What are little boys made of?

Sugar and spice and all things nice?

You can purchase an ink-jet printer for less than 40 euro, including inks. This one was being thrown out by someone because the print-head was gummed up - maybe it cost a bit more than 40 euros because it prints (or used to print) CD's. So, true to character, I un-threw it away and took it apart. My first picture shows most of the constituent bits. Now, as an electronics design engineer, I start totting up what I would charge for all those bits and it exceeds 40 euro. By quite a bit.

It is well known that printer manufactures sell their offerings for less than it costs to make them, knowing that they will reap bounty from sale of ink. But surely not that much less? To enhance their profit even further today's ink cartridges have substantially less ink than those that fit the previous generation of printers. And the old cartridges do not fit the newer models. We know this to our chagrin - our own printer has just given up the ghost, and it timed it carefully to be just after buying a bunch of replacement cartridges.

Not all this ink makes it to your paper, mind you, especially if you only print occasionally. My next picture zooms in on the base of the printer case.

Base plate with 1/2" thick ink-pads

That larger absorbent pad is about 7" x 8" and at least 1/2" thick. Each time the printer is turned on it does a complex dance routine which, amongst other things, cleans the print head by discharging ink onto a pad (not one of the above). This printer had a peristaltic pump (also not shown) to deliver excess ink from there onto the above pads. Bang goes more of your pennies, up notches the manufacture's profits.

But I didn't spend time to dissect this machine to photograph a bunch of ink. I was after useful bits. My final picture shows the gold I mined.

Trophies

1 off switch mode power supply 42V at 0.6A.
2 off d.c. motors, one with a gear chain
1 off stepper motor
1 off precision guide bar
1 off linear sensor strip (black and white striped)
1 off photo-electric sensor for above

These will go in a box (and join other similar trophies) and be dished out when the next person asks "have you got a spare d.c. motor?" or for my next grandson's engine to be.