[rescue] Phaser ink

[Andrew Weiss]

On Aug 20, 2008, at 2:27 PM, Curious George wrote:

>
> Yes, obviously.  :<  I imagine the "dried" (congealed?) ink
> clogs the nozzles and can't be completely "reliquified" -- at
> least not *reliably* and consistently enough for "print
> quality" so they just purge the nozzles comletely?
>
> I've not looked into the technology.  I imagine it is more
> similar to ink jet than, for example, thermal dye transfer?

Yes.  It's half laser, half inkjet.  The crayons are melted into the  
printhead which then sprays them on a rotating drum.  The pre-heated  
paper moves by and then is pressed against the drum where the ink  
sticks to the paper.  During a cleaning cycle a funky oval gasket  
presses against the print head and a vacuum is drawn by the vacuum  
pump to pull ink out.  The gasket pops back and there is a squeegee  
inside that then wipes the printhead in an up-down motion.  The cap- 
wipe is the biggest failure item on the older machines, not the  
printhead itself.  If you can't quite clean properly, check the cap- 
wipe gasket for cracks or complete failure.

I have almost all the Tektronix and Xerox service manuals up to a few  
years ago which include the 8200 as the last printer.

Andrew