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Avoiding Print Head Burnout
Here is some useless information for you.
* Chicago Sun-Times: If inkjet ink were gasoline, it would cost you...
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Barry Shultz Editor
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* Chicago Sun-Times: If inkjet ink were gasoline, it would cost you $175,000
to fill your gas tank.
* The diameter of some inkjet nozzles are smaller than a human hair.
* When your printer says it's out of ink, it may still be up to 38% full.
* Every year over 300 million cartridges are thrown away. In terms of weight,
that is equivalent to over 30,500 African Elephants!
* In the next seven years, if the all laser and inkjet cartridges are saved from
landfills, a bridge can be built from the Earth to the Moon - 223,000 miles!
Just something to think about.. ;-)
Cartridges and refill kits make great Christmas presents! Order early, before
you forget.
Avoiding print head burnout
The print head, which is the engine of your printer and which may or may not be located inside the cartridge, houses hundreds of tiny, delicate nozzle
assemblies. Each nozzle assembly consists of a tiny ink chamber, a resistor
that controls the flow of ink, walls that guide the ink to the right position, and
a nozzle plate with a hole, from which the ink will be sprayed onto the printer
paper.
After each time a nozzle fires, a new supply of printer ink is automatically drawn into its chamber, to be ready for the next time. When the printer is told by the computer to print a page, the copper circuits on the end of the ink cartridge send a message to the nozzle's resistor, which then heats the nozzle's ink supply just enough to cause it to expand and to force a drop of ink through the nozzle onto the printer paper.
The ink which flows through each nozzle assembly functions as a lubricant and coolant for the nozzle: if there is no ink in the chamber when the resistor
turns up the heat, the nozzle assembly will quickly warp and break apart --
the resistor can reach a temperature of hundreds of degrees very quickly! If the print head is allowed to begin this process of burnout (i.e. if the ink
cartridge is not refilled or replaced promptly), the damage may range from
poor print quality (streaks or lines across the page, bad coloration, light or
dark patches on the page) to serious damage to the printer.
It is very important never to attempt to print with an empty ink cartridge. If in doubt, top off your cartridges frequently (the leftover ink from your inkjet refill kit can be stored until the next time you top off).
You may freely distribute this article as long as you include the following at the end of the article with the URL hard linked exactly as it is on this web page.
Barry Shultz is the author of Atlascopy News, and President of Atlascopy,
Inc. Atlascopy specializes in
affordable alternatives to the high cost of printer supplies. Sign up for
the Atlascopy Newsletter and get 10% coupons every week in your email. http://atlascopy.com/signup_new.htm
Go to Atlascopy to save a bundle on your printer and refilling supplies.
http://atlascopy.com
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