The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: mc6 on February 28, 2014, 02:43:18 PM
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I have a Canon Pixma 4300 home printer that has worked great since 2006. Now suddenly it won't feed. I'm looking to fix it myself if possible. If it's just dead I understand that happens too. (After all, 7 years of printing is many times better than previous printers I've had.) I have looked at many of the websites for possible solutions but thought I would check in with the Mustachian masses too? I appreciate any good advice.
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Give up printing, then it doesn't need fixing. My mustachian instinct is printing is unnecessary. I'm actually curious what people print at home, since I don't.
For the occasional picture send it in to a print shop, or Costco. If it's for "security" buy a 16GB flash drive, save your files in duplicate and store it off site if possible.
I'm working on the fiancée on this, I haven't used a home printer in 8 years. Her printer, which I helped move in, is currently dead and I hope to never waste money fixing it.
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Most printers are just cheap dispensers for the ink cartridges, especially consumer-grade inkjets. They aren't meant to be repaired from what I know of them.
I agree that it's very rare that people should need to print at home, but it occasionally happens. Just yesterday I sold a gift card to CardCash, but they wanted me to print out and sign this form and include it in the mail with the gift card. Kinda silly, and it turns out I hadn't even set up my printer on my computer since I rebuilt it a few months ago. If it were just me, it would probably be cheaper to go to a Fedex office or something when I need to print instead of owning a printer, but my wife feels differently and prints way more than I do.
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The need to print at home does occasionally happen, for me anyway. Tax docs in hard copy, an occasional reimbursement.
Give up printing, then it doesn't need fixing. My mustachian instinct is printing is unnecessary. I'm actually curious what people print at home, since I don't.
I agree that it's very rare that people should need to print at home, but it occasionally happens.
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I also print at home. Tax stuff, rebates, coupons. We go through a set of inks every 1.5 - 2 years, but it's much more convenient than going somewhere else.
I have a Pixma 4000 that we bought in '05. I haven't had a paper feed problem, but the print heads got clogged. There was info on the web about removing and soaking them in ammonia, which worked great. Do you have more info other than "won't feed"? More info might help with searching.
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Thanks Geekette. The problem is that with paper in the feeder in the back, whether it's one sheet or 20, it doesn't get sucked into the printer. I have tried cleaning the paper rollers as per the Canon support website.
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Step by Step instructions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsBB93IqJkE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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I went through the Canon support site's roller cleaning steps again a couple more times, shot the innards with some canned air and voila, it works again! YAY!
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I prefer to take a screenshot and save the file, rather than print out any kind of receipt or transaction record.
Sad, but it is sometimes cheaper to buy a new printer than to buy replacement ink.