Printer Recycling

Hello people!

A lot of time passed since the last time I did this with my car radio. I promised myself to do it again with something bigger and I've ended up collecting many "dead" devices that could be scraped for something good. What I do is related to my studies mostly, Industrial Design and Eco-Design: it's always interesting to see how industrial products are made and if we can disasseble a device to the essential components (plastics, metals, screws, wood, etc) it's much easier to recycle. There are thermoplastics polymers that can be grinded to pellets (just a mechanical transformation) and they are ready to use again. Interestingly, I found quite the variety of polymers on this small economic printer, but we'll talk about that later.

No more talk... let's get our hand dirty! Our subject is a Epson Stylus C64 that doesn't work anymore.

No more clogged sponge for this printer.

Ready, set, go!

 A first look revels there's only one screw securing the external plastic together and lots of snaps holding the halves. 4, to be precise. The snaps on the front required to insert a flat screwdriver between the halves were the snap was supposed to be a pry a little. Well, this should be short work!

The only external screw.

Snaps on the back...

...and snaps on the front. Those required a different approach to snap out.

The upper cover, removed.

The lower half is just a "donut" and is secured to the printer mechanisms by 5 lag screws, and comes off easily after the removal of those.

Screws, finally.

Lower half removed.

While the printer isn't running away nor screaming in pain, I dedicate myself to the upper enclosure, that is made by many pieces. The first thing I can take away are the buttons,that doesn't look really recycling-friendly as they're made of two differents polymers, one transparent and one rubber-like... should be a great deal, tho, but on a large scale this piece could present a problem. The transparent lid broke when I pulled it out and from the sound has made it's probably polystirene (CD cases) but on a more accurate inspection it releveal to be styrene acrylonitrile resin (the link should open in a new window, if you want to click now), or SAN for short. Probably has been chosen in place of polystyrene because of the higher temperature resistance, superior to 100°. Unfortunately, SAN is a Class 7 (the link points to the article about classes) polymer and not easily recycled: there are studies on it, tho.  The upper half is HDPE, while the lower, dark grey parts are high impact polystyrene (HI-PS). We'll find more materials later, let's get back to the disassembly line!

The mixed-polymer buttons.

Transparent lid, still attached to the upper half.

Dang!

So, next step was removing the paper feeding guide that was attached to the mechanisms with two machine screws. As I pulled it out, it dissasembled into two different  parts and large metal spring popped out. I proceeded to further disassemble it and noticed that the attrition against the paper was provided by a small square piece of cork glued in a step of the tray: I doubt it wasn't possible to obtain the same effect with a mold design that would have cut the costs of the cork and the glue. The loading tray itself, taken with all of its components, if a mixture of well-known ABS, HDPE and a new one, polyoxymethylene (POM). Polyoxymethylene is very lucid and quite "old": has been discovered in 1920 and is one of those polymers 100% recyclable, as this page says.

The paper loading tray has been unloaded. The gray slider is made of POM.

Where's the rest of the bottle, scallywag!

The loading tray revealed one of the critical parts of inkjet printers: the sponges where the excess of ink goes. Many printers could have been saved from the waste and many of us could have been a bit richer if they knew how to change those, since when they become full the printer won't work right and will start staining the paper. It would have been kind of a messy operation, but with a pair of gloves and an appropriate surface to do it wouldn't have been impossible. Those were pretty much clean.

Inkjet printers' nemesis...and printer makers distorted delight.

Finally I've stumbled across the first re-usable piece of equipment one could get from a printer: PSU! The power source unit, a switching transformer, is secured to the case via machine and lag screws. The disconnection from the electronic board is quite simple, and it's ready to be used in a project since it comes with a nice aluminium case. Generates 30V and 40V.

Hello, PSU! This part is still alive and kicking. Looks good, also!

 Testing the PSU.

Back to work! Some screws later, I have been able to finally detach the mechanisms from the plastic casing.

 Unscrewing. It's a dirty job, but someone must do it.

 almost there...

...done!

 This part of disassembling revealed some interesting mechanisms, like the ink pump and the way the mini-geared wheels are secured to the metal structure: mini-springs, so they can adapt to different papers and provide the right attrition without leaving marks on it. I could reproduce the pump mechanism with a 3D CAD, for the future... you may never know! The white parts are made of ABS.

This provided the ink pumping action we all need, at times.

Spring roll-ing! Mmmmh... I'm hungry now.

 Paper feed system: other interesting rotating shapes.

After removing a metal board, I've reached the electronics. Nothing to say here: something could be salvaged, but not much. They are also very difficult to recycle, so... for now I have a large box for them. I was thinking about using them as a decoration for a large technologic-thing panel/door/wall/whatever. In the paper feed system I've found a very nice component.. an opto-isolator! this coule be used in a moltitude of projects, so... saved! Same goes for the stepper motors found on the metal parts: I've discovered I'm not the first one pulling useful things out of a dead printer.

EM-462 Bipolar Stepper

Coil resistance: 9.2 Ohms

Coil wire diameter: 0.28 +/- 0.02 mm

EM-463 Bipolar Stepper

Coil resistance: 6.1 Ohms

Coil wire diameter: 0.28 +/- 0.02 mm

Are there tiny people wearing led-clothing running in those circuits?

The opto-isolator. The LED tower has been made recognizable... nice!

The dirty work, and i mean it: ink cartridge tray and ink nozzle. With the help of the pliers, I was able to expose the guide and slide the tray out. Disassembling it, I've found the caps made of POM, ABS and a metal spring; printed circuits (used to check the ink levels) and flat cables. The main metal structure had some plastic rollers and flaps. Everything was disassembled and sorted! The last two metal parts were hold together by a metal part of the smaller one, just lifting it with a screwdriver lets them free to slide away from each other.

Removing the ink tray.

 Paper flowin', see those rollin', see they hatin'.

This is how a skeleton printer could look like.

 You are free now!

The main paper axle was connected to the metal parts via a spring system, easy to disassemble. Dividing the axle from the ABS gears was somewhat challenging, and I ended up breaking one while trying to pull it out. But at the end, I've been successful

The spring-locking mechanism.

 Ops.

Cleaned!

Here it ends! Now we got all the plastics divided from metal, all machine screws and lag screws (a dozen for each type) saved and stored for future use. Same goes for springs and washers - those are parts that can be always reused.

Fully disassembled!

Everything reasonably useful could be saved and used again... and as the time I did it with my CD player, I can go to sleep knowing that I've done something that helped, even if just a little, the environment. Alright, this sounds a bit silly :P but at least it was an interesting experience!

Thanks for reading!