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Hacking An Inkjet Printer

I have an old inkjet printer and was taking it apart (an old Lexmark). I looked at the back, and there looks like there is a matrix of copper connections back there. Just tinkering, I took a 9V batter with two wires, and tried touching a few of these pads to see if I could get it to fire....some sputtering, but not much.

Does anyone know about inkjet printers and cartridges? Is there a good website that might help me out (I am googling this idea as well)? I would love to be able to figure out how to make the cartridge fire with some simple electronics (its part of a much bigger curiosity I have festering in my mind)...thanks!

-M-

Reply to
MMS
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Thermal inkjet print heads deliver the ink in TINY droplets (on the order of picoliters), and have to be driven with carefully-timed-and-limited pulses. They way they work is through a very rapid, very high temperature, and very localized heating of tiny resistive elements which essentially cause the ink to "explode" out the nozzle and thus be transferred to the paper. Trying to drive those heads with a 9V battery will do very little (outside of likely burning out the resistive elements).

Bob M.

Reply to
Bob Myers

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