[Michael Betz]

I understand your frustration. It’s always something.

Just today, it started printing really odd, distorted discs. I spent some time listening to it print, and I noticed that the sound had changed. Apparently, enough ink had gotten on the stainless bar that the print cartridges ride on that it was “hitching.” It cleaned up pretty well and – knock on wood – is continuing to work properly.

Glad you got your cable issue solved.

[Michael Betz]

That’s good to hear. It seems that the cable was the source of many if not all of our problems. I wish we would have diagnosed it sooner, but intermittent failures are the most difficult problems to troubleshoot.

We successfully printed 1,000 CD-Rs without errors, and ran 50 full DVDs without stopping – so we’re hopeful this is the start of a trend.

Our current challenge is figuring out the printer. It’s based on an HP engine and – apparently – determines ink level by counting the number of drops of ink emitted. Being a frugal sort, I like to hang onto the tri-ink cartridges if there is still a lot of – say – magenta left. Then, when we’re running red labels, I can use it up. The problem appears to be that the printer only remembers three cartridges and is easily confused.

Does your printer work in that same way?