Applefritter - Peripherals

Fixing the Epson 'Prints Blank Pages' Problem

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:08:02 -0800

Recently, after changing out the blank ink tank on my finacee's Epson CX5400 multifunction inkjet printer, the printer began printing nothing but blank pages. Even after doing multiple head cleanings and test prints, pages would emerge from the printer completely blank. After some research, a number of fellow CX5400 owners have reported having the same problems, to the extent that the term "design flaw" became a common theme. I've owned several Epson printers and have had, generally, good luck with them. I was always somewhat suspicious of Epson's philosophy of making the print heads a permanent part of the printer and having the only replaceable part be the ink tanks, but it produced good-looking prints so it didn't bother me. Now I know, unfortunately, that this system is both a blessing and a curse. Before we delve into how to fix your blank-page-printing problem, a quick explanation on how Epson's ink delivery system works (or, rather, how it appears Epson's ink delivery system works, because Epson isn't exactly willing to divulge its trade secrets) is in order. There are a few components to the delivery system. First, you have the ink tanks. Early Epson tanks were just that; plastic boxes with a sponge inside saturated with ink. Newer tanks have a small PCB with a flash chip on it, so the printer can tell if a tank is new or used, or if it's an Epson brand cartridge or a generic replacement. In either case, the basic functionality is that it's a holder for the ink. Next in the chain are the ink tubes and primer. I've heard conflicting reports on how Epson printers get the ink out of the tanks; some believe that the tanks are positively pressurized when first installed, so that ink shoots out of the tank when the printer needs it. Other reports say that the printer puts negative pressure on the cartridge to draw ink out of it. Once the printer has the ink out of the cartridge, there are two places it can go, to either the print heads or to the purge tube. The print heads are what makes the ink spray onto the paper; the purge tube is where the ink goes when the printer primes new cartridges and cleans dirty print heads. Many cases of the "prints blank pages" problem occur right after installing new ink tanks. People have literally removed empty tanks from printers that work perfectly, and installed new tanks to find that the printer delivers blank pages (this happened to me). Since it's highly unlikely that the print heads have become clogged during the 5 minutes it takes to swap out the cartridges, the problem has to be elsewhere in the ink delivery system. So here's what happens when you install a new ink tank: 1. The new tank is installed, the printer recognizes that it's a new tank, and begins the priming sequence. 2. The printer starts to prime the tank. Ink comes out of each tank and is directed to the purge tube. 3. The ink flows through the purge tube into the internal absorbent pad. 4. After a couple seconds, the printer stops the priming sequence and probably does a quick print head cleaning. Now, a few people have done some in-depth troubleshooting and found that the "prints blank pages" problem is actually caused by a clogged purge tube. While this may not immediately make sense (you may be thinking, "so what if the tube is clogged, the ink will just spill inside the printer elsewhere"), here's what my research suggests happens when the problem occurs: 1. The new tank is installed, the printer recognizes that it's a new tank, and begins the priming sequence. 2. The printer starts to prime the tank. Ink comes out of each tank and is directed to the purge tube. 3. The tube is blocked, so the ink has nowhere to go. 4. After a couple seconds, the printer stops the priming sequence. Epson's ink delivery system appears to be a sealed system, so when the ink has nowhere to go in step 3, little ink has actually escaped the new ink tanks. This means they're not primed correctly, and won't deliver ink as they need to when the printer goes to print. So unless the purge tube gets cleaned out, you can swap tanks and perform head cleanings until the cows come home and it won't do any good. Now that there's a basic understanding of what's going on, here's how to try to fix the problem. This guide is meant to be model-agnostic; I did this procedure to a Stylus CX5400 multifunction, but it should be similar for most Epson inkjets made in the past few years. It's unknown if new Epsons still have this problem, as it usually takes a year or more to surface. The first thing you need to do is prepare your work surface. You'll need a big table, preferably one you don't care too much about. If all you have is your good kitchen table, then it's a good idea to slice open a tall kitchen garbage bag to make one large sheet, and tape it to the table to protect it. Next, you'll need the following tools and supplies: You'll need: 1. Needlenose pliers 2. Philips screwdriver 3. 10mL syringe (preferably two) -- see note on this below 4. Superglue for when you break something (you probably will break something, like I did) 5. Paper towels, lots and lots of paper towels 6. Your sanity-maintaining drink of choice 7. Two plastic cups (one filled with water, the other empty, not pictured) 8. An assistant, if you have one (not pictured) 9. Several hours to spend wrestling with the printer and getting ink all over the place (and yourself) 10. The willingness to buy a new printer if you end up breaking yours attempting the repair, or if the repair doesn't fix the problem (this is a big one) Here's the note about the 10mL syringes: If you don't live with a chemist as I do, you can probably find 10mL syringes at a pharmacy or medical supply store. You need just the syringe itself; do not buy hypodermic syringes (the kind with the needle attached). You need to be able to attach the syringe to the tubing inside the printer. (I used a Becton Dickinson 301029 10mL Luer-Lock slip-tip non-sterile syringe, and found it to fit on the tubing well. The catheter-tip version may work better, though, as it ultimately has a narrower tip, which may allow it to be fitted to some of the smaller tubes.) So here's the step-by-step: 1. On your computer, tell the printer you're going to replace the ink tanks. This is to get the printer to move the tank/print head assembly out of its home position, and also allow you to remove the tanks. Once the printer has moved the assembly and is waiting for you to replace the tanks, unplug the printer. If you try to turn the printer off with the button first, it will move the assembly back, so what you need to do is simply pull the power cord. 2. Disconnect the printer from the computer, remove the paper from the printer, and put the printer on your work surface. 3. Take out the ink tanks and set them on some paper towels out of the way. 4. Most likely you'll need to remove at least the printer's top cover in order to access the purge tube. If your printer is a multifunction, you'll have to remove the scanner assembly first. On the CX5400, it was a matter of removing two screws on the back by the hinges, then removing a panel on the left side and disconnecting the data cables. The scanner assembly then just lifted off and away. Your mileage may vary depending on the model you have, but I suspect the process is similar amongst the multifunction. 5. Most newer Epsons have two-part casings: a beige upper part, and a dark grey lower part. Usually it's just a few screws to remove the upper part. There may be a couple cables that need to be disconnected (for the power light and buttons, etc.) so check for this before you completely lift away the top cover. 6. You should, at this point, be looking at the printer's guts attached to the bottom cover. The purge tube is going to be on the right side of the printer (the right side is typically the home position; it's possible some printers may be different). On my CX5400, there's a white plastic tray that slides left and right based on which tank the printer is priming. Here's a pic of what the tray looks like when slid all the way to the right: Notice the black hose coming from the bottom, and the clear hose that the black one connects to. This is the purge tube. From now on, things will be getting messy. 7. Look at the routing of the purge tube. It should come out of the ink tray, probably loop around some stuff and eventually empty into a waste ink storage area in the middle of the printer. If you can't see the entire path of the tube, you'll probably need to disassemble the printer further. Don't try to remove or disassemble any part of the printer's guts; just remove the guts from the bottom casing (this is done easily by removing a few screws). 8. Disconnect the tube at the ink tray and discharge end, and if the tube is segmented and easily removed from the printer, remove it. In the case of the CX5400, there are three parts to the purge tube -- there's a small black tube from the ink tray that connects to a longer, thicker clear tube, which then connects to a thinner clear tube mounted in the bottom casing of the printer. The thicker clear tube connects to the bottom tube via a hose clamp, illustrated below: I had to remove the printer's guts from the bottom tray. I was able to remove the small black tube from the ink tray to the thick clear tube, but the thick clear tube was not removable. 9. Draw 10mL of water into one of the syringes. The thinner tubes are probably going to be too small to fit to the end of the syringe, but if you're careful, you can press the end of the tube up against the nozzle of the syringe and get a decent seal. Work over a sink, and shoot water through the hose. A surprising amount of ink may come out. 10. Repeat with whatever other purge tube segments you can remove from the printer. Keep moving water through the tube until the water comes out the other end clear. 11. If you can't remove a segment of tube from the printer, then you'll need to clear the tube in place. Attach a filled syringe to one end of the tube, and hold a cup under the other end. Slowly apply pressure to the pluger of the syringe. If you get resistance, apply more pressure. Be careful, though, because if you apply too much pressure, either the clog in the tube will clear in a rapid fashion and spray ink everywhere, or the syringe will fly off the tube and spray ink everywhere (both of which happened to me). If this happens, do your best to clean up what you can. If you regularly wear socks around the house, take them off -- I inadvertently stepped in some spilled ink and ended up tracking ink all over my kitchen floor without realizing it. Thankfully, Pergo laminate flooring doesn't stain easily, and I was able to wipe up the spilled ink without a problem. 12. If you can get water to move through the tube, continue to move water through it until it runs through clear. If you can get some water to move through it but it takes a good amount of pressure to do it, try reversing which end of the tube you attach the syringe to. You could also try attaching two syringes, one at each end, and move water back and forth in a push-pull fashion until the clog clears. 13. Once you have the tube cleared out, reassemble the tube pieces, and put the printer back together. 14. I made a mistake when putting my CX5400 back together and broke off a couple internal clips. The clips hold a plastic lever in place that tells the printer if the cover is open or closed. This is where you'll need the superglue. Here are the clips I broke off: 15. Put the casing back together in reverse order of how you disassembled it. Then reinstall the ink tanks and plug the printer back in. If all goes well, the printer will pick up where it left off -- it'll think you've installed new tanks and will run through the priming sequence. If not, either use the printer's control panel or the software on your computer to start the tank swap process again. 16. If you get error messages when you turn the printer on, check to make sure that all internal cables got put back where they belong. If that doesn't help, it's probably time for a new printer. 17. If the printer finished the priming sequence without a problem, try printing a test page. If it comes out blank, try cleaning the heads once. If that doesn't help, it's probably time for a new printer. 18. If you get output after printing a test page, then your problem was at least in part due to a clogged purge tube. If the output is poor, try removing and reinstalling the tanks again, or clean the heads a couple times. The output quality may return to normal. If that doesn't help, it's probably time for a new printer. In my case, I got output after reassembling the printer, but it was poor. I cleaned the heads a few times and got the black, cyan and yellow working fine. But no matter what I did, the magenta barely printed any, even with a new tank. After wrestling with the printer and making an inky mess of my kitchen, I hurled it into the trash with disgust. The next day I bought a Canon Pixma MP450, which uses traditional cartridges (with the print heads built into the tank). Ultimately, this technique can work for some, but not all. I read reports of it working successfully for some users, but not helping at all for others. Considering that the only other options are to replace the printer or take it to a repair facility (which would probably cost more than a new printer anyway), you don't have much to lose by trying this. Good luck!

SportPod

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:46:08 -0800

I recently found a need for a sturdy iPod case -- one that would hold the iPod safely and provide substantial protection, preferably from the elements. This need arose when my fiancée got a new job and, having neither a driver's license nor a car, she needed to start taking the bus to work. It's a long commute, and not the safest one either. She likes to listen to her iPod, but of course was afraid of being mugged if she had it out in the open. She'd been making do by leaving her iPod in her purse, but that became a hassle with the headphone cord becoming tangled, and also having to dig through her purse to find the iPod when she wanted to change the volume or track. (Naturally, she doesn't use the Apple headphones -- she'd be asking to get mugged if she wore those.) I was surfing at work one day and came across an article on [url=http://www.engadget.com]Engadget[/url] about the [url=http://www.retropod.com]RetroPod[/url], an iPod case made out of an old Sony Sports Walkman. This struck my interest as this seemed to be the perfect solution to my fiancée's problem. It would allow her to keep the iPod out in the open, but disguised -- any casual observer would think she was simply listening to the radio or a tape. Unfortunately, the RetroPod was expensive, and eventually sales got shut down by Sony because Sony felt that it would make people mistakenly think they made iPods (whatever). But the design made me remember that I had an old sports radio laying around, so I decided to make my own RetroPod. I call mine the SportPod. The sports radio isn't Sony. In fact, it's a piece of junk made by Wilson (yeah, the same people who make basketballs). It had an analog tuner and cassette player, and the audio quality wasn't particularly good. [i]The donor sports radio for the SportPod project.[/i] Unfortunately, I didn't take many photos of the construction process, but that's OK in the end because the specific steps taken will vary greatly with the donor radio. What's nice about this one is that there's a decent amount of weatherproofing to it, so hopefully the iPod will stay nice and dry. I don't expect it to be submersible or anything, but it should be able to withstand a bit of rain easily. With this radio, all I really needed to do to gut it was to remove several screws from the inside and the cassette mechanism and circuit boards came out in one piece. I then shaved down the internal plastic standoffs and some other structures for the battery compartment, and was left with a completely empty shell. Thankfully, the rubber cassette transport buttons are attached to the case itself, not the innards, so I didn't need to do anything special to keep them in place. The headphone jack was soldered to the circuit board, so I needed to find a replacement. Luckily, a spare panel-mount 3.5mm stereo jack I had fit perfectly. [url=http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103452&cp=&pg=1&kw=panel-mount&parentPage=search]This one[/url] is the one I used. With the securing nut in place, it fit perfectly in the headphone jack cutout on the case, and all I needed to do was superglue it in place. I didn't want to just provide a passthrough audio connection, because it would mean having to open the case in order to change the volume. I had originally toyed with the idea of somehow creating a passthrough connection so the iPod's corded remote control could be used, but that would involve two things: First, I'd have to source the female jack, which would likely involve finding a dead iPod to scavenge it from (which would be relatively costly, as even broken iPods can fetch a decent amount on eBay). Second, it would mean I'd have to find a male jack, which would mean I'd have to cannibalize a remote control. When the cost of the broken iPod and remote control were totaled, it would have cost me way too much to be worth the effort. I decided instead to at least provide an external volume control for the headphone jack. The volume and tuning knobs were secured to the sports radio by a bolt that threaded right into the potentiometer on the circuit board. That board being gone, I had to come up with another way to interface the external volume knob with a potentiometer. While digging through my parts bin, I found one of [url=http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102975&cp=2032057.2032187&cp=2032057&f=Taxonomy%2FRSK%2F2032187&categoryId=2032187&kwCatId=2032057&kw=volume&parentPage=search]these[/url]. It's an inline volume control, with a right-angle miniplug on one end and a potentiometer in the middle. With some careful cutting and soldering, I got it wired up to the minijack mounted in the casing and, with the help of some superglue, got it mounted in the case. I had cut off one side of the potentiometer casing, so the entire surface of the dial was visible. I glued it to the casing so the dial faced the hole the volume control sat in. All I needed to do was superglue the volume control to the dial. The tuning knob was just superglued in place; it's just a dummy now (along with the rest of the switches, which are also glued in place). [i]Only the volume knob and headphone jack are functional on the SportPod. The rest are superglued in place.[/i] The rest of the hack was pretty easy. I found some dense open-cell foam and carefully cut it into three pieces. The first was the liner for the lid, which I made a little notch in so it wouldn't get hung up when the case was closed. The second was a 1/4" sheet that lined the bottom. The third was the sides that held the iPod in place and provided cushioning agaist side impacts. All the pieces were held in place with hot glue. All I had to do was drop in the iPod, plug in the headphone cable, close the case and I was set. [i]The final product. Note the cutout in the foam on the lid to allow the case to close properly.[/i] [i]The SportPod sans iPod. The iPod is protected on all sides by foam padding.[/i] [i]Closeup of the internal headphone jack. The black piece between the foam and the side of the case is the volume control. The external headphone jack is to the right of the volume control and hidden under the foam. To prevent the possibility of a short, the solder joints on the external headphone jack were coated with hot glue.[/i] I paid a total of $8 for this hack, and that was just for a new tip for my Weller WLC-100 soldering iron. If you had none of the parts, I'd estimate the total cost at about $30 (assuming you found a cheap sports radio on eBay or something). This hack required a lot of attention to detail, but I say that only because I wanted it to look good.

Clear AirPort Base Station

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 14:59:31 -0700

Like the first Dual-USB iBooks, the snow AirPort base station has its casing made of clear plasic painted white on the inside. And like many have done with iBooks, with a little work you can also make an APBS clear (or any color you want, if you repaint it). Here's how you go about making your own ClearPort. Tools: 1. Torx T8 screwdriver 2. 16 ounces of the strongest isopropyl alcohol you can find 3. Electrical tape 4. Scissors 5. Watertight plastic container, large enough to hold the APBS Here are the steps: 1. Open up the base station by removing the three screws from the bottom. Lift the top off, remove the port cover on the back, and lift out the metal electronics pack. Set the pack aside; you won't need to touch it until it's time to reassemble the APBS. 2. The only two pieces we'll be working on is the top and bottom casing. The rear port cover is solid white plastic. 3. Find an out-of-the-way, well-ventilated place in which to work. Set the top cover of the APBS upside down inside your plastic container -- you will, simply enough, be filling it with isopropyl alcohol as you would a bowl. The plastic container is used to help hold the piece upright (if you get the right size container, the top should fit snugly between the sides) and contain spills. 4. Exactly 16 ounces of isopropyl will fill the top casing to its brim. If you're doing this hack on a graphite base station, you'll want to use electrical tape to seal off the port access hole (you'll want electrical tape because it's waterproof). Fill the top casing and let it sit for at least 4 hours, so the alcohol will have sufficient time to break down the paint. 5. While the top casing is soaking, mask off the bottom casing. Use electrical tape to cover over the two screw holes and also seal off the port access hole (without the screw and port access holes sealed, the isopropyl will leak out of the bottom casing during soaking). If you care about such things, mask off the sticker on the bottom of the casing, otherwise just write down the MAC addresses listed there in case you need them in the future. I recommend just making off the sticker. 6. After at least four hours have passed, dump out the isopropyl from the top casing into the plastic container. Don't get rid of the isopropyl, as we'll reuse it for soaking the bottom casing. 7. Get a soft kitchen sponge and, under running water, rub off the paint from the inside of the top cover. If the paint is hard to remove, soak the cover in alcohol longer. DO NOT use an abrasive pad, as this will leave visible scratches in the plastic (trust me on this one). A soft kitchen sponge should be all the more you need. 8. Once all the paint has been removed from the top cover, set it aside to dry. You may also want to wash your hands at this point and/or apply some lotion, as isopropyl has a nasty haabit of drying out your skin quickly. 9. Soak the bottom cover using the isopropyl you soaked the top cover with. Even though it may appear to be thick with paint, the isopropyl is still strong enough to remove paint. 10. Rub off the paint from the bottom case, as you did with the top. 11. After thoroughly drying the two pieces, simply reassemble the AirPort. If you got scratches in the plastic while removing the paint, try using a polishing agent such as Brasso. While it may not remove deep scratches (like the kind I ended up with after mistakenly using a scouring pad to help remove the paint), it will, with patience, remove light scratches. And here's the finished product: [img]http://www.applefritter.com/images/clearport-8396_640x480.jpg[/img]

Hard drive sandwich

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:18:19 -0700

[b][color=purple]The 'I didn't do it' kid[/color][/b] I take no credit for inventing this mod. The first time I saw it was at [url=http://www.overclockers.com/tips454/]overclockers.com[/url] by one Mike Chin. I’ve merely documented the same technique for my G3 and am sharing it here for those who may not have seen the original. [b][color=purple]Why?[/color][/b] The drive in my G3, a 20GB WD, is a noisy fellow. It has an annoying high-pitched whine that overpowers all the other computer noises in the room, and it gets on my nerves. Some would suggest getting a quieter drive, but I wanted to try something on the cheap first. [b][color=purple]Pass me the hack-saw[/color][/b] Two quarter-inch thick aluminum plates were cut about 1 1/2″ larger than the hard drives dimensions. The plates had their edges ground and sanded to remove all burrs that might fall off into expensive areas and to prevent nice people from getting their hands cut. It also looks nicer. [thumb:4626] I held the plates together and drilled through all four corners with a 7/32″ bit, with a drop of 3-in-1 oil on the bit. Before I drilled, I used a Sharpie to mark one corner on each of the plates. That way when I put everything together, I can line up the holes and didn’t have to accurately measure each hole before I drilled. It’s a bit of a cheat. The plates were cleaned again, and waxed with floor wax, and the drive placed in-between. Home Depot supplied the plastic bolts and wing-nuts, for about $0.15 each (and the aluminum was about $20 CDN for enough for two drive sandwiches, at a place called Metal Supermarkets). I was concerned about the ‘do not cover this hole’ vent on the drive, but it seems to be working fine after over a month of light use. Once the sandwich was made, I cut some foam to fit around the hard drive. I tested both foam from chair-cushions and a dense adhesive foam with a metallic surface on one side that’s designed for insulating furnace pipes. Both were similar in the small amount of noise they reduced, so I went with the cushion foam as it’s a bit easier to work with, and just slightly thicker than the height of the drive. I sliced a small gap in the foam to allow the hard drive power and ribbon cables to exit without compressing or distorting the foam. [b][color=purple]We squeezes them, my precious[/color][/b] I tightened the wing-nuts until they were snug, and adjusted each one as tightening one loosened the other. Don’t over-tighten! I wasn’t too concerned, as I figured the plastic bolts would snap long before any damage would be done to the drive. The plates act as a head-sink for the drive, so having it all packaged up like this creates no thermal issues yet, though there have been questions raised about cooling the chips on the drive. [thumb:4627] [b][color=purple]Lock & Load[/color][/b] Due to the size of the sandwich over the bare drive, I installed the drive at 90 degrees to how it sits by default on the hard drive sled, and had to use a different ribbon cable from the 4-ish inch one that comes with the G3 (at least mine did). [b][color=purple]Conclusions[/color][/b] The drive is noticeably quieter. Not silent, and not as quiet as I’d hoped, but quieter. The most annoying noise was in the higher frequencies, and that’s been reduced enough that it’s competing with the power supply fan for attention, whereas before it was the dominant noise. Denser foam would help, but for now, it’s good enough. The drive currently sits loose on the floor of the G3. It's heavy enough that it doesn't move around, and the G3 itself is never moved. Future work, should I be so motivated, would be to drill and tap mounting holes in the bottom plate to attach one of the G3's drive brackets(at 90 degrees based on where the sandwich currently sits).

ExtendaPort

Fri, 11 Jun 2004 17:59:55 -0700

The following instructions will increase the range of an Apple airport base station 30 to 100% depending on the materials in your home and placement, etc. I added a Lucent full wave 2.4GHz antenna (lucent #848072633). This also improves speed on clients that have to downshift in order to get a better connection. Begin by removing the three screws in the bottom cover. Open it up and see the image below (Note my wire routing for reassembly.) [center][image:3216][/center] Remove the three yellow screws in the EMI shield (above) and carefully lift the electronics package out (below). Do not open the EMI cage. [center][image:3218][/center] On the end of the airport card (which looks remarkably like a Lucent WaveLAN Silver card, exactly like, one might say) there is a small round black plastic plug covering the SMB connector which mates with the antenna (below). Connect the Lucent antenna here after routing the coax cable through the frame. The black box on the end of the card contains a 1/4th wavelength 2.4 GHz antenna. [center][image:3219][/center] As shown below, you will need to cut a small notch in the plastic case to allow the wire out. I used a small rat tail file. Be careful not to scratch the paint on the inside of the plastic or it'll show in the outside. Try not to snort any of the plastic shavings. [center][image:3220][/center] Carefully reassemble the unit and route the coaxial antenna wire. Make sure to reconnect any cables you disconnected. Place the antenna as high as you can. Mine is next to the ceiling. You are finished! [center][image:3221][/center]

Compubrick Accessories

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 20:50:20 -0700

[center][image:1884][/center] The Compubrick 160� and its two accessories: a keyboard and a Quickcam. [center][image:1885][/center] The keyboard is simply encased in blocks; the actual keys are ordinary keyboard keys. This was actually a lot harder to make than it looks. A good many tabs had to be sanded off and it was difficult to get all the studs to line up. In fact, you'll see two slots up around the F6 and F7 key where I couldn't get them to line up. The keyboard's most noteworthy feature is the caps lock light. I placed a transparent block over the LED and the effect is very nice. The other two lights I covered up as I don't use them anyway. [center][image:1886][/center] Getting the round Grayscale Quickcam apart was a real challenge and I cut my self twice. But in the end it was worth it, as I now have a building-block encased camera and the wounds have healed. I may end up redoing this one in more interesting colors. It's kind of dull. [center][image:1887][/center] Clearly, I can't do an entire system in building blocks and then leave the mouse a dull platinum.

UFO Mouse

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 12:25:46 -0700

by Anonymous [center][thumb:1880][/center] To open the mouse first remove the ball and cover. Then using a small screwdriver pry up the blue plastic trim. Remove both trim pieces and this will reveal two small philips head screws (remove). Now the top and bottom halves can be separated by pulling them apart. This takes a bit of work the first time. Now that you are inside the mouse, solder on a LED to the main board as shown. The voltage here is 5 volts. Radio Shack sells a Blue LED that is designed to run at 5 volts (part # 276-311) This is ideal because no dropping resistor is needed. When connecting the LED, connect the negative side to the pin #4 (right side) and the Positive side to pin #1 (left side). [center][thumb:1881][thumb:1882][/center] [center][thumb:1883][/center] Reassemble mouse and plug into computer, you now have a lighted mouse! A fellow named Kevin wrote the submitter of this page with a slightly different method of adding a light to an iMac mouse. The above picture was taken using this method "I felt the intensity of the LED pointing upward was too concentrated, so I popped the mouse open again and drilled a small hole into the plastic housing where the ball resides... that way I could point the LED straight into the ball chamber. I get more of a diffused lighting effect and you can even see the ball rolling around."

Apple FireWire case

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 12:44:39 -0700

I have found a use again for the old Apple branded, and manufactured by Lacie, external SCSI drives. I was inspired to convert a case into a FireWire unit one day looking through the store at fwdepot.com. They sell boards that can be added into an external hard drive enclosure to add FireWire capabilities. These boards do not convert SCSI to FireWire, the old SCSI drive has to be junked and replaced with an IDE drive that connects to the FireWire board. The board I selected was the 142AS bridgeboard. for 69 dollars. There is unit a little cheaper (142AV) but space was a concern so I went with what I thought would be the easiest to fit in the case. This is by no means an example on how to save money. I was just interested in converting old hardware into something useful again. I like the fact it has the Apple logo and at first glance it looks just the same as before the change. This drive also has a an internal power supply that allows you to use a standard power cord so you don’t have to carry around an external power brick for your case. Many new 3.5�? and larger Firewire drives use those stupid power bricks. If you need a drive that you can move around easily choose the smaller laptop size drives or get 3.5�? drive that has a built-in power supply. Usually the built-in ones are a little more robust as well. The first few pictures here document the features these drives have for people who are not familiar with them. I know that at one point they came in 2, 4, and 9 gig sizes. [center][thumb:1647] [thumb:1648][/center] Taking this case apart is not real difficult as long as you are not in a hurry. I started with the 2 screws on the back next to the SCSI connectors. There are 4 feet on the case that can be moved around to allow the case to stand straight up or rest on its side. For this conversion 2 of the feet need to vacate so the case can be opened. [center][thumb:1653][/center] Taking things slow pays at this point. I had to set the case on its side and pry the top portion away from the bottom. I started at the pry points located at the front of the case and opened that part of the case just enough that it wouldn’t snap back into place. Next I did the same thing on the rear 2 pry points. Then I swung the top portion up like the hood on a car so that the rear was the hinge point. Then I had to pry the rear part a little more for the top part of the case to come off. Take a look at the pictures to see why I had to pry things apart gently. [center][thumb:1645] [thumb:1649][/center] Now I was into the case and thinking I was home free for removing the old hard drive, I was wrong. The HD is mounted to the chassis from the bottom. To get to those screws you need to remove six screws so you can separate the plastics from the metal chassis. The first four screws are pretty easy to locate but the last 2 are in the mix of wires near the power supply. There is a nice big capacitor in there and I made sure not to test and see if it was still charged up. [center][thumb:1652][/center] From this point things got pretty easy for a bit. I removed the HD from the chassis, and unscrewed the old SCSI connectors from the back of the chassis. As you can see from picture just showing the chassis it looks like there is a lot of room. You can also see the power cable zip tied to the chassis. I had to cut the the cord from the chassis later because of space issues. I also removed the SCSI ID selector cable, it was a nice easy to remove plug. I left the actual selector in place because I had nothing to put in its place. I tried to think of something useful to put there but came up empty. [center][thumb:1654][/center] I wanted to stay away from them but the next part required power tools. Unfortunately I moved recently and couldn’t find my Dremel so I couldn’t cut off these annoying little tabs located on the chassis in the exact spot that the bridgeboard needs to go. (see picture) So I bent them up with a pair of pliers. Not the prettiest way, but it sure was easy. With the tabs bent up I tested the board in the opening and found that the old screw holes from the SCSI connectors did not match up with the holes on the board. I wouldn’t normally use a drill to make the holes on the chassis bigger but I couldn’t wait to get it all done so I used the drill bit to grind away some of the chassis. I need a new drill bit now but it worked. With the bridgeboard in I soon realized I should have mounted the new IDE drive to the chassis first so I had to remove the board and put the HD in followed by the board. I would still suggest doing the fitting of the board before you mount the HD though. In the 2nd picture below you can see the the board directly behind the new HD and I do mean directly. If you don’t put the board in the top opening there is no way you can hook the power and IDE cable to the HD. [center][thumb:1651] [thumb:1644][/center] To make things appear nice and neat I took apart one of the original SCSI connectors and used it to fill the hole under the bridgeboard. [center][thumb:1650][/center] Once the board is in I just reversed the steps and put things back together. After a few days of use I didn’t like the noise from the fan and the rattling that came from the long IDE cable flopping around in the case. The cable is extra long and comes with the board. It is longer than I needed because the board is designed to be used with 2 IDE devices if you want. I popped the case open again and strapped the thing down real good so it will never move again. While I was in there I replaced the fan with a different one. I could do that because to be honest we have 3 of these cases and I just fired them all up to see which one had the best fan and then ripped that one out and put it in the modified case. The odd thing was how the other case had a soldered on SCSI selector cable and the HD power cord was routed completely different. So I guess that the build process at the factory was not always the same. [center][thumb:1646][/center] The new drive works great. Only problem I have had is trying to use it with 10.2.6 and my Newertech FW Cardbus card on my Wallstreet PB. During my initial testing of the case it refuses to mount on the desktop. If I boot into OS 9 it works fine with the case. Other FW drives I use work fine with this setup so I am not sure why this bridgeboard does not seem to be compatible. Doesn’t really matter since the drive is going to be used at work for backups and will most likely never be used again on my Wallstreet. I did some benchmarking at work and found that using OS 9 was a lot slower than OS X in the transfer of files. (by minutes) I don’t know if this is due to the kind of bridgeboard or the OS in general. I tried on multiple systems and got the same horrible results. I haven’t moved files in OS 9 with FW in a while and the results came as a surprise. I will have to test with some of our other FW drives and see the results.

MacAlly Micro Optical Mod

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 20:51:25 -0700

by rEdmAc [center][image:1157][/center] [hr] [center][image:1158][/center] I bought this MacAlly Micro Optical Mouse when I was at the 2002 San Fransisco Macworld Expo with my friend Paul. He commented that if someone could change the original red light to a blue one it would be great. That was the beginning of this mod. [center][image:1160] [image:1163][/center] After taking apart the mouse a few times, I got it all figured out. I bought a blue 3.6v, 20mA, 2600mcd LED from the local RadioShack and dropped it in. From the mod, I learned a few important things: 1. Be sure you get the polarity correct, that is, make sure you have the positive (+) and negative (-) legs of the LED inserted in the proper holes. I used a fine tip marker to mark the negative leg of the original LED and then compared it to the new one. That way, you know which leg goes in the proper socket. [center][image:1161][/center] 2. The LED housing has a small latch that holds the LED in pretty firmly. You need to either push down on the LED a bit or use a jeweler's screwdriver to lift the latch in order to get the LED out. [center][image:1159][/center] 3. Once you get the new LED situated inside the housing, you need to bend the legs ninety degrees in order to solder it on the board. Measure by eye the edge of the housing and use that as a guide for your bend. [center][image:1157][/center] When you're done, snap the case back together and there you have it--a mouse of a different color!

Rice Rocket Mouse

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 18:23:19 -0800

by Robert McCann and Brett Sawyer [center][image:1153][/center] So, Brett got this mouse as a mouse to use with his iBook, but it just wasn't kewl enough to actually haul it out of his bag to use. We get the brilliant (notice sarcastic overtones) idea to modify the mouse with some LED's. I say that sarcastically because getting this apart is worse then working on old pc's and ford station tarus wagons combined. Now we must all bow and worship at Brett's mad skillz with getting this thing apart. I don't have any pictures of getting it apart as this was done a couple of weeks before doing any soldering on it. Not to mention it would be too graphic (ie: WARNING: Parents strongly cautioned, extreeme blood and violence) [center][image:1154] [image:1155][/center] We went to our friendly Radio Shack (they love me there) and got a few various LED's. Being on a very tight budget (poor coledge students) we got 1 blue and two green. Our initial experementation led to this... It was kind of nifty, very multi colored, but just wasn't bright enough. The blue and red pretty much drown out the green, and well, we wanted more blue! As such, we never re-assembled this one, so I don't have any better pics of it. So we got on ebay and ordered up some (100) ultra bright blue LED's. [center][image:1153][/center] 5 straight hours of soldering and a hour re-assembeling in the morning and we get the Rice Rocket Mouse. Now mind you, I'm not a big fan of Rice Rockets (if you don't know what I'm talking about visit www.ricecop.com and www.anti-rice.com) but they are flashy and so is this. Here are a couple of more picture for you viewing pleasure. sorry I don't have any picture's of the actual guts of this one, but same basic consept. If your counting LED's there are 7. One is slightly hidden as it is replaces the red main one. And just for note, this is a fully functional mouse. the click works, amazingly enough, and so does the tracking. I really haven't used this one, but the blue one I have in my microsoft mouse works fine. [center][image:1152] [image:1151][/center]

Extra Mouse Button

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 20:56:49 -0700

by Phil Stewart [center][image:1148][/center] A while back, while searching for a cheap USB hub, I happened across a sale on an "upgrade package" which included hub, mouse, and mousepad. I had no particular use for another mouse or mousepad, but the package was about as much as the cheapest hub alone, so I went for it. The USB hub is now serving its intended purpose, the mousepad wound up in use after a few got lost in a move, but the mouse has remained an orphan. It's not a terrible mouse, but not an improvement over anything we already had. One night, while watching TV, I found both mouse and screwdriver within arm's reach, and made an interesting discovery. [center][image:1147][/center] The mouse is a USB mouse, made by microConnectors, model number OK-520. Immediately above is the mouse before modification. Its biggest flaw was always the fact that it had only a single button. One button may be enough for Steve Jobs, but I've been spoiled by two buttons for too long to go back. Well, when I opened it up, and discovered markings on the circuitboard for three buttons, labeled SWL, SWM, and SWR. Only SWM has anything connected to it, that being the one button. However, it seemed obvious that the mouse was at least intended to have multiple buttons at some point. I'm guessing they stand for Switch Left, Switch Middle, and Switch Right. I looked at the tracings on the back. The top terminal on SWM ran to the black ground wires on the USB cable, as did the top terminals on SWL and SWR. The button terminal on SWM ran to a pin on the little integrated circuit, while SWL and SWR's lower terminals didn't connect to anything. I noticed two unused pins on the chip next to the one for the button, and I got the idea that these might actually be intended for other buttons. Of course, I had no driver to support these things, but luckily OS X supports two buttons on it's own, so, feeling daring, I plugged the disassembled mouse into my iBook, and bridge the second pin over to the ground. To my delight, a little contextual menu popped up. I'd found the connection for the second button! [center][image:1144][/center] I soldered a wire to SWR (and, I must admit, to SWL ,before I realized what I was doing and that I'd probably want the button on the other side) Soldering on the chip was a little too scary for me, given my limited skills with such fine work, so I simply made a little loop with the end of the wire, and wrapped it around the appropriate pin with the help of some very small needlenose pliers. I attached a little switch I bought at Radio Shack to the leads. I'd wanted a much nicer, larger, flatter switch, but when it came right down to it, I had to use what would fit, and this was all I could find that would worked. Below is a close-up diagram of what I did: [center][image:1145][/center] I cut the large single button in half, being sure to leave the entire hinge portion attached to the left hand part, leaving the left side attached as it was before and able to be used normally. Into the right part, I drilled a hole, and put the switch through. It didn't quite line up with the opening in the plastic below it, so I brutally tore at the edge of the white plastic with vise-grips until the button could go through. Then I superglued the piece into place, leveling it slightly with a scrap of plastic to keep it in line with the rest of the button. The button, while not what I'd intended, works great. My only complaint, really the only thing I'd do differently, is that there's no 'click' to the button, so if you're using it in some way in which there's no visual cue, it's hard to tell if you've pushed it in far enough. I assume it's possible that with the correct driver (probably a generic driver, like USB Overdrive, would work just fine) one could also use the third button by grounding the third pin from the left on the pin, but, alas, I was unable to test that idea, but I'd be interested if some one tries it. It's also possible it might work as a scroll wheel, but I think if the mouse had been intended to have one, then that would have been the middle switch, rather than the single button, which amounts to a left click.

Ashtray

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 20:59:40 -0700

by Matti Lampila [center][image:1139][/center] I'll probably go to hell for doing this, but here we go anyway... After finding two dead apple mice from my office's IT department, I decided to nick one of them and start preforming deadly experiments on it. There the quiet little fellow is, on the right. It took me a while to come up with the ashtray idea (about 5 minutes) and looking at the poor mouse for a few minutes, I decided to proceed with the experiment. [center][image:1140][/center] Step 1. Taking the mouse apart was a little tricky. The black rim on the bottom is glued onto the frame, and basically keeps the whole mouse assembled. After getting the rim off with a craft knife and a pair of pliars, deconstructing the mouse was as simple as ABC. All the useful components can be seen on the left. Step2. Simply putting the mouse back together without the top cover gave me the base for my ashtray. Gluing the top bit upside (a little UHU glue did the trick) on top of the base gives the tray...for the ash of course... Simple, and exciting! [center][image:1141][/center] Final step. Using the ashtray, I found out that the plastic started to melt a little bit. so my next step would be to research into a material )preferably transparent so you can still see the aple logo), which could be applied to the tray to stop it from melting when you put your cigarrette or spliff down on it. I also thought it would be a cool idea to install a 6v battery into the mouse and make the red light inside it glow... Groovy! This object can also be used strictly as a novelty item only! sweet.

Puck Mic

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 21:00:21 -0700

[center][image:1134][/center] For a very long time my friends and I have been looking for something, anything Apple to hack. And in the middle of it all, the cursed puck mouse died. I got a replacement, and now had a deadbeat mouse sitting around in my room, next to UberMac. (It's a heavily upgraded 9500/200) [center][image:1133] [image:1135][/center] A few weeks ago, amidst a horrid OS 9 crash, the Plaintalk microphone had just fell off my monitor and landed next to the puck, and the realization hit me. They were exactly the same in height, and I noticed that the Microphone without the protective casing would fit perfectly inside the puck. The steps for creating this hack were quite simple. (Sorry, the Digital Camera was not with us through process, it arrived after we finished it, but you can still see the Grille inside there.) [center][image:1132][/center] Taking apart the Plaintalk Microphone. 1. Remove the plastic on the bottom of the Microphone. 2. Unscrew the one screw under the Microphone with a Phillips screwdriver. 3. Pull Apart. Taking apart the Apple USB Mouse: 1. Pull off the blue plastics on the side. 2. Remove the two screws with a Phillips screwdriver. 3. Pull apart top and bottom plastics. 4. Remove the Logitech Board. 5. Cut away all excess plastics on the inside, leaving just enough room for the microphone grille. 6. Use a little hot glue to glue the Microphone inside securely. 7. Put the mouse back together. [center][image:1131][/center] Now that the project is finished, we have a perfectly intact USB cable and housing for a Plaintalk Microphone. We plan on putting LED(s) in it. Here's a picture of the Microphone with the USB cable running out: [center][image:1136][/center]

Marcellinus

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 21:07:42 -0700

[center][image:1118][/center] Remember seeing those sleek formac cdrw drives advertised in the back of the Mac magazines around December/January? I ordered one. The case that looked so small and elegant in the advertisements was colossal and made of cheap plastic. The door covering the disc tray was absurd and the eject button barely worked. The plastic edge of the case around the door opening was cut so poorly that there were slithers of plastic hanging down that I had to shave off before it looked nice. Even the drive mechanism itself proved to be a disappointment. Apple Disc Burner and iTunes do not support the Teac drive. The only compatible software seemed to be the included Toast, and even that couldn't burn at full speed for some reason. Perplexed, I visited the formac website. Lo and behold, the cdrw drive which a formac representative has once assured me would run purely off my Powerbook's FireWire port now required the addition of an AC adapter to burn at the higher speeds. And the AC adapter, which had not existed and for which there was no need when I purchased my drive, was now available for order - at an additional $29. Not about to send more money to formac, I chose instead to improve the drive myself. [center][image:1127][/center] The screws are hidden under the plastic feet: four on the top and four on the bottom. If you are simply interested in opening the drive it is adequate to remove only the screws on top. The feet are glued into place, but they don't damage easily, so one merely has to pull hard to remove them. If one wants the feet to stay in place afterwards a dab of glue is all that is necessary. Once the case is open, it is a simple matter to remove the large, goofy cover door and the plastic button. [center][image:1121][/center] With the large door and button removed the drive's functionality is greatly improved; it is even possible to see the status lights. The eject button can easily be reached by reaching inside the drive's front opening. This looks a bit awkward but it is vastly preferable to formac's button. In formac's standard setup, the large plastic button is flush with the case and offers no tactile feedback when pressed. Pushing on the case itself beside the button is as effective as pushing the button itself; both require significant pressure. Thanks to Dominique Simons, the iTunes and Disc Burner incompatibility has also been fixed. TeacCDR is a modification of the Teac Authoring Support file that adds support for the W512E mechanism used in the formac drive. Tear out the door and the button, add a third party software hack, and the formac cdrw becomes a downright usable. None of this however, fixes the power supply issue, and the drive looks even uglier than before. Much nicer is the case to my old Pinnacle Micro drive... [center][image:1125][/center] Both the Pinnacle Micro and the Teac mechanism are standard size drives, making switching them a breeze. The Pinnacle Micro case also has a built in power supply more than adequate to power the Teac drive. [center][image:1126][/center] Removing the entire drive unit requires removing the plastic feet from the bottom to get at those screws as well. The IDE->FireWire board is simply fastened to the back of the case by a couple more screws. [center][image:1122][/center] The cdrw drive is hooked directly to the case's power supply. The IDE->FireWire board is still powered by the Powerbook's FireWire port. This method requires two switches - one for the drive and one for the interface - but takes the load for the mechanism off the Powerbook's FireWire interface to incease the drive's recording speed. [center][image:1129][/center] The interface board is held into place by two screws. The power switch is glued. [center][image:1119][/center] When all is said and done we're left with a drive that is a vast improvement over the original. The case is rugged and attractive, full burning speeds can be obtained, the button is easily accessible, the tray ejects without interference, the status lights are visible, and iTunes and Disc Burner compatability has been achieved.

Toadem

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 21:03:18 -0700

by Kay Orchison [center][image:464][/center] It used to be a dead toaster. Now it's a working 33.6k modem. Toadem is now living with a woman who drives it from an AMD K62 running Windows 98. The badge is from a cheap overdamper piano Kay played as a child, which suffered a cracked frame in his house move in 1980, and later became his first computer desk. [center][image:465][/center] And the rear view... [center][image:463][/center]