On 6/7/21 7:37 PM, Jerry Davis wrote:
Something Charles Hudson mentioned about his DMP105 yesterday led me to
ask this question:
Has anyone had any good experiences with non-OEM or re-inked printer
ribbons from companies like ribbonsunlimited.com
<http://ribbonsunlimited.com>?
I've cleaned and repaired a DMP110 that came with some old Radio Shack
ribbons. The old ribbons still worked and print evenly, but they are
dry and print very light. The 3rd party ribbons I've tried print very
unevenly. A band of dark followed by light followed by dark. And the
print quality from these ribbons seems rough, even by dot matrix standards.
Until the ribbon physically wears out from the pounding, or the sponge
inside the card degrades, you can use oil-based stamp pad ink to re-ink
them properly.
Stamp pad ink comes in two main varieties, water/glycerine based and oil
based. The oil based can be either mineral oil or silicone sometimes,
but the important thing is just make sure you don't get the water or
glycerine type. Not just because it dries out obviously, but because the
oil is how the impact pins get lubricated.
Other than that, stamp pad ink is the right consistency and oil-based
etc and you can actually get it readily, while, you used to be able to
buy matrix ribbon ink from the same kinds of places that sold ink jet
and toner refill kits, but not any more. You can get it even locally
without waiting not just on-line. Both office and art supply places have it.
A few drops goes a long way. Small bottles like for eye drops (like what
Staples etc will have) are plenty.
You get the light/dark evened out by just waiting, or by a few cycles of
winding the ribbon, wait a day, wind some more, etc. I've never seen a
new ribbon have dry patches like that, but when you first re-ink an old
ribbon it will of course. The ink soaks and travels around and evens out
by itself over time, but only among all the parts that are bunched up
touching each other. The part that's out in the loop not packet in the
case can get light patches. But just wind the ribbon to cycle the dry
part into the case and leave it like that a while.
Probably in normal for-real use like if it was 1995 and you were
actually printing things at work all day, any light spots like that
would have evened out naturally within a day or so just from the natural
cycling of the ribbon. Especially for cartridges that include a sponge
roller inside. Some have that, some don't.
--
bkw
