4 ms·

I have a Canon printer, I actually can't trust that their print nozzle won't get jammed up after sitting idle for a while. So I had claude setup a systemd scrip

I have a Canon printer, I actually can't trust that their print nozzle won't get jammed up after sitting idle for a while. So I had claude setup a systemd script to print a picture of my dog every week, I ensure it has enough CMYK spectrum to stress the printer. Its a nice surprise every monday as I sit on my desk to see a sudden picture pop up from the printer :)

tdeck 4mo ago
I wish printers could have a mode like this to print random images from an album, or a calendar, rather than wastefully draining ink into a sponge every few days. If nothing else, maybe it could be some kid's high school science fair project idea.
- sunrunner 4mo ago
  How about printing a QR code for a randomly generated private key for Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin wallet, then every few days you get a tiny moment of excitement, hope, and then disappointment. It's still wasteful, but it could pay off big time?
  - NSUserDefaults 4mo ago
    Or if you have a printer/scanner combo, you can turn it into a pen pal!
  - tekno45 4mo ago
    this is an amazing youtube video idea if you could get a type writer to do it.
    - sunrunner 4mo ago
      Maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm sure there was something on HN a few weeks ago about an electric typewriter that someone had connected to (I'm guessing) a Raspberry Pi? My search-fu is currently failing to find anything particularly recently, at the moment.
magicalhippo 4mo ago
Dad had an Deskjet 720 or something like that. It sat unused and powered off for a couple of years after he passed, until I needed a color print. Didn't do anything but hook it up to power and print. Took about 1/5 of a page until all colors were back in action, after that it printed about 20 pages flawlessly.
ThePowerOfFuet 4mo ago
Laser printers are your friend. The savings on consumables alone will make it pay for itself.
- hmng 4mo ago
  Not to mention more water resistant, when printing things like envelopes.
- tobyhinloopen 4mo ago
  Epson Ecotank. I’ve been using mine for years and I only had to buy new ink once. And I printed a lot of photos, notes, documents, etc
  - Blackthorn 4mo ago
    Those will still get their nozzles clogged if you don't run them.
    - ssl-3 4mo ago
      This is the part where I get to point out that Brother inkjets do a little dance ~every day that keeps the heads fresh. They do this on their own as for long as they're powered up. This allows them to work well even if years go by between prints. It's a very thoughtful design element. (They don't survive sitting for months and months unpowered on a shelf very well, but... you'll have that.)
    - tobyhinloopen 4mo ago
      I never had that happen to me, in all the years I owned it. It also doesn’t randomly wake up and throw my ink away, and sometimes it sits weeks unused. It’s in my home office, so I would know if it randomly wakes up. The only bad thing is that it can get messy if you select the wrong paper type and the ink will not be absorbed by the paper, making the rollers dirty. That’s annoying but fixable, and preventable by not selecting the wrong paper type.
- criddell 4mo ago
RicoElectrico 4mo ago
I was about to recommend a cheap OKI LED color printer (I think C322dn); alas they withdrew from consumer market :/ The colors are super nice and uniform, even if the maximum resolution is only 600 dpi - and the toner won't dry out, which was my brother's crucial purchase criterion; we had HP inkjet clogged more than once.
tombert 4mo ago
I used to do something similar with an old Samsung ML-2010 back when I was in college the first time around. I think it was software and not hardware, but for some reason when I had that printer hooked up to my computer and idle for more than a week, it would simply stop printing. I probably could have dug through logs and figured it out, but I instead set up a cron job to print a test page every Monday and Thursday. The test pages would just have something on the top that said something like LOL PRINTER WORKS. This wasn't actually as wasteful as it sounds; I was taking a boatload of math courses and needed tons of scratch paper in order to do my problems. Since it was scratch paper and would eventually end up in the trash anyway, I would usually prioritize doing my problems on failed prints and/or test prints, and I would usually exhaust those and then use blank paper afterwards.

tdeck 4mo ago

I wish printers could have a mode like this to print random images from an album, or a calendar, rather than wastefully draining ink into a sponge every few days. If nothing else, maybe it could be some kid's high school science fair project idea.

sunrunner 4mo ago
How about printing a QR code for a randomly generated private key for Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin wallet, then every few days you get a tiny moment of excitement, hope, and then disappointment. It's still wasteful, but it could pay off big time?
- NSUserDefaults 4mo ago
  Or if you have a printer/scanner combo, you can turn it into a pen pal!
- tekno45 4mo ago
  this is an amazing youtube video idea if you could get a type writer to do it.
  - sunrunner 4mo ago
    Maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm sure there was something on HN a few weeks ago about an electric typewriter that someone had connected to (I'm guessing) a Raspberry Pi? My search-fu is currently failing to find anything particularly recently, at the moment.

magicalhippo 4mo ago

Dad had an Deskjet 720 or something like that. It sat unused and powered off for a couple of years after he passed, until I needed a color print. Didn't do anything but hook it up to power and print. Took about 1/5 of a page until all colors were back in action, after that it printed about 20 pages flawlessly.

ThePowerOfFuet 4mo ago

Laser printers are your friend. The savings on consumables alone will make it pay for itself.

hmng 4mo ago
Not to mention more water resistant, when printing things like envelopes.
tobyhinloopen 4mo ago
Epson Ecotank. I’ve been using mine for years and I only had to buy new ink once. And I printed a lot of photos, notes, documents, etc
- Blackthorn 4mo ago
  Those will still get their nozzles clogged if you don't run them.
  - ssl-3 4mo ago
    This is the part where I get to point out that Brother inkjets do a little dance ~every day that keeps the heads fresh. They do this on their own as for long as they're powered up. This allows them to work well even if years go by between prints. It's a very thoughtful design element. (They don't survive sitting for months and months unpowered on a shelf very well, but... you'll have that.)
  - tobyhinloopen 4mo ago
    I never had that happen to me, in all the years I owned it. It also doesn’t randomly wake up and throw my ink away, and sometimes it sits weeks unused. It’s in my home office, so I would know if it randomly wakes up. The only bad thing is that it can get messy if you select the wrong paper type and the ink will not be absorbed by the paper, making the rollers dirty. That’s annoying but fixable, and preventable by not selecting the wrong paper type.
criddell 4mo ago

RicoElectrico 4mo ago

I was about to recommend a cheap OKI LED color printer (I think C322dn); alas they withdrew from consumer market :/ The colors are super nice and uniform, even if the maximum resolution is only 600 dpi - and the toner won't dry out, which was my brother's crucial purchase criterion; we had HP inkjet clogged more than once.

tombert 4mo ago

I used to do something similar with an old Samsung ML-2010 back when I was in college the first time around. I think it was software and not hardware, but for some reason when I had that printer hooked up to my computer and idle for more than a week, it would simply stop printing. I probably could have dug through logs and figured it out, but I instead set up a cron job to print a test page every Monday and Thursday. The test pages would just have something on the top that said something like LOL PRINTER WORKS. This wasn't actually as wasteful as it sounds; I was taking a boatload of math courses and needed tons of scratch paper in order to do my problems. Since it was scratch paper and would eventually end up in the trash anyway, I would usually prioritize doing my problems on failed prints and/or test prints, and I would usually exhaust those and then use blank paper afterwards.