How To Refill Dot Matrix Printer Ribbons - The Hacky Way
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- Опубліковано 21 бер 2019
- Cosmos2000 and I spend far too much time working with old printers and not nearly enough researching our investment portfolios.
Actually, I have no idea if that's true or not but I do know my shares crashed this year and it's a pain in the butt.
Regardless, rather than spend $50 on new ribbons for our printers, we cut open several beautiful Sharpie (TM) marker pens and used their tender innards to replenish the ink on our existing ribbons.
For our trouble, we were rewarded with beautiful, rich, dark prints and a few dirty plates in Cosmos2000's sink.
As always, your mileage may vary.
Support the channel on Patreon! - / tkoneniner - Наука та технологія
I remember a product in the 1980s that pinched the ribbon between two rollers and an ink feed mechanism. I only remember seeing it advertised but I seem to recall it had a manual crank.
Pretty neat! The ribbon itself is quite hardy.
Hey Guys! Thanks for this video; I was looking specifically for a method to re-ink a ribbon for a Commodore MPS1230, so this is spot on!
I have now ordered some Sharpies from ebay, as well as some WD-40.
Hope it goes well!
I bought a gallon of the correct ink for ribbons about 25 years ago. The MFG assured me that the ink doesn't age and never settles or needs to be stirred. I typically hold the cartridge in a small hobby vice and use a small cordless drill to turn the cartridge gear. Then I suck up some ink in a big hypodermic syringe and apply it to the ribbon as it turns. Then when all the ribbon is coated, I wipe off excess with a rag as it continues to move. The WD40 is brilliant!!! I hadn't considered THAT!!!
Nice work, that sounds like a great method!
great! i think ill try. I have a NIB leggend 880 printer but the ink cart is dead. its one pf those long carts. I have lots of ink in bottles. cant wait
I have an Amstrad dmp-2000 printer which just has a single loop of ink ribbon but it seems impossible to find a replacement (unless you want 100 units) and mine was shredded. I managed to get it working by purchasing a roll of typewriter ink ribbon but I was unable to find any the required width so I cut it down to size using a hot wire (search for "foam cutter" for more info, they are easy to build), if you try to just cut it the edges fray and just makes a mess. I then tried joining the ends with some very thin tape but this did work but not very well, much better to join it using a plastic bag sealing device (search for "impulse sealer") which on max setting does a very good job. I bought myself a bottle of ink pad ink which does a good job of re-inking it.
Wow. That’s great work. :)
I think I like the Sharpie method most from what i've seen. Hoping to do this for a future project about my Amstrad DMP-2000.
Great effort. Thanks for sharing. I have a Panasonic KX-P1150. Liked & Subscribed.
Ay, I'm glad it helped!
Great to know. I haven't raun my dot matrix printer in probably 10 years, but probably will set the Commodore 64 or 128 up some day and will be nice to give the printer a go. Do a follow up in a week or so (fortnight to you) to see how it dries out and hopefully stabilizes.
Followup as requested - note the refill happened in November 2018 and the followup was shot on Sunday. :)
ua-cam.com/video/Rqvq3T3blRQ/v-deo.html
@@WhatUpTKHere any chance of changing this video to public? I'm looking to reink my mps 1230 ribbon and would like to see the follow up if possible? Taaaaaaa 👍
fantastic stuff guys, I need to get my Star LC20 working, :) its like brand new but the ink cartridge isnt ;)
Ahaha, always the way. Thanks for watching!
Hmmm, I wonder if it would be possible to get all the ink off a ribbon, and then apply different color inks so you could have 4 different cartridges producing CMYK through 4 passes like the imagewriter.
Some dot matrix printers did this, they were really cool
Interesting idea, I'll have to consider this.
Isn't stamp pad ink going to work just as well as the ink from the Sharpie?
Probably would! We didn’t have any though. We literally just used what was around the house. I’d love to test with different inks.
Great result anyway, good work! For typewriter ribbons stamp pad ink works great! I had no success with a Sharpie though...
@@WhatUpTKHere Please do. I just got a Dot Matrix and an old cartridge and I want to try to get it working without spending too much.
I’ll be sure to try this with my HP 2631G which have MASSIVE printing ribbons. I have a few that are very dry
I hope it works!
Having used WD40 did you find that the words later on fell of the piece of paper?
Ha! I was actually really impressed with how it held up.
What's the latest on the scooter re build mate?
Planning for the new build has gone well, now saving up $ for the new drivetrain.
@@WhatUpTKHere absolutely can't wait, it will be really interesting to watch you build it
If anyone knows where to get CMYK ribbon for a Star LC100 Colour, Let me know. the Cartridge is LC9CL. I can find the Black only ones. That are narrow. that will probably work for black only printing. Might cause grief if colour is involved as the ribbon moves up and down across the print head in CMYK passes to print colours.
That'd be so cool if you can find one.
How do they stop the colours bleeding across the ribbon?
@@WhatUpTKHere I dunno. Must be thick gunk ink. But still dunno how is doesnt ruin the colours on the ribbon printing say green or purple. Must print yellow first then blue for green. Red then blue for purple. It does 8 colours if you include black and cmy for dark gray.
Have you found any CMYK ribbons? I also have a LC100 and the only color ribbon I have is absolutely dry
The method shown here can only be used in single color ribbons (the majority) because I would smear and mix all the colors
Besides you need yo find the pure colors so your prints come out correct... sharpie colors aren't exactly standard pure printer color
I am tempted though to open the cartridge and only lightly spray it with WD-40 as the cartridge has very little use and all the ink must be still there albeit dry
@@WhatUpTKHere as uber says the ink bust be not very fluid and mostly stay in place very stable as I dont seem to see any physical separation between the color bands
Reactivating this 4 color ribbon is going to be a nightmare compared to your little sharpie adventure :)
Lol guys interesting. You are aware that most modern inks are water based and dot matrix pins are steel and over time the pins will rust. However you may have saved it with the WD. I make my own using a tiny drop of black pigment and linseed oil, works great. You can also use oil based stamp pad ink, but that is also getting hard to get and is now mostly water based, being the reason I decided to make my own ink. Sharpie pens come in oil and water based, Oil based sharpie's are paint markers with a ball in them, but that is a paint not a ink from what I make out . Take care.
Interesting insight!
Sweet
Thanks for watching!
This is silly. Ink cartridges are inexpensive
Untrue! It’s hard to find them for these printers. Don’t be mean!