Smashing up 8570 to Recover Ink Sticks

[js983e]

We have 40+ colorqube machines at our company (luckily covered by service contracts). I agree 100% that they are solid performers, but there is really no such thing as a "small" issue with these things. Just about every probably we have requires a service call which in turn means an entire day some times 2 days of down time... Its a shame.

[decker12]

Shame, really. 8580's are less than $600 but to repair this 8570, I've been quoted $600 to $900. I don't mind buying new printers but I just can't support a product that I need to replace every 3.5 years. It's so wasteful, and it feels like junking a whole car because the radiator stopped working.

What's always been odd about this solid ink line is that the devices are such solid performers (other than the occasional cleaning page / jet substitution) - that is until they break, and then they're unrepairable. I've got one more 8570 in the office and I suspect it'll die in the next 18 months if it's anything like the others.

I was hoping there was some push-down-this-pin to release the lever that holds the ink in place, but sounds like I just have to bust the thing apart to re-use the ink.

[Joe Arseneau]

Easiest would be to break it really if you are just tossing it and don't have to worry about damages.

Xerox techs typically take the machine apart and move the leavers to lift the gate pegs that hold and feed the ink in place.

The though behind the lift gates is likely to have come from legal, not development. Getting solid ink on your skin from a hot machine hurts, it is way worse than melted candle wax.

[decker12]

I've got yet another broken 8570 (Print Head tilt or fault issue). This is the 5th lightly used one in 4 years that's broken with a hardware issue that costs more to fix than the price of a new printer. Of course it's out of warranty, but I'm not going to buy yet another 8570 to replace it - going HP from now on. Shame because the users love the quality but these things are horribly unreliable.

I used to scream and rant and rave at Xerox about the reliability of these junk printers, but now I'm just more annoyed that I have to drag another 70lb boat anchor to the dumpster. As I said, 5th dead 8570 in 4 years, each of them located in a different area of the workplace, each doing different tasks, all only see less than 50 pages a day. Just garbage.

Anyway, this latest machine has a full deck of ink sticks loaded into it. I have one more 8570 in the office that still hasn't died so I'd like to extract the ink sticks from this busted one and use them in the working one. I don't see any way to extract it other than smashing through the plastic, or maybe cutting it apart with a dremel.

I know Xerox support is going to feed some line about not wanting to contaminate the inks so that's why you can't extract them. Trust me, the remaining 8570 is going to break anyway, and it won't be because of contaminated ink sticks. Anyone have any tips or tricks before I physically break this thing apart trying to recover my $400 worth of ink?