Sunday, March 28, 2010

Inject water into your printer to get that page printed.

I found an HP Deskjet D2460 that one of my neighbors threw out. I hooked it up to my Ubuntu computer and waited the few seconds for the printer to be recognized. I then threw some paper in the printer and printed a test page. It came out mostly white with a few colored lines here and there. HP 21 and 22 cartridges can be refilled but I was too lazy to go out and get some. I'm also too cheap as I don't want to spend $40 on a piece of trash I found than might not work at all. I went to the kitchen and got a glass of filtered water and went to my toolbox to get a syringe.

I always have a syringe in my toolbox as they come in handy from time to time.

I sucked up about 2cc of water and gently injected it deep into the the sponge in the cartridges.
Once the cartridges were back in the printer I tried printing to see how it did.

Success! The printer prints well enough to do my homework on till it goes dry. Then when I'm feeling not so lazy I can go pick up some more ink.

The inks in these printers are miscible with water and I don't really need all that photo quality I just want to print something sometimes.

Monday, March 22, 2010

&%$ crazy glue bottle won't open again

I always have a bottle of crazy glue sitting on my desk. It is very useful stuff. I can do everything from fix the kid's toys to seal that cut on the end of my finger. However the bottle always only lasts till the top glues itself on. Then I have to get two pairs of vice grips to take the top off the bottle every time I need it. I don't want to keep two pairs of pliers on my desk all the time. Then I had an epiphany. When I close the bottle I don't have to screw it on fully tight. Now after using the glue I screw on the lid all the way and then back it off a quarter turn. The lid has stopped sticking. When it does stick a bit I can tighten it and crack the glue bond without getting out the pliers. Hopefully I can use my current bottle of glue to the last drop.