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Agreed. We usually recommend against such things, even when they're done in a subtle fashion, because the end result just doesn't look right.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I once worked on a project for a well-known purveyor of expensive ink where we measured the volume of individual drops of ink from cartridges. I believe the units used were picoliters.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Rick York wrote: I believe the units used were picoliters
Our drops range from 11pL down to around 6pL, depending on the product line and resolution.
One of our more inventive bits of salesmanship was in a poster displayed at a recent show: "If our ink drops were raindrops, we would be laying down the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool every second." 
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: we would be laying down the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool every second."
That would make the olympics a lot more fun.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Gotta love "those" sorts of units. How many Libraries of Congress is that (as the meme goes)?
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Hmm. The math shouldn't be too hard.
Each roll of paper is on the order of 40,000 ft. Assume that 1 ft of paper = 4 printed pages (2 sheets, front and back). A roll of paper is therefore about 160,000 pages. The Library of Congress contains approximately 160 million items. Assuming 100 pages per item, that's 1.6x1010 pages, or 100,000 rolls of paper. At 1 roll of paper per hour, it would take one of our machines 11.4 years printing continuously at max speed 24/7/365 to print 1 Library of Congress.
Of course this omits mandatory maintenance and such, so you might have warranty issues  .
Software Zen: delete this;
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How about this idea?
On-demand ink.
The pigment is stored as a powder, and only become "ink" when mixed with water (or whatever), which occurs when you start a job.
Silly idea? Or did I just blow a potential gazillion dollars in patent licensing?
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I see some practical issues, namely ensuring that the liquid is properly mixed with the powder, that no lumps of powder remain in the liquid, etc. These problems are compounded by the need to mix tiny amounts, and do so fast enough to feed the print head.
If you can solve the problems, you may have a patentable idea.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Probably not mixed per-job, but per session? Or even per-day, if you print frequently? (And then the heads get flushed when you shut down, too?)
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No idea is truly silly, but given the work we go through to manage ink concentration and other characteristics, plus the Rube Goldberg apparatus in our ink production plant downstairs, I don't think it would be quite that easy.
Nice try though.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: Inkjet works best when used frequently
I've been very pleasantly surprised by our printer (just a cheap Canon Pixma) in this regard - we print, on average, maybe once a month, and we have had problems with clogging with the printer we had before this one (an Epson, IIRC). This one, though? It's worked perfectly every time (🤞). The only complaint I have with it is that the mechanical bits seem to whir and hum, doing nothing productive, for a minute or so before the first page pops out. Subsequent pages come out quickly enough...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Stuart Dootson wrote: the mechanical bits seem to whir and hum, doing nothing productive, for a minute or so before the first page pops out
Taking an experienced guess they are 'cleaning' the printhead and related plumbing after a long shutdown period by flushing ink through it. We do essentially the same thing with secondary (non-ink) fluids.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Some of it, I'm sure - but there's also a lot of sound that seems to me to be the paper feed wheels whizzing around, so IDK...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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It's possible they're also moving the printhead into a cleaning position, where discharge from the jets during the cleaning process lands on an absorbent pad rather than the paper handling mechanism. I've seen this approach in one of my HP desktop printers at home.
Software Zen: delete this;
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My cheapish Epson (Stylus CX7400) is reasonably happy with only printing a few times a year; at most I need to do a manual head cleaning about half the time. My printing consists of a half dozen or so random small jobs throughout the year and a big stack of hard copy tax form backup every spring.
I debate replacing it due to its age every time I order ink; but after 12 years it's not only outlasted every other printer I've owned, but it's almost to the point of outlasting the combined lifetime of every inkjet printer I've used tracing back to the 1st one my parents got when I was a kid.
Other than needing to do manual cleaning cycles after extended idleness; my only real complaint is that a year or two ago W10 "ate" the tray app that administered it, and the way the dialog bits now show up buried in settings are a pain to use because I can never remember how to find the part I need.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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My issue with the printer scenario is:
 Inkjets are cheaper to buy than laserjets
Inkjets are generally smaller than laserjets
That makes inkjets the natural choice for the home user.
However, most home users don't print that much / that often. And ink dries out if not used in a while, so even more costly (and it's already more costly than a laserjet to run before this added inefficiency). 
So far I've been unable to discover a home printer optimised for the person who prints 5-6 pages once a month, mostly in black & white with the occasional colour logo/image; though I get the impression this is the scenario most home users are in.
There are printing services, but that means a trip into town; so the last minute print-out before an assignment's due, or remembering to print off tickets as you're on your way out the door to a gig don't fit well with that solution. 
One idea I had was to create a service that helps you find neighbours with printers, so you can share such resources; i.e. when you need to print it'll find someone within 5 minutes walk of your house who's in, and allow you to print to their printer, charge you for the use, and then you pop round and grab it. That's also more environmentally friendly as it means you don't have a neighbourhood full of unused printers.
What do people think?
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John Bevan wrote: Inkjets are generally smaller than laserjets
I'd have to disagree on that one: the Epson I took out was 46x32x24, and the Samsung is 38x31x21
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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It's similar to the model used by Uber et al. What's wrong with that?
(Other than the fact that they've yet to make a profit.  )
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I have not followed the recent Lounge discussions, but most of us normal beings buy consumer printers like Canon, HP, Lexmark and stuff.
All theses brands have:
- Programmed obsolescence of about one year.
- Ink suck-up regardless of how frequent the printer is used or not. I had a bunch of inkjet printers in the past, and about 80% of the ink was used to "clean the heads" or whatever bizarre process was requested every freaking time I fired up the machine.
The business is to sell ink, not to offer any quality printing. The programmed obsolescence forces you to buy another machine, and ... ink, since either the cartridges format has changed or the delivered ink cartridges are almost empty. So, it is all about ink[^].
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That's an accurate, if cynical, description of how the inkjet business model works. The consumer market unfortunately exhibits the "planned obsolescence" behavior a lot more than in my neck of the woods. We have one product developed in the mid 1990's that we are still refurbishing and supporting to this day. Some of our customers get 10,000 hours or more of life out of their printheads when the design life was originally 2,000 hours.
Software Zen: delete this;
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for any number nerds
17 feet per second == 11.59 miles per hour (google unit converter)
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And in our case, the magic [cue sparkles] number 1,000 feet per minute. 
Software Zen: delete this;
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