Derek vs Epson

We purchased some more incredibly expensive ink for our Epson DX4450 all-in-one printer yesterday to print something out.... it's rather annoying that if ANY colour runs out the printer simply won't print... so I opened the beast up and put in the cartridge and it went through it's ink priming cycle only to be confronted with a paper jam.... so I cleared it .... or thought I had and tried again .... same thing happened.... RIGHT !!! I reloaded the paper, fanned it, checked the paper path all seemed fine... would it print ? would it buggery....

It was at about the 10th attempt to print something, that it made the most expensively loud and grinding sound after which it simply stopped trying to feed paper and just sat there endlessly winding itself on with no paper movement... so I went onto the Epson web site which proved about as much use as a chocolate fire guard in front of a steel blast furnace... there was only one thing for it.... I needed a Philips screwdriver  and I wasn't afraid to use it !!!  So I set to work dismantling the beast....

Now I'm a trained Epson Engineer on their laser and dot matrix printers of yestermillenia but that was many years ago and I may as well have been an untrained baboon taking it apart, I have to say these new Epson printers aren't built to be taken apart at all, they have fire once plastic clips on them once fired they stay fired....they are basically throw away printers and once you get inside them, which is no mean feat you realise why.... there is very little in it to throw away.... gone are the days of massive circuit boards with endless heatsunk transistors to take the wattage....and an enormous switch mode PSU.... you could run these things on a single AAA battery....

So once inside I could actually see what was causing the problem.... I had a chunk of paper which had torn off under the back paper feed wheel ... all crunched up.... but being old and wise to these kinds of faults it meant that wasn't the cause of it.... paper doesn't simply rip off there is a reason for it...  and a little further digging and peering about I discovered this little beauty :-

Freya !!! come here a minute please....

Can you see the frayed edges ? that's where the paper drive mechanism had tried to feed it through the paper path... needless to say it failed hence the expensive grinding sound it made.... So after removing the offending item above, I set about putting the printer back together, which with no disassembly /assembly manual requires a brain capable of navigating the Dan-y-Ogof cave system blindfolded using nothing more than echo location to find your way back.... I had hundreds of screws on the desk and a very taken apart printer....

the worst part was assembling the scanner module which although clip together technology with just two screws required to secure it, it required the balance of a trapeze artist and the dexterity of a juggler to put back together... that done the rest clipped back together without much of a problem.....

Bits and bobs

The picture above is about half way through the assembly process....

Now the universal sign of a good engineer is always to have at least two or three screws left over because you have improved the design of the device by removing excess weight and still it works... 

Well I must be losing my touch because I had no screws left and no I hadn't lost any on the floor.... The moment of truth was upon me... I powered it up.... it went through it's initialisation procedure of priming the ink cartridges pumping half the ink out as usual and sat there waiting for some data.... s

So I sent it a test print with my fingers and other body parts crossed.... I have to admit I was half expecting that horribly expensive grinding sound.... but no I still had the printer magic and it performed beautifully even the scanner scanned.... all was well in my world..... 

now what was it I wanted to print out again ????

Normandy (last day)

half way across the new bridge

We had to be out of our hotel by 10am on the last day, so we had a long (homeless) day ahead of us... We had taken in Pegasus Bridge on the previous day which I found rather amusing because there were a lot of American tourists there marvelling at Pegasus Bridge and snapping away reams of digital storage at the thing when in reality the "real" bridge which had been removed some time ago and moved onto the other side of the river/canal was practically unvisited......

The real Pegasus Bridge

Anyway we tucked into our breakfast at the hotel and set off for Bayeux, I had already warned my father that we WERE visiting the Bayeux tapestry and probably the Cathedral.....he rather grumpily accepted he was outvoted... so off we drove to Bayeux which is remarkably close to Caen only a few miles really .... we got there and I have to say it is a beautiful town, very clean very bright stonework and we parked up and headed straight for the Bayeux Tapestry

I was particularly amused by the medieval flasher

I managed to shoot this photograph from the hip because photography was strictly forbidden in several languages !!! my camera was supposed to be on "Museum mode" but no it FLASHED in a VERY dark room and I quickly pocketed my camera and whistled unconvincingly.... 

Those nuns had vivid imaginations

Obviously he was doing "I'm a little teapot... short and stout" and they did it naked in Norman times.....

We then went onto the the Cathedral and I have to say it's a must visit ....well despite the homeless man (I question that statement) begging at the huge front door... although I had to laugh at somebody thanking him for letting him visit his Cathedral ...(some people....rolls eyes) He was being very sly... when somebody put some money into his tin he'd wait for a few seconds then remove some cash to make it look like he hadn't collected much, I estimated 20 euro's in the tin and judging by the steady flow of tourists and contributions he must have been making a fortune.... call me cynical .....he wasn't that hard up....

The Cathedral is just monstrous... you walk in and your jaw just drops.... it's beyond massive, quite awe inspiring and a huge achievement of medieval  builders and stonemasons... my father made me laugh by saying "what a waste of money" .... but then with my dad if it hasn't got a sharp point at one end and an engine at the blunt one and travels in water.... it would be a waste of money

Bayeux Cathedral... HOOOGE

As you can see by the photo above I couldn't even get the spire in... a very impressive building....

We then went on to the tank museum in Bayeux... again worth a visit and very eye opening as to what went on starting on the 6th June 1944... I found it particularly ironic that one of the gun barrels of the tanks parked outside had a birds nest in it complete with chicks...  so where once only death and destruction came.... sprung forth life !!!

We then ambled back via Omaha beach  which was pretty awe inspiring and you could understand the great loss of life on that beach by looking at the beach defences still there....very sad ..... then back to Ouistreham where my mother finally got her lamb chops which she had been coveting at a very nice restaurant, right on the front of Ouistreham beach (Sword beach) ... we then simply waited around until our ferry left at 11pm and had a very nice trip back again it was like a billiard table much to my mothers relief !!!

My parents however have the spatial ability of a hamster between them, I think they did more mileage walking the wrong way up and down the ferry than the whole time in France they very nearly wore out the lift.... very funny though....

all in all a very worthwhile and enlightening trip.... and I didn't crash their car once !!! :)

ps/ if you click on any of the pictures you'll see it in higher resolution :)

Normandy (continued)

The end of the second day ended rather stressfully in that I thought I had had my digital camera stolen, we had ended the day in Ouistreham at a brasserie to have a meal and a drink and watch the sun go down.... on returning to the car and driving for about 7 miles back towards the hotel I had that "where is my camera...moment" I then remembered I had put it down on the floor next to my chair... 

So we turned around and headed back to Ouistreham.. we finally got there and I shot out of the car back towards the brasserie at warp factor 9 and interrogated the waitresses with my best camera impression I could muster.... they all said "non"  and lifted their hands skyward in the typical French fashion shaking their heads at the mad Welshman standing in front of them gesturing wildly like a demented fool .....

Ahhhh well it was gone.... I wasn't upset about the camera I was more upset about all the lovely once in a lifetime photographs I had taken.... I think I was visibly upset when I got back to the car... so much so that my parents plotted behind my back to get me a new camera and stating that we had one more day and we could re-take the photographs... which was a poor substitute but our only viable option really .....

So we got back to the hotel and I ripped into the French on Facebook calling them nothing short of a set of froggy camera stealing people with no fathers who smelt of elderberries.....   

then my parents sprang the "Right we are getting you a new camera.... and no arguments" I've learned not to argue with my mother once she sets her mind to something... there is no turning her to your point of view.... 

so off we went to Cah fur and on parking up in the blue disabled car parking bay I automatically reached into the glove compartment to pull out my parents disabled badge to put it on the dashboard and there looking up at me was my "stolen" camera.... it was a mixture of relief and utter stupidity that washed over me.... ahhh well alls well that ends well....

I deleted my derogatory French bashing post on Facebook.... hoping nobody had noticed and slunk away to my room .....