Archive for January 2011
Printer Fuser Units – New Versus Refurbished
Laser printer supplies and replacement parts prices can be very expensive, so to save us money some very resourceful people have come up with an alternative to buying new fusers.
Fuser Units
A fuser unit is the part in a laser printer that creates pressure and heat to fuse toner to the paper. Not all of the parts go bad in the whole assembly when they wear out. The main part that wears out is the upper heat roller or the heat sleeve. The coating wears off and causes the toner to not fuse properly. There are replacement rollers and sleeves on the market that you can replace and turn a non-functional fuser into a good working one.
Rebuilding fuser assemblies is not a new thing. Copier technicians have been doing it for years since the first office copier was created. When the fuser wears on any copier they replace certain parts some of which are, the upper heat roller, lower heat roller, bearings, picker fingers, thermistors, drive gears and more. The printer industry has a different approach in that they replace everything as an assembly. People are accustomed to this and when they need a replacement fuser they opt for a new one many times. I believe it is a mind set. A copier service person would look at it as a waste of money. Why buy a new one when you can buy the replacement parts for a fraction of the cost and install them and make it as good as new. You must be cautious when purchasing replacement parts because there are some replacement parts that are sub par, so finding a good parts source is imperative.
Guidelines for Inkjet Cartridge refill
There are number of instructions to be followed at the time of refilling an inkjet cartridge. So whenever your printer ink runs dry you need to follow the below steps for inkjet cartridge refill.
1. It’s very important that you handle the cartridge carefully. Avoid touching any metallic parts.
2. Always clean needles and syringe to avoid any color mixing.
3. It would always be advisable to store the cartridge in an airtight bag with a moist paper towel when not in use.
4. Refill the cartridge only when the warning light glows.
5. If you are re-filling black cartridge, then enlarge the fill hole on top of the cap with the drill provided.
6. If you are re-filing color cartridge, then you have to remove the cap first. Either hold the cap in a safe manner or carefully remove the cap with the help of a knife.
7. Put together needle and syringe and fill in the color that you want your cartridge to refill with.
8. Insert the needle into the correct fill hole straight down till the foam. If you are filling with the color ink then make sure you are inserting in the correct ink slot.
9. When you start injecting the ink into the slot, make sure that you are doing it slowly and you may have to clean the print head with a tissue.
10. When the color cartridge is completely full, ink could be seen at the fill hole, slightly remove the syringe till the ink on the fill hole vanishes.
11. The capacity of the black cartridge is about 20ml, so make sure that you don’t over-fill it.
12. So you have now successfully filled the cartridge.
13. After the process of refilling is complete, re-cap the cartridge. To ensure safety, stick a tape on the top of the lid.
14. Clean the print head with a tissue or a sponge till the time it stops dripping.
15. Its time to install the cartridge back into the printer and run a cleaning cycle.
16. You should always clean the syringe and the needle that you have used with water so that it can be used again.
Wireless Printer Adapter
Computer networking is increasingly going wireless with the widespread use of Wifi and Bluetooth technologies. In this article, I talk about the working and installation of wireless printer adapters.
What are Wireless Printer Adapters?
A wireless printer adapter is designed so that printers can connect with computers via a wireless router. The adapter enables communication between a printer and a wireless router. The wireless router can then route printing requests from multiple devices in a network to the inkjet orlaser printer. Before the introduction of wireless adapters, you had no option other than making a printer-router Ethernet connection to share printing resources on a network.
You do not need a wired Ethernet connection of a printer with a router anymore to enable printing, if you use a wireless printer adapter. The wireless technology that makes a connection between the wireless router and printer is either Wifi or Bluetooth. Any device on a wireless network like a laptop or a hand held device can use the printer, once it has been configured with appropriate settings. All of these adapters are compliant with the 802.11g/b/n networking standards and are really useful things to have in workplaces with wireless networking.
Types of Wireless Printer Adapters
There are many types of wireless printer adapters that differ according to the way in which they connect with printers. Most commonly used ones are wireless USB printer adapters that connect to printers through their USB ports. Wireless adapters that connect with the PCI slot of printers are also available. They require installation of a wireless adapter card inside the printer. Alternatively, wireless adapters are also available in the form of a dongle, which makes a parallel or serial connection with a printer.
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