Hello, Jean.  Only 10 days ago, we were talking about - -

 JH> If I fail with the distilled/isopropyl, I'll surely give ammonia a
 JH> try. Not for too long, though, as I'd worry that the NH3 or the OH
 JH> might end up corrosive to the contacts on the ink cartridge.  rummage,
 JH> rummage - Looking at an old HP cartridge,  I'd use the ammonia in a
 JH> shallow pool, so as to contact only the inkjets on the bottom,  not the
 JH> contacts which run up the back side of the cartridge.

 JP>         Are these not gold plated and that explains their high cost ?

Hee.  No, I have a one-word explanation for the high cost - - profits.
Whatever gold there is likely just a spray job, with my guess only a
nominal value in Au.  On the old HP cartridge, those gold "contacts" are
on a plastic-foil looking strip, which comes up from down by where the
nozzles are.  It fits a bit loosely to the cartridge, and corrosive
solution which got behind there might tend to stay and could do some
mischief.

Seems I recall there being two technologies for making these inkjets
work.  One type has heaters in there which actually vaporize the ink to
expel it,  and the other type has little piezoelectric thingies in there
which expel the ink.  I was also worrying a bit about some of any
corrosive solution getting up into the jets into whatever mechanism
there is up in there that does that expelling of the ink.

In any event, it seems clear that whatever solvent gets up in there to
work on the dried-out ink has to be aggressive enough to at least get
the ink soft and fluid enough to be expelled, but gentle enough to not
damage the any and all cartridge components which it comes into contact
with.

A couple weeks ago, running around in the car on a Sunday afternoon, I
caught a portion of the Kim Komando (the computer goddess) Show on the
radio.  She was telling about this neat new HP printer available for
only $40, but she pointed out the prob - - the replacement cartridges
for the thing cost $40 themselves.  Not a good idea, IMO.

- - -  JimH.



... Jim, that cartridge cost you more than the whole printer did.- - Bubba
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