Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:27030 alt.flame:3521
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,alt.flame
Subject: Re: Paint Jet Printers
Message-ID: <9958@gryphon.COM>
Date: 24 Dec 88 06:46:30 GMT
References: <1614@fbog.UUCP> <5660024@hpcvca.HP.COM>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 47

In article <5660024@hpcvca.HP.COM> another paranoid HP pinhead wrote:
>> I asked Nick Flor in San Diego HP, who wrote the firmware for the
>> printer what was in the inks and the pinhead babbled on about
>> ``proprietry formulas''. Yeah right.
>> 	richard@gryphon.COM
>
>He could loose his job if he told you anything else.  This is a very
>competitive industry.  A great deal of effort goes into developing ink
>formulas.

1) The question I originally asked of Nick was ``are the inks water
    based, like the xerox inks, or alcohol based like the Canon
   inks''. I can understand Nicks reluctence to disseminate the
   complete formula (even if he knew it), but nit saying what
   the base was is ludicrous. Opening a cartdridge and smelling the
   stuff will let you know in a second.

2) There are lots of reasons to document whats in the ink. Xerox, with
   it's 4020 color ink jet printer supplied a manual with the title:
   ``product safty report'' that has as much data as you'd want on
   the inks - LD50, radiation harardm flammability, and, what the
   inks ar comprised of (water, propylene glycol, pigments). It makes
   sense when you think that if you have a bunch of these things
   in storage and they start burning, you need to be able to tell
   the nice fire department people what exactly is burning. Plus
   there are ethical reasons. If you make nice blues with ferous
   cyanide, which is very pretty blue, thats all well and good,
   but you probably will not want to store the {new|used} ink
   cartridges where a young child can get at them.

3) If you really want to know whats in something, you call up and
   and imply you are a doctor, and that you have a kid here who
   just swallowed a bunch of the stuff and you need to know
   whats in it, and you need to know NOW.  Before the word
   ``lawsuit'' forms in their heads, they've told you whats
   in the stuff and in what concentrations. Handy sometimes.

The HP ink is chemically nothing very special.

And if it's ``such a competative industry'' how come HP Paintjets
red ink is kinda orange? Tektronix, for their 4692 ink jet printer
has outstanding, pure, saturated colours. Their reds are red.
Period. 


-- 
               ``Wake me up when it's time to go to sleep''
richard@gryphon.COM {b'bone}!gryphon!richard  gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov