Digital BW, The Print

Greg wrote:

> The day the printer firmware is hacked!

Thought about that too after Paul's message.

A lot of machines get a hack to use them for other purposes.
Game machines, pda's, mobile phones, cameras.

> This may be the last method available to us to use our third party
> devices and inks. This is a difficult thing to do because Epson makes
> the MCU in their printers, and as far as I know they do not sell it to
> anyone else. So data sheets and code is not available.

They buy their drivers from an English company as far as I
know. The differences between the pro machines and the
consumer models that have less computing done on the printer
itself may reveal something. The firmware upgrades for the pro
models are on the net.

> But your idea is feasable if that's really how the final ink sensor
> works, it could be something else and not resistive at all, could be
> capacitive, or less likely inductive. The idea of using something
> similar to the large format dampers would be the same thing that Ink
> Republic did, so that design is already there.

Worst case would be that it does measure on the ink contacts
and when the cart is empty brings a short circuit current to
melt the seal tight. Enough wax like polyethylenes that need
very little heating. Would be a novelty. There have been chips
that were destroyed with a short circuit.
If Epson really prevents refilling and doesn't offer a
convincing recycling system on the European market they get a
problem here.


Met vriendelijke groeten,  Ernst


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