point."_
> Nope. You did just 'pre-baking' process, what is help to reduce moisture, only.
> If you'll need do re-flow, take a look for normal profile and be sure you use correct one - it is different for lead and lead free PCB.
> At that low temp the solder never will "make the top layer spread out just a bit more".
> Law of physics.


Thanks for the knowledge...


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## koji68 (Jun 21, 2004)

CCarncross said:


> if the feed rollers are rubber, do not use alcohol to clean, use a cleaner specifically made for rubber parts so as not to make them dry out and brittle from the alcohol...you never use alcohol on rubber parts...


Yes. If the rollers are really rubber make sure to use something like this:

http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/specials/misc/chemicals/S03


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Still amazed that this fix worked... 

It's been about a year, and the printer started acting up again.
So I pull the board and baked it for 8 minutes... and now everything is good again.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Still amazed that this fix worked...
> 
> It's been about a year, and the printer started acting up again.
> So I pull the board and baked it for 8 minutes... and now everything is good again.


That's very, very neat Earl.

Like Paul Harvey used to say....when are you going to share the rest of the story? - you used an Easybake oven.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

CCarncross said:


> if the feed rollers are rubber, do not use alcohol to clean, use a cleaner specifically made for rubber parts so as not to make them dry out and brittle from the alcohol...you never use alcohol on rubber parts...


Ah, that is wealthy of knowledge ! 

If you will read MSDS of those 'patented' roller cleaners for fax/printers/etc you will find it mixed from the alcohol and a few other *cleaning *chemicals.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Still amazed that this fix worked...
> 
> It's been about a year, and *the printer started acting up again*.
> So I pull the board and baked it for 8 minutes... and now everything is good again.


That's clearly telling us - the process does not do re-flow of the solder; it's just 'backing' ie removing moisture. You will need professional 'oven' to do the re-flow.
[I'm not reading Wiki for you, but sharing first hand knowledge and experience after years of using BGA rework station like OKI APR-5000 while working in EElab/Sustain group]


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

Wow Earl, that beats my favorite fix ...

My parents' hard disk in their iMac went south. Bad blocks, the whole 9 yards.

Back up? Of course not! (This was before Time Machine was available on the Mac.)

So, what did I do?

Put the disk in a ziploc bag and stuck it in the freezer for a few hours.

Apparently, freezing the drive shrunk the controller board enough that it would make a connection long enough for me to read the disk for about 10 minutes at a time.

So I'd freeze the drive, attach it to a FireWire bridgeboard, read as much data as I could until it stopped working.

Lather, rinse, repeat until I had a full backup.

I can't believe that I managed to save about 10 years' worth of digital photography this way. Unbelievable!

On a different note... I upgraded the processor in a Power Mac G4 for a friend of mine several years ago...

While pulling the metal strap off the heatsink, I slipped with the needle-nose pliers I was using and gouged the logic board. Cut two traces on the system board. (uh oh!!)

System was completely non-functional.

So what did I do?

I took out one of my trusty #2 Dixon Ticonderoga pencils.

Colored in the two traces on the mainboard with some graphite from the pencil.

That G4 is working just fine today, at least 5 years later.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

> Apparently, freezing the drive shrunk the controller board enough that it would make a connection long enough for me to read the disk for about 10 minutes at a time.


Funny conclusion. Actually you should take a look inside of the drive: heads, head's movement device.
To execute your idea - make contacts from PCB to internal circuits - you'll need to remove a few screws and clean those two groups of contacts by say pencil eraser and alcohol. Or follow it wrong explanation - bake (oops !) it in an oven.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

P Smith said:


> Funny conclusion. Actually you should take a look inside of the drive: heads, head's movement device.
> To execute your idea - make contacts from PCB to internal circuits - you'll need to remove a few screws and clean those two groups of contacts by say pencil eraser and alcohol. Or follow it wrong explanation - bake (oops !) it in an oven.


What's interesting is that it wasn't a head problem; definitely a controller board issue.

Proved this down the road by swapping the controller board from another specimen of the same model drive ... It worked fine.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

scooper said:


> Can tolerate - Canon


My wife uses an ink jet Canon S900. Stopped working, much as Earl's printer did. Naturally, she threw out the manual, so I spent quite a bit of time finding the proper manual and found out the the blinking orange light (that is green when all is well) gives you messages that depend on how many blinks you get. Ranges from one blink to eight blinks and eight blinks is what the printer was putting out.

So, I read the manual and found out that eight blinks means that the "ink overflow tray" is full. No fix, just send the whole printer back and Canon will fix it. I do find it a bit hard to believe that I can't fix it. Anybody got any thoughts about this? I'm gonna try Earl's link and see if there is any ink jet printer info on it, but I'd rather ask on the forum in case anyone knows a quick fix.

My wife is very attached to the Canon and she'd like to keep it. I'd also appreciate any recommendations on a new one. I've done the Net searches for recommended printers and all the recommended ones seem to have terrible user reviews that contradict the original recommendation. The highest recommended printer is an Epson that costs almost $800. That's not gonna happen.

Thanx,

Rich


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

dmurphy said:


> What's interesting is that it wasn't a head problem; definitely a controller board issue.
> 
> Proved this down the road by swapping the controller board from another specimen of the same model drive ... It worked fine.


Then it will open a can of warms - it's too many reasons for that temp fix by putting the drive into freezer.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

rich584 said:


> My wife uses an ink jet Canon S900. Stopped working, much as Earl's printer did. Naturally, she threw out the manual, so I spent quite a bit of time finding the proper manual and found out the the blinking orange light (that is green when all is well) gives you messages that depend on how many blinks you get. Ranges from one blink to eight blinks and eight blinks is what the printer was putting out.
> 
> So, I read the manual and found out that eight blinks means that the "ink overflow tray" is full. No fix, just send the whole printer back and Canon will fix it. I do find it a bit hard to believe that I can't fix it. Anybody got any thoughts about this? I'm gonna try Earl's link and see if there is any ink jet printer info on it, but I'd rather ask on the forum in case anyone knows a quick fix.
> 
> ...


Could be long 'home' fix ... I would start from disassembling it. Then you will see where is the excessive ink collecting. Could be just dry ink clogged a sensor there - cotton swap with alcohol could fix it.
I don't have such model in my vicinity to give you a hand ...


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

rich584 said:


> My wife uses an ink jet Canon S900. Stopped working, much as Earl's printer did. Naturally, she threw out the manual, so I spent quite a bit of time finding the proper manual and found out the the blinking orange light (that is green when all is well) gives you messages that depend on how many blinks you get. Ranges from one blink to eight blinks and eight blinks is what the printer was putting out.
> 
> So, I read the manual and found out that eight blinks means that the "ink overflow tray" is full. No fix, just send the whole printer back and Canon will fix it. I do find it a bit hard to believe that I can't fix it. Anybody got any thoughts about this? I'm gonna try Earl's link and see if there is any ink jet printer info on it, but I'd rather ask on the forum in case anyone knows a quick fix.
> 
> ...


I am dreading the day I have to open my multi-function to empty mine. What happens is that every time the printer cleans itself, it shoots a little ink out. Of course you don't see this on your documents, so it has to go somewhere else. You guessed it, it stays inside!

I would bet that somewhere inside the printer is a little reservoir full of ink that needs to be dumped out. I have never done it, and I am not even sure if that is the fix, but maybe that will get you started in some direction.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

P Smith said:


> Then it will open a can of warms - it's too many reasons for that temp fix by putting the drive into freezer.


exactly.... it worked long enough for me to recover the data and put the drive in the pile of "Need to Smash with Sledgehammer" drives that are sitting behind my desk.

It was a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 250GB SATA disk, model 6Y250M0 for sake of posterity. (Just checked Ye Olde Stack of Drives - oldest drive in the pile is a Seagate ST3660A - 545mb.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I have the 6Y250M0 - still working OK, not 24/7 but run it occasionally as DVR's.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Could be long 'home' fix ... I would start from disassembling it. Then you will see where is the excessive ink collecting. Could be just dry ink clogged a sensor there - cotton swap with alcohol could fix it.
> I don't have such model in my vicinity to give you a hand ...


Still easier than buying a new one. I read so many recommendations yesterday and still couldn't decide which one was what the wife wanted. We know that there's nothing wrong other than the tray being full. I'm having a hard time with that site that Earl linked to. The info on ink jets is there, but the forum won't load after a search. Just rebooted my computer a little while ago and I'll try again.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

matt1124 said:


> I am dreading the day I have to open my multi-function to empty mine. What happens is that every time the printer cleans itself, it shoots a little ink out. Of course you don't see this on your documents, so it has to go somewhere else. You guessed it, it stays inside!
> 
> I would bet that somewhere inside the printer is a little reservoir full of ink that needs to be dumped out. I have never done it, and I am not even sure if that is the fix, but maybe that will get you started in some direction.


What I'm afraid of is that the ink is gonna be dried and rocklike.

Rich


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Use isopropanol/alcohol - it will clean dry/wet ink.


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

P Smith said:


> Use isopropanol/alcohol


One for the printer / one for the sucker that has to put the thing back together :lol:


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Cognac would be better for second one


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

^^^ Just don't confuse the two.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Not fist time married !


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

I just performed the harddrive freeze trick the other day for someone that had a failing harddrive. The longer I froze it, the closer I could get to accessing it, but then nothing. Finally let it sit for a few days and then put it back in the original PC and it booted up fine.

Got a few theories on why it started working again, but can't say for sure. I backed up the data on it and recommended that the user get a new harddrive as it will probably fail again in the short term.

- Merg


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

As for interesting fixes, here's one for an issue HP laptops that use an NVIDIA chipset. Apparently, the solder on them wasn't done properly and after a few years (if that) the computer will start freezing and rebooting with BSOD's. The fix... Remove the motherboard and CPU. Tin foil the board (like in Earl's OP), but you don't bake it. Instead, to protect components on it, you place 4 quarters and a nickel on top of the NVIDIA chipset. You then use a soldering iron on the nickel and hold it there for a few minutes. The heat will penetrate the chip and reheat the solder for the chip enough to allow it to contact the board again.

- Merg


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Be careful, you should know first is it Pb free solder or not; actually... nowadays it is Pb free, so heating should be higher but shorter.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Use isopropanol/alcohol - it will clean dry/wet ink.


OK, now if I can just find the tank. I hate working without prints, especially on something as small as a printer.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

matt1124 said:


> One for the printer / one for the sucker that has to put the thing back together :lol:


Oh, I fully expect to be walking around with multi-colored hands after the attempt. :lol:

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Cognac would be better for second one


Unfortunately, I don't drink. I used to and did a bang-up job of it. :lol:

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> ^^^ Just don't confuse the two.


Another good reason not to drink. 

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

The Merg said:


> As for interesting fixes, here's one for an issue HP laptops that use an NVIDIA chipset. Apparently, the solder on them wasn't done properly and after a few years (if that) the computer will start freezing and rebooting with BSOD's. The fix... Remove the motherboard and CPU. Tin foil the board (like in Earl's OP), but you don't bake it. Instead, to protect components on it, you place 4 quarters and a nickel on top of the NVIDIA chipset. You then use a soldering iron on the nickel and hold it there for a few minutes. The heat will penetrate the chip and reheat the solder for the chip enough to allow it to contact the board again.
> 
> - Merg


All this sounds like "cold solder joints", is that correct? I've done a lot of soldering on big equipment and pipes and until I got the hang of it, I did have some problems that sound a lot like these. With some cold solder joints we would get intermittent problems. Or nothing. Mostly nothing.

Rich


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Not that good for small BGA balls, adding ROHS compliance ... And you are getting the troubles.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

rich584 said:


> What I'm afraid of is that the ink is gonna be dried and rocklike.
> 
> Rich


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

OMG !

[Eternity sh!t]


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

The Merg said:


> As for interesting fixes, here's one for an issue HP laptops that use an NVIDIA chipset. Apparently, the solder on them wasn't done properly and after a few years (if that) the computer will start freezing and rebooting with BSOD's. The fix... Remove the motherboard and CPU. Tin foil the board (like in Earl's OP), but you don't bake it. Instead, to protect components on it, you place 4 quarters and a nickel on top of the NVIDIA chipset. You then use a soldering iron on the nickel and hold it there for a few minutes. The heat will penetrate the chip and reheat the solder for the chip enough to allow it to contact the board again.
> 
> - Merg


I thought Everybody knew that the inkjets waste ink doing a cleaning of the heads?

Anyway I ran across a YouTube video where they used a small torch to heat the nVidia chip and reflow the solder. Amazing me it seemed to work when they were done.

This was a known problem with T41 series thinkpads where the video chip would eventually lose contact due to flexing of the motherboard, typically from the laptop being picked up from one side.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

BattleZone said:


>


Thanx. Think I'll just buy a new one. That's a job that I don't want to do. Really appreciate the video, I thought the waste tank would be relatively small. Wrong again!

Rich


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Ask your wife, perhaps she will convince you for little cleaning job after that.


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## john_fl (Aug 20, 2006)

I cleaned the waste ink tank in my HP1115 with warm running water in the sink, cleaned the absorbent pads and let them dry. No new parts required...


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Ask your wife, perhaps she will convince you for little cleaning job after that.


Not enough to get me to do that job. Showed her the video clip last night and she just said,"Throw it out!" Now I think she's gonna look at a color laser printer.

Not a bad idea, tho. :lol:

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

john_fl said:


> I cleaned the waste ink tank in my HP1115 with warm running water in the sink, cleaned the absorbent pads and let them dry. No new parts required...


I've spent too much time wallowing in nasty chemicals to do that. I'd rather get something that's not ever gonna cause this problem again. I use a Brother monochrome laser printer and I think we'll just buy a Brother color laser printer.

The ink prices alone on those ink jets was enough to force me to get the laser printer. What a ripoff! I've been telling her for years that they should just give the printers away at no cost and make their money on the ink. That worked well for Hilti when they first started out making hammer drills. We used to get the hammer drills for nothing since the drill bits were so expensive and we went thru them so fast.

Rich


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