Mitchell Spector (mitch2gs@hotmail.com) writes:
Jeff Blakeney <CUTjblakeney@sympatico.ca> wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2005 08:35:58 -0400, "Bill Garber"
<willy46pa@comcast.net> wrote:
I just left www.123Inkjets.com and they have them for $3.95,
with better prices if you buy quantities of 2-9 at $3.45, and
for 10+ they are $2.95 each. Man, how can you beat that?
Several years ago I picked up aproximately 360 black ImageWriter
ribbons at a Radio Shack warehouse sale. I only wanted to pick some
up for myself but when the guy saw me looking at them and found out I
had a use for them, he ended up pulling a bunch of boxes out and he
made me a deal.
What's the shelf life for unused printer ribbons? This thread reminded me
that I have about a half-dozen black ImageWriter ribbons from the early 90's
and even a color ribbon from 1988. They're still new and wrapped in plastic,
but is it possible they could have dried out from age?
Still have a pair of ImageWriter II's (which out lasted the StyleWriter 1
which mysteriously stopped working after a year) and a beige ImageWriter 1.
Mitchell Spector
I don't think it's particularly relevant. Back in the days of teletype
machines and typewriters, people would rejuvenate ribbons by adding
some oil, specifically WD-40 in more recent years. (I have no idea
if there was anything special about WD-40, or simply that it was handy.)
When computer printers came along, the same tip would appear. I've
done it, you add a drop, wind the ribbon a bit, and add another drop
and so on. Then you let it sit for a while, so the oil spreads throughout
the ribbon. My recollection is that if the ink was fairly gone, this
didn't help too much, but if it was simply a matter of being dried out,
it would help a lot.
I suppose one could use ink in a similar scheme.
The good thing about never used ribbons is that the ribbon itself
has seen no use. That seems a bigger issue than a dried out ribbon.