DID YOU KNOW...

And I'm sure you might not, so I'm here to tell you.  Catchy start, isn't it?

I was having problems with the printer yesterday.  Printed an e-mail and the letterhead came out all wonky.  So, I did a test print and it came out all wonky as well.  Oh-kaaay.  Time to change the print cartridge.

Bought a twin pack a while back and there was still one left in it.  Pulled it out, dropped it in, did the whole "new cartridge setup" thing.  Life is good.

Wonky printing.  Only with less color this time.  What is with this?  Check everything out.  Looked okay.  Tried "priming" the cartridge.  Nope.  Still wonky.

Damn.

I had another cartridge as a spare.  Dropped that one in.  Repeated all the steps.  Wonky printing, like the other new one.  Alright.  This just isn't right.

Put the old one back in, still got lousy printing, but with more color.  So I cleaned the cartridge heads, following the instructions.  No better.  What really puzzled me was, I could "see" the ink on the heads.  It was coming out, but not on paper.  The colors just weren't firing.

I went through all my settings to make sure I didn't have a switch turned off or something.  Played with this and played with that.  No dice.  By now I am thinking about the definition of insanity.  You know; try the same thing over and over yet expect different results.

I finally had to leave for work.  Talked to Dudette during a break and told her about it.  She said she'd look at it and see what she could see.  "Different eyes" type of thing.  I was so afraid that the printer was toast and shopping for a new one didn't really thrill me.

When I talked to her at the next break, she said she had it up and running.  Waa-Hoo!

"What was wrong with it?"

"The cartridges had expired."

"Excuse me?"

"We bought them XX years ago.  Apparently they expire.  I found a "sell/use by" date on them.  They were old.  So I bought a new one and it is working fine."

Darling Dudette saves the day.

I didn't know ink was like milk.  Either the ink goes bad or the jets clog up, whatever.  Now we know that buying ink in bulk may not be such a smart idea.  Have YOU priced ink cartridges lately?

Learn something new every day.

Learning happens.

Comments

[Cop Car]

Yes, I have priced color cartridges, lately; but, I can't find one for HH's printer at any price. He has Uncle M's old one (or maybe it belonged to one of his kids?) Buffy had the excellent idea that I could have the quilt pieces that I wanted printed done at a commercial copy place. How smart is that?! And, I'm certain that it'll be less trouble than messing around with HH's printer.

[Wichi Dude]

I hadn't thought of that. Cool idea. GO!! Buffy.

[martie]

Darn! I didn't know that - and what's worse is that I hoard my ink refills because the store so rarely has them in! Guess I'll be checking "sell by" dates this weekend. Learn something new everyday. Thanks!

[bod]

glad i didnt drink the last lot then.

[bogie]

I didn't know that ink has sell-by dates either. Of course since I break printers at a faster pace than I blow up computers, any ink I get doesn't have a chance to go bad!