Canon MP700 Copier Printer Fax Scanner Tear-down

Some time back I wrote about the Canon MP700 that my neighbor had given me, and my attempts to get it running.  It WOULD have made a really nice printer, but Canon's apparent policy these days is "you must take the device to a certified service center".  I guess they weren't getting enough of some sort of kickback, or too many botched DIY repair guys like me calling them for help.  In any event, I wasn't putting any more money into it after sinking $53 into a new set of ink cartridges.  (which I still have,  opened and installed but never printed from, obviously, if anyone would like to help me not eat the full cost of them - I could ship them sealed in baggies).  So, I decided to tear it down and scrap every last good part I could from it.  In the process, I scored some really nice parts and made some cool finds.  I also learned a bit about how to build cable restraints into a device and how to daisy chain smaller ground plates throughout a system so that everything, no matter how remotely tucked away, has easy access to ground.

MP700 with scanner and upper paper handler removed

My favorite find was all the stepper motors.  So far I pulled three disk style motors out and there is one large cylinder motor which is the print carriage motivator.  There's also a smaller paper handler motor yet to be pulled.  I like stepper motors due to their potential for enabling automation in small projects - something I love to ponder but haven't had the time or resources to pursue.  Now I have at least some resources!

Naughty motor on the Prt Scr button launched
a hundred Save Screen Shot applets in Linux Mint.
I plopped on the Esc key to clear them.  Took about 10 min.

Perhaps the most interesting find was an actual TUBE on the analog circuit for the phone cable pass-thru.  A tube of all things, tiny as it is.  I thought that was pretty neat.  I tried to get a picture of it but it was just to small for my cell phone to see.  It was clear, shaped like a short Christmas tree light and had two unconnected anodes inside.

One obvious bit of goodness was all the momentary contact switches provided by the control board - around 40.  These are the same kinds used in your computer mouse.  So, not only do I have a good stock of them to work into my own projects, if my favorite mouse wears out, I have a chance of being able to restore it to good working order on my own, or I might even build my own mouse or controller.

The most numerous find was all the screws.  Machine screws, screws with lock washers, and ubiquitous self-tapping screws.  I good heap of them.  My wife said, "I'm sorry, I just don't get excited about the screws."   I just left that one alone.

Results from an afternoon spent un-screwing around.

A cool item was the flat bed scanner imaging bar.  It both emits and detects light.  At first I thought it might be cool to turn it into a hand held task light, but I might see if I can turn it into a motion activated area light for under the counter.  That would be pretty neat, I think.

Last but not least, I also harvested a number of nylon or plastic gears, rollers springs and shafts.  All good parts for building things.  My goal at some point is to build my own 3D printer using many of these parts.  I have just about enough just from this tear down, and I have another HP Ink Jet printer and a very old flat-bead scanner to tear down yet.

There's something therapeutic about tearing apart a device one screw at a time. I learned some things, had an actual excuse to listen to my 80's Pandora station somewhere besides work, and just enjoyed unwrapping the present my friend gave me one piece at a time!

Weekend Project: PVC Blow Gun

I'm a firm believer that in order to teach respect, the danger of a lack of a respect must be well understood.  In polite society, crassness is the least of the problems that flow from a lack of respect for one another.  With kids, respect is paramount to their well-being, both at home in a peaceful relationship with family members, and outside the home when dealing with other kids and adults.  Respectful children are almost universally recognized and praised as worthy companions.  We would all do well to be respectful to the people around us, and of the things around us... especially the dangerous things.

Dangerous things come in all forms.  Potential kinetic energy is all around us.  A rock perched on a deck railing has the potential energy of its mass and the height at which it is perched.  As a rock falls at 9.72 m/s squared, it gains momentum and speed.  When the rock comes to a stop, its kinetic energy is transferred into whatever it lands on, whether it's a siblings head or a toy car or just the good ol' earth.  Damage will be done in some form.  A failure to respect this fact will result in injury.

Putting kinetic energy to practical use is one of man's crowning achievements in the engineering arts.  The humble blow gun is a fantastic opportunity to look into such variables as mass, air pressure, drag, mass and velocity. To make a blow gun, you're only going to need a few thing easily had at Lowe's or any other reputable hard ware store.  I made ours from 3/4 inch pipe adapters (for the mouth piece) and ordinary 1/2 inch PVC schedule 40 pipe.  I used standard two-part epoxy to weld the pieces together to ensure a good seal that would hold however much pressure we could blow through it.  We used 30" pipe sections and made four blow guns so everyone can have fun.  Maybe we'll decorate and personalize them later.

1.  Use a disposable surface to mix your epoxy, such as a cardboard box.  This stuff is pretty much permanent and you don't want to apply any of it to yourself or your fellow humans, so beware.  Also, the fumes are icky.
Here we made a good puddle, mixed for 2 minutes, and then dipped the end of our pipe in it and
swirled it to coat thoroughly.  Twist together to coat the adapter and then press firmly for 30 seconds to set up.

Once assembly is complete, the mouth piece I chose needed a little finish work for comfortable use owing to a lip in the plastic casting.

2. File or sand down lip, if any, for comfort

When blowing through the gun, the pressure tends to move your lips out a bit which can become uncomfortable after a few shots.  I used 200 grit sand paper to smooth the inner surface down and all was well.

For our projectiles, we experimented with a few things.  I first bought a bag of 3" wooden golf tees.  As we found, they lacked sufficient mass to penetrate our test target, a cardboard box.  Next I tried sling-shot marbles with some cloth wadding in front of it to keep it from falling out the other end of the pipe.  The marbles did pretty good damage owing to their mass.  The weight of the shot and it's near perfect fit in the pipe allowed most of the force of air being blown through the pipe to go into accelerating the shot.  The end result was some pretty grievous dents in the box, but no penetration.  For the purposes of our experiments, we're equating penetration of a layer of card board with "kills a rabbit" though I doubt we'd be able to achieve that in real life.  We're just killing imaginary cardboard rabbits.

With our 30" gun, the range is pretty limited with most projectiles we came up with.  The best was a 16 penny nail pushed through an inch square of cloth.

3.  Cut a 1 inch square of scrap cloth and press a 16 penny nail through the center.

The nail has sufficient mass to carry through and penetrate target (hence "kills a rabbit").  The cloth provided two functions.  One, as shown below, it provided wadding to accept the air we were blowing down the pipe.  Without it, one's breath would simply pass around the nail and it would only slide out of the pipe rather than fly from the gun.

4.  Wrap wadding around nail head to form a plug.

Carefully inserting it into the back of the pipe keeps the nail from pulling the wadding all the way down the pipe.

5.  Our "dart" is loaded into the "breech" of our "gun".  
Rabbits everywhere tremble in fear and run away to hide in their holes.

Then, just aim and BLOW!!!

6.  Keeeled a rabbit!

The gun lacks any useful accuracy, but is NONE-THE-LESS dangerous.  A 16 penny nail flying through the air for 15 feet with enough kinetic energy to poke through a single sheet of cardboard will MOST DEFINITELY BLIND someone so unfortunate as to be in the way.  This makes this a very dangerous toy and ADULT supervision should be observed at all times.

Other than that, have fun cramming stuff into the back of the pipe and seeing how far a good hard blow will send it.  It took me about 25 shots with various projectiles to grow tired of it.  Good clean and dangerous fun.  Perfect for a father on any given weekend.

Taking it further

A longer bore would give more time on acceleration before the wadding cleared the end of the pipe and your blow was no longer providing thrust. Maybe 2 meters of pipe would be better?  This would improve the accuracy, and lethality of the gun.  One could also epoxy a small brad to the end of the pipe as a front sight so that more practiced aim could be taken over time.

As for the darts, I'm sure a hat pin and cotton ball would be a better choice.  The hat pin has less mass than the nail, but greater mass relative to the size of the impact area which contributes to the resultant penetration on target.  With our nail, the surface area to mass ratio is sufficient for the nail to carry through.  With the marble, the surface area was much higher relative to the mass, so all we got were some gnarly dents.

You can probably do better than an unmarked cardboard box as your target.  My eldest minion made some nice circles with a pen, but my vintage vision couldn't see them clearly at firing range!

Tearing it Down

I've mentioned in the past my habit of collecting useful bits of hardware and sorting them so I have what I need later.  Sometimes you have to dig for useful bits, or rather, you should.  In my case, I had some old kid hauling equipment in bad shape from years of garage storage and reuse as play items.  Sitting there, dirty, housing mice and spiders, a car seat and a stroller went under the knife tonight. And the tin snips, and the cordless screw driver, wrench, and a hand small log cum impromptu mallet.

As a result of an evening of gleeful destructive disassembly, I have added approximately 20 screws of various sizes, several different gauge and size springs, lots of webbing and buckles, some wheels destined for a garden cart, and some bolts.  Left over is everything too big and too specialized to be reusable for much else but target practice.  But, not wanting odd bits of indeterminately sourced plastic all over my back woods, they will bet drawn and quartered as soon as I can find a sawsall on the cheap someplace.

Tearing down hardware is but one mode of thought though when it comes to useful destruction.  This past winter I also tore the trim off of three windows, milled and installed new trim after filling cracks and gaps in the insulation around our replacement windows.  My dad was a bit shocked to see I had torn them down to the casements and crusty drywall edges, but it was the only way the job could be done correctly.  Sometimes you have to do that.

My neighbor, Lance, gets this.  He was retained as a body man to fix a spot of rust on my car.  Lance is a Mormon.  If you know anything about Mormons, you should know that they know how to prepare for the apocalypse.  That's why it was no surprised to me that Lance hunted every trace of rust in the rocker and quarter panel, forcibly extracted it with a saw, rebuilt from stock galvanized sheet metal and welded into place a complex set of replacement parts, filled and ground the welds and repainted half the side of the van to an exact match in color.

If you're going to fix something, it's worth doing it right the first time, being thoroughly destructive of the malignant portions as much as possible.  Leaving behind any scrap of the old, defective and sometimes hazardous bits is only inviting it's return later.  Some people understand this principle, and some people are unfortunately oblivious to the reason and need for it.

So, I hope you'll take this cheery bit of advise from a plugger...  when you run up against something that is just sick with defect and you can do something about it, be thorough in your work, even if a bit more destruction than you anticipated is needed to excise all the badness.  Then, start with good materials and a raw determination to finish the project.  Otherwise, your windows will end up like mine - trimmed but not yet stained! (oops!!)

Design, Analyze and Test Circuits Online!

I have been thinking of something like this for years, but the goodly geeks at MIT Nerd Kits have created it - and let's face it, they have the skills I lack in the area of electrical engineering.  Circuit Lab is a virtual schematic designer and tester with many great tools.  Funnily enough, the day my DSONano oscilloscope arrived via FedEx, I find out about Circuit Lab from Nerd Kits.  Now you can see what putting 100v into a 555 chip does without blowing it to smithereens!

Check them both out if you want to learn how to make tiny circuit bits do their thing in useful ways.

Nerdkits

Circuit Lab

I'm already in love with the DSONano just because it looks like a cool bit of Star Trek kit right in your hands.  It is packed with functions and I can't wait to actually be able to put it to practical use!

Clean it up!

It's been a good weekend for cleaning.  I've restored and perhaps saved several hundred dollars with some simple, if caustic, cleaning over the past week.

Intake Manifold

The 2002 Dodge Caravan Sport we drive as the family APC has been giving a "Bank 1 Too Lean" trouble code.  The 2002 does not use a Mass Air Flow sensor, but the older style fuel injection mixing which is acceleration based.  It's commonly used for trucks and isn't as good emission wise as mass-air flow but works well in that it is responsive in producing power.  This form of fuel air mixing is subject to air flow through the exhaust system, temperature and humidity.  The cheapest fix is possible the Idle Air Control valve is a bit sticky, allowing too much bleed-through of air at idle which can produce a rough idle (check) or the "lean" error (check).  So, today, one heavily cautioned bottle of intake cleaner was sprayed into the butterfly valve.  If you do so, follow the instructions on the can to the letter.  Wow.  A lot of brownish wash came out of the intake into the waiting wad of paper towels.

Starting was a bit tricky as you're instructed to spray with engine off.  It was very chuggy for the first several minutes but cleaned up it's operation with time and within 10 minutes I was able to idle up without it wanting to stall.  I took it for a drive as instructed and... amazingly, the throttle is in fact much more responsive and the idle is smoother, but we still have an engine check light.  Next guess is the injectors and I'm on treatment one of three for that.  We'll see if that handles it.  If not, most expensive saved for last, the catalytic converter could be getting plugged up.  At 95,000 miles, it shouldn't be all that bad but could be.

Savage 220D Sticking Firing Pin
A friend was sent home from a Christmas visit with a nice piece of hardware.  It's a 55 year old single barrel shot gun which was having some misfires.  Rem Oil is my favorite gun maintenance product, hands down.  After rods and swabs for cleaning barrels, Rem Oil is an essential in my book.  Spraying it into the firing pin hole in the breech face and into the trigger from below produced a little black wash and a now freely floating firing pin.  Previously, all coaxing could not get the pin to slide forward with the breech open.  Now a smack on the butt of the gun produces the head of the pin, shiny and clean, into sight.  And, no misfires today.  Getting this gun "fixed" could have wasted $90 or so bucks at a gunsmith who charges by the hour.

Canon MP 730 Wrong Cartridge Error
My neighbor made up his mind to toss his printer on the heap and asked if I wanted it for parts.  I thought I could get some bits for a Rep Rap from it so took it off his hands.  Then later, I thought, hmm... maybe this thing is just dirty?  Hooking it up and running through diagnostics found it was quite dirty.  I got nice and inked up cleaning the printer head inside and out with alcohol.  It also had some after market cartridges which I purchased brand replacements for.  The cleaning was probably the larger portion of the problems but the error does in fact seem to stem from the wrong cartridges.  Hopefully I can get it working with those I bought tonight, and thankfully, they can be returned if I don't use them to print (e.g. they don't clear the error).

Update
With new cartridges installed, the printer still gave the error.  I tracked down a service center via Canon's website (which helpfully suggested I could order a print head from them) and contacted the service provider.  I was cheerfully informed that, per Canon's new policy, I could not be sold a print head without service provided by them.  Meaning, I would have to pack up the printer, drive 50 miles, deposit it, wait for a tech to check it out and discover what I already know, email me an estimate and me agree to pay and so on.  Nice policy.  Looks like I've got some new ink and nothing to print with.  Maybe I can use the ink for some hand painted items?  The MF device will surely yield up some interesting parts for the bin.

The basement
With the new year upon us, I figured it was time to get more organized.  Can never have too much of that I suppose.  So for my big new year's bash, I'm cleaning, sorting, stacking, organizing... all to make life a little nicer in the man-cave.

Happy New Year!

Random Bits

If you're anything at all like me, you keep every useful screw, nail, fixture, zip tie, staple or other unidentifiable but undeniably useful bit that falls into your possession.  I typically find a cardboard box lid or other miscellaneous container with a cornucopia of things that have accumulated over time.  In the past, this overlooked treasure would go untapped.  One day, I happened upon some clear divided storage containers with adjustable dividers.

There are hundreds of types, styles and sizes of divided storage containers.  I found the clear ones to be most useful for spotting contents while closed, and the adjustable dividers handy for fitting different odds and ends.  I have three now as my addiction has grown with use.  One sorts small, delicate tools, like the wood carving awls I inherited from my grandmother, or the X-Acto micro fine saw and miter box, various surgical clamps, magnifiers and the like.  Another contains crafty items like beads, brass pins, generally neat bits and bobs that would work well for projects with the kids.  I can take this box and a glue gun, sit down with my grade school pups and have a good time.

The third box is probably the most essential.  In this I have sorted screws of several types into their own bins: sheet-metal, wood, self-tapping and bolts.  It also has various flavors of cast off hardware such as washers of many dimensions, nuts, a whole slew of round white plastic discs from some forgotten item, slivers of snipped up old credit cards for use as shims, small hinges, hooks, plugs... pretty much one bin for almost every type of thing I've happened across while cleaning up the garage, the desk or the workshop.

I say this is essential as when I start any new project, I am better than half likely to be able to source most of my hardware requirements from my very own reclaimed hardware store in a box.  Affixing the table leaf to the old changing table to make a kids work bench: each screw came from this box of treasures.  Same for some nails and some carriage bolts to mount the vice.

If you have a shop or a crafting room, you are hopelessly disorganized and wasting money buying little packages of what you need for new projects if you're not harvesting the left-overs from old projects with a simple little divided parts box.  I found mine for $5 a piece at Lowe's in the organizer aisle (made in the USA too) and I'm sure your local store has at least one similar item to bring order to chaos in your shop or lab.

Lamps and Lighting

I'm a picker of sorts.  I like finding deals and picking them out of the refuse for cheap or free when I can.  I was recently at Lowes and they had lamps on clearance.  I picked up a $170 tiffany style chandelier for $44.  Score.  Unfortunately not everyone appreciates stained glass.  I've been enthralled with it since I was a kid and the older boy at the neighbors where I was staying the weekend was doing some stained glass artwork.  I thought it was really cool at the time and as I grew to appreciate the difficulty of doing it well, seeing even somewhat mass-produced modern works from China, I like the overall effect the light brings to a living space.

Since my wife doesn't share the love of the lamp style, I have placed it in my workshop till we get my office built over the garage (some years from now I suppose).  It really changes the warmth level and with three bulbs instead of the one that had been, it's more evenly lit and useful to me. 

Four light (3 lit) Tiffany Chandler

As I was admiring the new fixture, I noticed my pile of stuff had grown when I recently upgraded our homes exterior lighting with motion sensing lamps.  Two of those I swapped out were good solid brass, needing polishing but good fixtures to hang on to.  One day I hope to incorporate them into my garden structure that remains planned for now, budgeted for much later.

Brass Carriage Lamp

Brass Sconce with beveled glass

Effective use of lighting is something I learned in my college days where I was privileged to study under a guy name Dean whom we called Dean-o.  The work I did for television sets was well regarded and I took it as a compliment when the Engineers said the cameras liked my lighting a lot.  It was a job I enjoyed because it was something I could often do at my own pace and take time to be creative and take pride in.  Hours spent 30 feet above the studio floor adjusting spots, floods, elipticals and soft boxes.  Fun times, hard work, lousy pay. :-)

On that thought, I captured a few shots of my finished basement area to illustrate how a table lamp in the right place can create much nicer lighting and interest than plain overhead lighting.  Below are two different views, the first with overhead lighting, the second with some old but nice table lamps.

My Desk

Overhead, flat lighting at desk

Overhead off, lamps on - warm and cozy corner

 The lamp is a hand-me down wood carved Benjamin Franklin-esque lamp lighter.  Situated behind my monitors, there is no glare but plenty of light on my work surface.  This second image captures some of the warmth the light adds.  It really helps demarcate my "at work" office which has cold overhead lights from my "at home" office which is typically lit as shown.  I like to feel like I'm in a different place altogether aside from just geographic changes between work-work and home-work, and the lighting helps a lot.

The Reading Nook

Overhead Lighting

Overhead off, lamps on - interesting faux window when viewed from across the room.

The paint in the built-in nook, which will one day have glass shelves for curios, has some luminous components that help reflect and amplify the light from the lamp.  I love the effect this has when I come down to the basement, current effective office, to work.  It's not perfect of course, the overhead lacks a finished ceiling or final lighting fixtures which will vastly improve things if I ever get around to completing them.  In the mean time, the lamps bring a nice comfort level to the basement living area.

Lamps and lighting do a lot to sculpt our living spaces and should be given ample consideration as an inexpensive and dramatic way to revive a living or work space.