Old Printer Ink Cartridges

[onlyonemac]

Not sure if this is in the right place...

I've been thinking over the last few days of getting my StyleWriter II out of the loft and linking it up to my Mac. I've got the software-the trouble is, it won't have any ink left (even if it did it wouldn't last very long!). Therefore, I'm asking the 68k Macintosh community what they've come up with for getting ink into old printers (obviously you can't buy the cartridges anymore). I'm also hoping for something that won't look like :scrambled: . Do you just need an empty one and a refil kit, or is there more to it than that? You do... um... use printers don't you?

Thanks, onlyonemac

 

[krye]

Oh, but you can!

Google for a Canon BC-02 cartridge.

 

[Solvalou]

I got one not long ago. Waaaaay out of date being "NOS" but worked a charm. Great printers these.

 

[krye]

I won a lot of 4 StyleWriter cartridges on eBay dated 1995 and they worked fine. I scored all 4 for $1.29. Not bad at all.

 

[onlyonemac]

Okay, but I don't feel like hunting around for one. I'm sure you can get them from here and there, but that's going to come to an end when stock runs out anyway. Can you refill then and, if so, how?

 

[LCGuy]

I would imagine it would depend on what kind of refill kit you have.

's a video that shows you how to do it with one type.
Either way, I highly doubt we're going to run out of them any time soon, a quick Google search for "Canon BC-02" only turns up like, a zillion stores that sell it, as well as imitation ones that do the same thing.

 

[techknight]

i used to refill cartridges from a kit way back in the day.

The problem ive noticed refilling is the fact that they never really work the same afterwords.

But at the same time, the ink dispense tubes to the printhead like to plug up and cause streaks/lines in the paper.

And then the printhead itself can go bad, ive seen them where they just spill ink sitting still too. Lots of things go wrong.

 

[LOOM]

I came over a thread last week on Apple Discussion forums talking about how to get cartridges to old apple printers, and the conclusion was that all these printers used cartridges that still exists today in other printers. Because Apple just white labeled their printers/cartridges, and most of these parts are mass produced.

They came up with a bunch of models that fit the printer they talked about, but I can't find the thread any more..

Some guys said that it works by taking the cartridge to a office depot and find one that fits/looks the same, or that some of staff may recognize models that work. I remember my dad picket up a new cartridge at a random office depot for the StyleWriter about 10? years ago, so it seems to work at least some places.

You could also try to fill it yourself: http://www.jagshouse.com/stylewriterink.html

Edit; I found a list at apple.com that describe what 3rd party ink cartridges that work with the Stylewriter

 

[onlyonemac]

Thanks for all the info!

I don't have ink right now, but it doesn't matter . Unfortunately, I can't fit the printer drivers on my RAM disk, while still leaving enough space for the fonts.

But thanks anyway!

 

[olePigeon]

It's sad that nowadays HP, Epson, Canon et al have "expiring" ink cartridges. So if you buy an ink cartridge (even if it's brand new!) the printer will tell you it's "expired" after a certain date.

It's flat out criminal.

 

[techknight]

its because of that stupid "chip" you see on all of them. its actually a 1-wire EEPROM. it contains the ink levels, cartridge type, and fill date inside one eeprom.

I know this because I used to reprogram those on toner cartridges when i refilled them. I lost the program that did it though through a harddrive crash. sucked, i thought i had it in my emails but my emails did not, which coincidently was the same hard drive crash i lost the CAD file to my SCSI drive. Basically you would use any means to dump the EEPROM, which in my case was a 1-wire driver on an atmel and RS232 to read the bin off the eep.

the program would actually interpret the binary data dumped from the eeprom into actual legible information.

 

[LCGuy]

Worse still...is when they "run out" of ink when they still have some left...some are even half full when they "run out"!

 

[dougg3]

And even worse yet, there was a class-action lawsuit against Epson because of the "saying it's empty before it is" behavior. Epson ended up settling -- the settlement was basically for every printer you bought from Epson, you could get a $45 credit that you could only use at the Epson online store. I think there were other options to just get a check but you wouldn't get as much money out of it.

How much ink would that buy again? One or two complete sets of all colors maybe? And as part of the settlement Epson was able to deny any wrongdoing and nothing changed.

I wonder how well the lawyers cashed out on that one...

 

[onlyonemac]

Actually, keep 'em coming! Yesterday I made the biggest RAM disk I ever had, and I had the most free RAM I ever had! Here's how!

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=180477#p180477

 

[onlyonemac]

I got the printer out over the weekend! It still works, and I tried printing a couple of pages with the (empty) cartridge that was (fortunately) still in it.

It appears that this cartridge has been refilled once or twice before, but the most puzzling thing is that it's a Cannon BC-01 cartridge-why :?: ? But anyway, I refilled it with 2ml of ink from an "empty" modern cartridge , and it printed half a page, so is certainly working.

Now all I need is a jar of ink...

 

[kite210]

I have a StyleWriter 1200 (Uses BC-02 carts) that I used a lot back in high school (It's in storage at my parents house right now), the cartridges are extremely easy to refill on these printers. There is a small plastic plug on the side, all you have to do is remove it, fill the ink, and replace the plug. It also seems like it's fairly easy to find carts for them.

Also, and don't quote me on this, as I'm not sure, but I believe the difference between the BC-01 and BC-02 is the ink capacity.

I wish I still had my StyleWriters (They were both First model), but they both were fried due to a power surge, along with my ImageWriter II during a thunderstorm back in 2006.

 

[olePigeon]

And even worse yet, there was a class-action lawsuit against Epson because of the "saying it's empty before it is" behavior. Epson ended up settling -- the settlement was basically for every printer you bought from Epson, you could get a $45 credit that you could only use at the Epson online store. I think there were other options to just get a check but you wouldn't get as much money out of it.

Reminds me of one of the major Microsoft lawsuits. They were found to be overcharging customers for Windows 95. What was their punishment? Give everyone vouchers to buy more Microsoft products. They actually made money off the lawsuit.

 

[onlyonemac]

What sort of ink is best? How about Parker Quink bottles (easy to get over here)?

 

[kite210]

I believe just so as long as the ink is for inkjet printers, it should work.