My fax machine ran out of ink. I know this, because A) I received an illegible fax and B) the display on the fax machine said "replace ink cartridge".
So I went to Bluepoint to buy a new cartridge, and lo! the price is £18 which is not much less than I paid for the machine. No thanks. I have a cunning plan.
I took the old cartridge, made a little hole in it, and injected printer ink into it from a kit I bought last time this happened. It was easy to do, not much mess (I put down paper, and I'm sure the black will come off my thumb in a week or two). I put the cartridge in, and the display continued to say "replace ink cartridge". So I swore at it a bit, and that seemed to do the trick. I copied a page to make sure it's working, and I'm all set now. These ink kits cost about £10 and there's enough ink to repeat this a few dozen times.
I wonder if fax machines will get to the point that some printers are now where there's a chip in the ink cartridge that tells it how many pages it can print: once it's "done", it won't print anymore, even if you refill it.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, who's putting any R&D into fax machines? :D
DeleteActually, what I call my "fax machine" is really an HP printer/copier/fax.
ReplyDeleteI gather than Epson printers already have a feature like this; it isn'[t enough just to fill the cartridge with ink, you also have to reset an electronic counter. Fortunately, I don't have any Epson printers.