I struggled if I should put this in what did you do today or what did you do to your Ranger today. “Do“ implies that you got something done. That really didn’t happen. And what I did to my Ranger, was I put over 35 miles on it going to the office depot that’s 3.8 miles from my house.
I have a beautiful HP 7740 printer. 11 x 17 all in one print, scan, etc. It’s absolutely gorgeous. It doesn’t print, but it’s a real beauty. I need the 11 x 17 for my engineering work.
When I bought it several years ago, coincidentally, there was an HP rep in the store when I went looking. When asked about using remanufactured ink or refilling the ink, he said “HP doesn’t like it, but you can do it.“. So I bought it. I’ve been very happy with it for the first four or five years.
Then HP started doing updates that have nothing to do with the functionality of the printer, they are to defeat the aftermarket ink cartridges, which are 1/3 the cost of the HP cartridges, and there is no discernible difference in the quality of the printing.
Up until a week or 10 days ago, I could push a few extra buttons, and the remanufactured cartridges would still work.
Side step, I bought a new computer/laptop because my old one kept choking on “not enough storage.” I had it about a month and a half and still hadn’t changed my stuff over, so I bit the bullet and went to the computer store and they changed everything over and set it up for $150. Money well spent.
While they were doing it, they looked at the memory in my old computer which I want to keep and use for a sign cutting machine for graphics for my toys, and they said it really didn’t have a problem with the memory, but almost 40% of it was HP stuff. When they took out everything except the actual printer drivers, the old machine worked fine.
I hooked up the new one to the HP printer, which was working fine with remanufactured cartridges a week ago, and I got an error message.
In the last two days, I have bought about $150 in genuine HP cartridges, and I have spent almost 6 hours on tech-support on the phone. Lincoln got to ride around in the truck, but on the fifth trip, he was a little bored. And now all the cartridges appear to function properly except the red cartridge. And I did get another red cartridge and swapped it out.
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If you look at the top, you’ll probably immediately realize that this call was incredibly swift because I had already learned a lot of the system from the previous two phone calls.
I firmly believe, if I spend enough money, in the next two or three days, I will be able to print a single sheet of paper.
If not, I think I’m going to put my big toe and granddaddy‘s vice and crank it until it’s flat as a sheet of paper while I put a salty pretzel in my eye as deep as my ear. It will take less time, be less painful, and just as productive.
Later tonight, I’m going to see if I can rig something to reach inside and clean the printer side contacts for the red cartridge…..
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hell yeah. Just need an axle kit and figure out what to do about a tounge that already has numbers and a registration.
