Printer Technology Showdown - The Electronics Inside

[@lmotaku]

Oki Microline 192 is still used in Pizza Pizzas in Canada. She was a tank. Took years of abuse and keeps running. Needed a blow here, an elastic there and bam. She was so temperamental we considered her sentient. We named her Oki-sama. She was prude and had to have it her way all the time. If you didn't tie her hair just right, keep her clean, she would send out paper sideways, if you were lucky.

[@a531016]

But the most noble of persuits - helping people get their pizza!

[@srduke]

We had OKI printers when we were first computerised at BFL Coal (British Fuels Ltd) in 1992 and we had those acoustic printer hoods too. feeding the paper through the slot in the rear and into the tracks on the printer was a contortionists dream LOL

[@WaltonPete]

There were colour dot-matrix printers available from the eighties with a single striped ribbon containing the various colours. Also many daisy-wheel and golf ball printers had easily (by the standards of the day) removed interchangeable font wheels / balls. The peristaltic pump is used to draw a vacuum, hence its size. However, before every individual print job most inkjet printers clean the heads, depositing the excess ink onto the cleaning pad. Many of the better inkjet printers have a seal over the parked print head to prevent it from drying out between uses to minimise ink loses due to repeated manual cleaning procedures. I totally agree that the cost of inkjet cartridge ink is criminal although some manufacturers (eg. Epson) now provide machines with large refillable ink reservoirs, although such printers are usually more expensive than their cartridge counterparts.

[@betta67]

I still have a dot matrix Memorex Telex with an optional colour head assembly (if they didn't steal it from the common room). In fact it was just branded Memorex but I don't remember the OEM. Bought a colour ribbon but never used it (back in 1994)... If you printed something in green on the second pass of the looped ribbon yellow and cyan never got to be the same :D . The head (or the ribbon?) was displaced vertically to impact another colour. I also have some 2 or 3 days- wheels... also from OKI... No golf balls though. I remember my colleagues refurbishing those crazy machines... Oh, and at one time there was a rage/niche replacing worn or snapped pins on dot matrix printers... Too bad he does not mention the difference between bubble jet and piezoceramic principles (there was a war back then) ... and more, I had the privilege to see some cartridges for some electro deflection printers that used a gun like old analogue oscilloscope did... To tear one down would be blasphemy... Yeah, I'm old...

[@WaltonPete]

@@betta67 OMG, I used to work for Memorex Telex in another life! If I remember correctly, the colour ribbon would move vertically to account for different colours, much like the black & red ribbon on a manual typewriter. I'm also old!

[@betta67]

@@WaltonPete Well, maybe then you remember the Memorex Telex 7040 (286) and 7060 models (386) (that I overclocked by changing the oscillator on the MoBo as it was socketed). They had 40MB and 60MB SCSI drives... :)

[@WaltonPete]

@@betta67 I remember when they introduced their first ever IBM compatible PC but I don't remember the model number. I used to deal mostly with the printers and VDU terminals (before the PC revolution!) and I left soon afterwards. I remember the generous, 'massive' 20Mb HDD that was included as standard!

[@_NoDrinkTheBleach]

The ones that dump waste ink into a spongy reservoir usually have a maintenance box that is replaceable. Honestly, it's weird for a cheap two color (CYM and black) to even have a separate print head from the cartridges.

[@a531016]

I was a little suprised by the heads? Does it help reduce the cost of the consumable ink? I think my real issue it why is so much of the consumable use in this was, and neither of the two printers I have taken apart have had "replaceable" sponge. Even if it is for cleaning, it should be more economic, and the sponge puts a finite life on the machine. It is prety much the definition of "built in product obsolesence"! Dont you think?

[@kazriko]

The feeding is a common problem when printers get older, the rollers stop gripping the paper so well. My first printer was tractor feed only, but my second dot matrix printer was sheet paper capable. It fed perfectly for the first few years I had it.

[@a531016]

The roller, which I'm sure was rubber, felt very slick and a bit plasticy.

[@kazriko]

@@a531016 Yep, definitely not going to grip the page like that.

[@a531016]

I'd rather not say how long it took me just to get it working enough to print that diagnostic page...

[@tenow]

Sponge is there for cleaning all the crap that gets over the border during borderless printing and also for nozzle clean. It doesn't require paper in the model I have.

[@stevewilliams1054]

We had hundreds of OKI (pronounced ‘O Key’) printers when ICI existed in the mid 80’s early 90’s. They were used in offices and control rooms because it could be used as a serial (we could send data over the network) or parallel printer. We were able to replace the control chip with our own specific EPROM chip.

[@a531016]

Oh, that's interesting, did you program your own EPROM or was there an "after market" for them?

[@stevewilliams1054]

@@a531016 Sorry for the delay in replying but to make sure of my answer had to contact a mate who was actually responsible for obtaining the OKI printers and chips. I was at the sharp end setting up the printers and getting them working on site (Offices, Control rooms and Workshops) he was part of the IT supply chain sourcing them. Apparently the ICI vision was developed in conjunction with Microline to work (serial) with Digital Systems plant process computers. My mate use to produce them, from the original, using an EPROM copier.

[@SkyCharger001]

I've seen that some ink-jet printers have two positioning systems, the encoder ribbon you showed and a couple of fixed light slot sensors that tell the printer when the printhead is at specific positions (allowing the printer to calibrate against almost any encoder ribbon, greatly simplifying maintenance).

[@a531016]

You're right, it had a "home" light gate too. I think the encoder was just for linear offset from that position. That said, I still suspect that ink would cause an issue, remeber I did buy it as "spares and repairs"!

[@ujjawalaggarwal9985]

Whoa! That video really stood up to the expectation. Thanks for doing the requested video.

[@a531016]

I'm glad we finally got to it for you!

[@SeanBZA]

Inkjet you buy 20ml of ink, and put 0.05ml on the page, while the rest goes into the peristaltic pump, there to suck ink through the head so as to dissolve dried ink in the head, and then into the spittoon where it is absorbed. Dot matrix the ribbon is used till it fades, then you drop on a few drops of stamp pad endorsing ink, and it is like new again. New ribbon is around a quarter the price if inkjet ink as well, and if you do not print for a year nothing really goes wrong with it. You can still buy dot matrix printers brand new, all OKI Microline, and they come with USB, parallel and 9 pin serial as standard, and will do around 10000 pages per ribbon. Then you press the button on the back of the ribbon cartridge, and you release the rest of the ink off the roller, and get another 10000 pages out of it. Will print up to 8 pages of self carboning paper, or 5 pages with separate carbon paper ( the carbon is a very thin tissue) with no problems. Also handles graphics quite well, though very slowly, as it tends with the default setting of graphics to do multiple passes per line, so best is to use the text modes exclusively, where it is blazingly fast compared to most other dot matrix printers the same size.

[@a531016]

I did some calculations when I bought my new printer 5 (ish) years ago. I figured that by the time the rate of failure, cost of ink and everything was calculated, a colour laser was half the price per page. And that was based on getting a print out of every drop of ink, the toner in my colour laser never dies out!

[@SeanBZA]

@@a531016 Bought a new cheap mono laser 3 years ago, to replace a used 6L that was no longer repairable for cheap. So far still on the original starter cartridge, but that is a cheap refill. Would have been at least a dozen inkjet cartridges if I had bought the slightly cheaper inkjet, but the cartridges are actually more than the printer, which comes with a 30 page starter unit per colour. Buy 2 and you have spent more than the printer cost, so if i ever buy another inkjet (not likely) I will buy refills or compatibles instead. Laser 3 months between prints no worry, inkjet new cartridge time.

[@azyfloof]

The ink sponge IS for cleaning :) The paper is just for printing lines to let you know if the cleaning worked. I think it's called the ink purge. The printer will also dump some ink in here when it first does a print job to prime the nozzles, which is why the printer faffs about making a noise before it decides to do *anything* at all

[@a531016]

Maybe, buy enough ink to warrant a pump mechanism? And to a place that is not servicable? I'll stick with my colour laser now I think!

[@azyfloof]

@@a531016 Exactly the reason I never bought new cartridges for my inkjet, I only use the scanner portion of it now, and I have a mono laser. A colour laser's on the cards for the future though 😊

[@AndrewGillard]

I bought a cheap (£50) mono laser when I started university in 2005 (judging by David's comment at 2:28, he and I are probably about the same age, to within a few years!), which I think is right around when mono lasers became affordable for use at home (or at least by students who preferred to spend their money on tech than booze!), and I've not used an inkjet printer since then, much to my relief :) I upgraded to a Dell 1320c colour laser printer in 2008 for £170, not because the mono laser stopped working, but simply because I wanted colour and a colour laser printer at home was pretty cool. Meanwhile, that mono laser had printed many hundreds of pages of notes and assignments flawlessly, quickly, and economically. That colour laser printed several thousand pages over the following six years - more of my own uni work, plus that of people I lived with (helped by built-in Ethernet), and notes and such from my first full-time job, where I was working from home as a Web developer (isn't that familiar? ;)) - also with the minimum of fuss. I think it had around 1-3 paper jams in all that time, but as long as you have access to all 4 sides of it - which was admittedly not always the case - fixing paper jams was generally as simple as pulling open a flap and removing the paper that was then easily accessible. That always felt like it was economical to run, even with official Dell toner cartridges at £50 per colour. My current printer is a Dell C2665dnf colour MFP that cost me £300 in 2014. Definitely a bit expensive, but at the time I was on a decently-paying consultancy job and having to do a lot of scanning as well, so its duplex document-feed scanner, in addition to duplex colour printing, saved me a lot of time and continues to do so. And of course that one's also worked near enough flawlessly - though the scanner is used far more than the printer, these days... Mind you, £300 for a printer that still works perfectly after 6 years, vs. £50-100 every year or two for consumer inkjets that break if you look at them? :) Both of the Dell printers are *huge* machines, though. That's not something I have a problem with, but I can see it being a bit of a dealbreaker for a lot of home users. 1320c is 40×37×38cm and weighs 14kg; C2665dnf is 53×53×56cm and weighs *44kg!* Hopefully smaller & lighter consumer units exist that don't compromise on reliability too much. Or maybe I'm being far too optimistic, there! (I was going to suggest that the 600dpi resolution of most colour laser printers might also be a dealbreaker, as it limits photos to "eh, okay-ish" quality, but... does anyone actually print photos more than once in a blue moon?!)

[@SianaGearz]

EPSON has an ink collection tank at the bottom of the printer. The cleaning operation requires no paper, and anyway there's so much ink going out, that you would need dozens of pages to absorb it. In the sealed parking spot sits a peristaltic pump that connects the waste ink tank to the nozzles and removes the clog with quite a force. Eventually, this remarkably big waste ink tank capacity is exhausted, so there's a usage counter in the printer that requires someone to wash out or replace the tank sponge and then reset the counter with service mode software, until then it will just no longer print. It shouldn't just leak. The ink? They charge a lot for it, but its actual cost is pretty much zero.

[@andrewsawesome]

Have you taken a look at the Brother Investment series, or the Epson EcoTank series? The ink is cheaper on these machines.

[@Darknecros7]

I miss being able to print banners on those dot matrix printers using the tracker fed continuous paper.

[@a531016]

As a kid I loved "big drawings" when a bit of paper came home from the office! After I made this video, I found that my wife has about an inch of the stuff in a drawer for our son to use! Shame I took the printer apart reall!

[@sharedinventions]

I've already realized, that product modernization means, engineers came out with new techniques to reduce production costs.

[@a531016]

Value engineering, simultaneously great and terrible at the same time!

[@MAYERMAKES]

I had a dotmatrix printer at my old job and freakign loved it, if they would not stil lbe so crazy expensive , Ißd have one just to foo laround with. the sound is ooo awesome. back in the day I used the function to rout e doom music to tghe printer isnterad of the speaker, which was an improvmeent back then.

[@a531016]

That sound cool, a certain "voice" would be really good ona dot matrix - Certainly louder than a PC Speaker too!

[@thenormanfair]

I print so seldom that the ink would go bad in the printer. The ink was so expensive that it was actually cheaper to buy a new printer. I finally said it was stupid and bought a laser printer. I used that printer and the toner it came with for about 10 years. It finally died so I upgraded to a color laser.

[@a531016]

Totally agree!

[@MarkParkTech]

the ink sponge is so that the ink doesn't dry on the heads, causing your print heads to no longer operate. They suck up any residual ink as the head rests, and thus the remaining ink in the cartridge is free to flow.

[@SkyCharger001]

Just remembered: some ink-jets and laser printers include a needled dot-matrix head for 'tear off here' perforation.

[@a531016]

Oooo, Never seen one of those, that sounds super cool!

[@SkyCharger001]

the few I have seen were from the document/brochure/leaflet prototyping department of one of my first internships.

[@mrroobarb]

Great stuff - give it to James May - he'll reassemble it ;-)

[@a531016]

I'd watch that too!

[@awo1fman]

Inkjet printers have made me very cross for a very long time. I used to like Epson because they had significantly better photo quality than anybody else, but they had non-replaceable print heads and tended to clog beyond repair regularly (specifically in the high, dry climate of Colorado). I stayed away from HP because of their policy regarding refilled and third-party cartridges, but at least each cartridge contained the print head so you didn't have the clogging issues you had with Epson. Canon was the happy medium that I ended up with for years because they had decent print quality, ink cartridges were a bit less expensive because they didn't include the print heads and they were less picky about third party and refilled cartridges, and the print heads were a separate, easily replaceable component that you could replace when they clogged irretrievably but didn't have to pay for before then. I also bought the bulk ink refill kits and refilled all my cartridges myself. When I finally was able to afford a color laser printer, I finally kicked inkjet to the curb for good. I do miss the photo quality -- I've never seen any other printer technology besides the super-expensive thermal transfer printers that could come close to the photo quality of inkjet. Laser printers certainly don't do photos justice, even now. But hard copy photos are pretty rare these days, so photo quality is not a deal-killer for me any more and reliability is.

[@a531016]

It's interesting how often that story seems to be repeated! It's going to be my goto advice, if you can afford the initial outlay, and the tiny bit more space, laser is the way to go!

[@vylbird8014]

Inkjet printers make everyone cross. I have never found an inkjet that was actually reliable long-term, and that includes the high-end office models I've worked with. Leave them sitting idle a few weeks, good luck getting them working properly again.

[@awo1fman]

@@vylbird8014 Yes, that's exactly the issue: they work best when used often but not too hard. If they sit the ink dries in the nozzles and clogs them, if used too much the waste builds up and clogs them. It's a lose/lose situation.

[@segoetnico]

100% agree with you : the paradox is incredible between the marvel of technology a inkjet printer is and the scam that is made out of it, scam on the cost and waste of ink and scam on the durability of the printer. I have dismantled several printers and it's always a cheap underengineered part that make the whole thing go to trash ! That's an environmental crime ! Thanks for the great explanations.

[@SciDOCMBC]

Oki is Japanese by the way and means something like "I am interested" or "I care" and it is spoken as it is written "O-ki"

[@SkyCharger001]

even older than the daisy-wheel printers would be the 'golfball' printers ... and before that you had electronically actuated typewriters.

[@a531016]

The golfball ones are super cool! I (since filming) have just read an article about a guy trying to 3d print custom fonts for them.

[@ksitau]

Most of people say that these sponges are for cleaning, but that is only a fraction of truth. The real reason it that, that before starting every print printer has to make sure that there is an ink in the nozzles and no air bubbles or so - anything that would affect a print result. Next reason why printers waste ink is because they also make sure that ink will not get dry inside nozzle. When you keep your printer plugged to electricity you might notice that once a day, or once a couple of days it moves printhead aldo no one is working with printed - that is when it just keeps moisture in nozzles by spiting ink

[@a531016]

The sheer volume of ink that can be in there, the need for a pump, is just staggering, when we are talking $1.50 /ml, any wastage is pretty unacceptable to me!

[@theshaggyfreak]

I think I may have had that same model of dot matrix printer as my first printer that I used with a C64.

[@a531016]

OKI seem to have been a bit of a "defacto" for a certain time. They clearly had decent build quality!

[@awo1fman]

The dot matrix printer has a *tractor* feed, not "tracked", and I've never seen anybody try to use cut sheets in a tractor feed printer LOL. (Yes, they were the name of the game for the first 10 years of my computer career.) Also, many daisy-wheel printers did in fact have interchangeable daisy wheels for different fonts. Just like many of the electric typewriters had interchangeable daisy wheels or balls. They also had "line printers", which were a variation of dot matrix printer that had a head the entire width of the paper and just like it sounds they printed an entire line at once. Very noisy, and very, very fast.

[@a531016]

I've not heard of a line printer before? I assume they were the expensive end of the spectrum? The lever on the left of the OKI was to switch between Tractor and sheet paper. It slightly changed the position of the mechanism at the bottom of the roller, and allowed the right "cog" to be slid away from the roller on the roller axel!

[@awo1fman]

@@a531016 I'll admit it's been a very long time since I used a dot matrix printer, so the cut sheet feature must have slipped through the memory sieve. I do know that sometimes the rubber on typewriters would harden so it didn't grip and feed the paper properly, and that's probably what happened with that printer. Line printers were not used by your average joe with a home PC. They were large and expensive and as I said very, very fast for businesses and government departments that needed huge amounts of stuff printed quickly. The only one I ever saw in person was at university in the 1980s.

[@Midwesternreedneck]

I think its (oak-e)

[@a531016]

Thanks! Couldn't quite decide!

[@vylbird8014]

If you call your dotty printer loud, you have never been near one of the old high-speed line printers.

[@vercetii1]

Phil Collins doing electronics?

[@azyfloof]

I see his face on my laptop screen Coming at me every Sunday

[@a531016]

I had to think twice about that!

[@azyfloof]

@@a531016 Very good! 🤣

[@lostboytnt1]

I'm a printer tech, so I can say, yes, every inkjet printer has to 'waste' ink to keep the printhead clean, and printing properly. it's just a fact of the technology. I do commercial printing, and ink waste is just a fact of printing. Even some laser printers have a 'waste toner' reservoir. Think of it like when you're painting. Yes, in an optimal world, 100% of the paint would wind up on the walls, and you'd never need to clean the brushes, the paint tray, the floor, etc.. but obviously, that would never happen in the real world. More expensive printers have what's called a 'waste ink tank' that's removable, to keep the costs down, to keep the mess off the EU's fingers, and for 'scheduled obsolescence' they omit that in cheaper ones. And if you think that standard printer ink is expensive, you should see what the commercial stuff can cost. I had one printer where the ink cartridges cost $250 each.. and there were 8. so, yeah.. that's $2000 to replace the ink. (I disposed of the printer, the last time the ink needed replacing) and many cost even more than that.

[@a531016]

I'm used to ink jet plotters for drawings in the construction industry, and as you say some have waste bottles, and I have seen a dropped waste toner cartridge explode on the floor. But it's the combination of the amount of ink, the fact it's being concealed from the consumer and the cost of the ink per ml that bugs me the most? I seem to remember plotter cartridges being more expensive (easily double) but were 4-5 time the capacity?

[@zaprodk]

Think ink sponge IS for cleaning!

[@DazzaLing]

You saved me some grief, sponge clearly full, as leaking. New printer tomorrow.

[@a531016]

Oh nooo! Nightmare!

[@genghisbunny]

You can change the sponge, as they do just get full from normal use without failure.

[@viniciusnoyoutube]

15:54 ANATEL hahahahaha

[@SharpestBulbs]

Belt drive "gear".

[@a531016]

Is it? Is it a belt drive pulley?

[@SharpestBulbs]

@@a531016 You're absolutely right lol. I was just making fun of the word sprocket.

[@bharathrayabandi2380]

Showdown I thought its shutdown 😅😅😅

[@a531016]

Well, I don't think the ink jet will ever be booted up again...

[@griftereck]

David for Prime minister

[@a531016]

It would have to be a terrible state of affairs before me being PM was a good idea!

[@Steve-Richter]

Wonderful content. Very annoying way of speaking.

[@a531016]

I hate to say it, but to a degree I agree with you! Imagine how I feel when some of these edits cacn take up to 4 hours!