🚀 go-pugleaf

When refilling DeskJet ink cartridges be aware of the fact that the cartridge
was designed to be disposable and our thermal resistors and orafices are
not designed to last "forever".  This coupled with various contaminants which
will inevitably get into the "roll your own" refill techniques implies
that print quality (mainly weak/clogged/dead nozzles) with degrade over time.
You might be able to refill a cartridge a few times, but don't expect to
do it forever.

One easy way to save money is to print all rough drafts in draft mode.
This is both faster and uses less ink.  If you print approximately one
rough draft for each letter quality draft the cost per page for ink will
be less than the cost per page for toner in a LaserJet.  Of course if
you also refill LaserJet cartridges this saves money, but refilled
LaserJet toner cartridges are grounds for voiding your warrantee (for
some good reasons).  With refilled DeskJet cartridges the worst that
can happen is damaging a disposable cartridge or getting ink all over
the place :-).

As for waterfast ink, if there was a cheap "over the counter" ink that
you could squirt into a DeskJet cartridge and get good print quality
on plain paper with waterfast results, don't you think HP would be using
it :-)?

As for our own progress on waterfast inks I am not allowed to give any
time frames, but I am allowed to say we have a high priority highly
staffed project working on the problem and we are confident that we will
have waterfast DeskJet ink cartridges at some point in the future.

One more note for you Atari users who think the DeskJet is too slow. We
just announced the DeskJet Plus.  It will do graphics 5X faster than
the DeskJet when the parallel port is used.  It also does text faster
and picks and moves paper twice as fast.  It is priced at $995 and the
DeskJet is now priced at $795.  I did most all of the performance improvements
on the DeskJet Plus and would be happy to provide more details upon
request.  I suspect that your Atari applications cannot generate graphics
as fast as the DeskJet Plus can print it.

Presently there is no official way to upgrade a DeskJet to a DeskJet Plus,
however it mainly involves a new logic board (faster CPU with more
address lines, more ROM and RAM) and a new paper motor, plus a few cheap
odds and ends.  It is not that hard to insert logic boards and replace
the motor (it was "self evident" to me, and I am a CS type).  I have
presently asked for permission to post the part numbers, cost, and 
instructions to do an upgrade but I have not gotten permission yet and
I probably will not get permission, but who knows.  If DeskJet owners
scream loudly enough an upgrade may be available, but it would be fairly
expensive (probably in the $300 to $400 range).  If you do the labor
yourself the actual parts might cost somewhere in the low $200 range.
There is only one aspect of the upgrade which is "subtle" and could be
hard to describe and hard to do yourself.

Dave "Mr. DeskJet" Neff
hp-sdd!hpvcla!neff