Sigh.... Someone Get Me a Taser

Drunk Zapped Repeatedly
Only a small part of the story of a drunk who is crying "foul" over getting zapped several times by a cops Tazer really pisses me off.

The subject of cops abusing the use of "non-lethal" enforcement weapons is an entirely different subject and is some pissed off I'm saving for later.

Actually the part that ticks me off isn't even part of the story. It's actually one of the little "facts" that cnn has labeled as Taser facts on the left hand side. Follow the link above and read them if you would like.

Well, the once I'm concentrating on is the one that reads "An average Taser device can emit a 50,000-volt electric shock. In comparison, a device in emergency rooms to shock hearts back to life starts at around 300 volts."

Sounds factual right?

Well, that's because it is.

So whats wrong here? Why am I cheesed off?

Because it makes the Taser sound thousands of times more dangerous and painful than a defibrillator. That's why I'm ticked.

Knowing what I do about the importance of current when electricity travels through the human body, I'd rather get hit with the Taser.

"Volts" means SQUAT in the case of these two totally dissimilar devices.

Quick lesson in electricity.

The Taser may produce very high voltage, but does so at MICROamps of current, the result, tons of pain, very little danger.

A defibrillator produces much less voltage but at astronomically higher current levels, sometimes as much as 40AMPS!! A defibrillator is easily LETHAL if used incorrectly.

Why do you think that use that conductive cream on the paddles? To prevent electrodes from BURNING the patient!

Volts with almost no current only hurts like hell, that's why a Taser can't start/stop your heart and a defibrillator can, it uses CURRENT instead of a lot of volts.

So in closing, I'd MUCH rather get hit with the Taser. CNN is just stupid and feeding misinformation in order to make a fairly safe (even if overused for no good reason) device look bad when it should be the cop who should be getting the brunt of it.

Besides, I have my doubts as to if a taser would be worse than the 10KV+ at who knows how many milliamps I came into contact with when I accidentally touched a live TV fly-back transformer and got lit up like a Christmas tree at college. Still don't remember hitting the floor...

Printer Woes

Argh! My printer is sick! Possibly very sick! Bad printhead error!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!

Good thing I'm a Xerox certified technician so no labor costs for any repairs! Too bad parts cost $$$ I don't have...

What printer you say? Why, "The Beast" of course! I have the Phaser 850DX and it's completely LOADED, there literally are no more options that you can add.

See? Printer when it's happy and working!

This is a really nice professional solid ink printer that is designed from fairly heavy use and I love it, well worth the tiny fraction of the original price I paid (hint: your little inkjet on your desk probably cost more).

It had been serving me very well until a couple weeks ago, I shut it down and moved it when I had family visiting. It's since been off for 2 weeks since I have been too busy to do anything that required printing.

Last night, however, I had to print a couple addresses on a handful of envelopes and I had a small queue of documents and projects that I had been putting off printing. I turned it on, waited the 10 minutes or so for the warm up cycle to complete and the inital test page to print, no problem! I sent my first envelope to it, and it shot right though, second envelope resulted in a jam. *Sigh* quick tug and one front panel shut later it tried to put it's normal cleaning page through and....

wtf? Another jam?

Odd...

I cleared out the new jam and it did the same thing and I noticed there wasn't one of it's usual sounds being made at the pre-heater... crap.

Upon further inspection it appeared that a clutch wasn't engaging and allowing the page to be pulled through.

Cool. Easy and cheap to fix. Lets run a few diagnostics to be sure.

Reboot the printer into diagnostic mode and BAM!

ERROR: Contact Service
04,021.42:496587

.............

....I AM "SERVICE" BLAST IT!

I look up the error code (not a good thing when it's one I haven't seen before) and sure enough it's expensive part related.

Could be wiring, could be re-programming... or could be a 500 dollar part replacement.... my cost. (I get things cheaper because I'm a tech, it'd cost anyone else $800)

Ouchie...

More news will follow after I take the thing further apart and get to the culprit.

I'm hoping it's just a loose wire from moving it across the room *crosses fingers*

UPDATE 9/8/07: It looks like I was reading the error code chart wrong, it's actually claiming that the drum is dirty, which was why it was trying to put a cleaning page through before I rebooted it.

This is not a major problem but it still doesn't explain the constant paper jams, which may be back down to the clutch.... I'm gonna clean the drum and see what happens. Here's hoping to no further repairs needed!!

Update 9/9/07: Ok, drum is clean, unfortunately I'm tired and I don't want to clean up the pre-heater feed rollers atm, which is just a pre-caution and as I said before, I think it's the clutch not working instead of the rollers slipping.

Update 9/10/07: I hate technology.

Update 9/26/07: Started working on it again... No luck so far, definitely not a solenoid... That leaves circuit boards.... *cries silently*

Update 9/26/07 #2: Found out what was causing the error, the printer NEEDS to put a cleaning page through and I was trying to bypass it. Clutch is fine, appears to be the right I/O board... I hope. I also tore it completely apart and cleaned then reseated everything, inspected all the cables, etc... Still no go, but I'm gonna order the I/O board for it and hope all these dark clouds go away.

Update 12/14/07: Turns out there are a broken off paper registration flag in the preheater section all long.... SO it's fixed with uber-juryrigging (aka it's stronger than factory now) and I have $80 bucks in spare parts laying around for future breakdowns.... Oh well, if I need the cash back, there is always ebay.