I thought a malfunctioning hair trimmer was a simple device and I understood why it failed. But it turned out to be more complex, my deduction turned out to be wrong, and I had no further ideas. Giving up on it didn't feel great, but I did learn a few things. A few salvaged parts may yet see reuse in a future project, and the components were separated. The metal parts could be recycled, the circuit board is going to e-waste, leaving only the plastic bits to landfill. This is roughly the same situation as the last time I took apart a retired inkjet printer.

Inkjet printers were a wonderful invention enabling affordable color printing. Unfortunately, the product ecosystem have landed on a wasteful business model deriving profit from ink cartridge sales. Printers were built to be sold cheaply, other concerns like long-term durability became secondary. Short warranty periods and discontinued printers became the norm. Speaking for myself, I rarely need to print in color. When I do, I tend to find my cartridge had clogged up along with other problems caused by lack of use. Like paper jams caused by rubber rollers that had hardened and no longer had good grip on paper. Considering the fact a cartridge for an old discontinued printer cost almost as much as a new printer, it's easier to just buy a new printer. Sure, the ink cartridge bundled with a new printer has less ink, but it is likely to clog from neglect before I actually run out either way. And thus the cycle repeats.

A small upside to this sorry state of affairs is that teardown tinkerers have a steady feed stock of retired inkjet printers. I let friends and family know I'm interested in their old inkjet printers as well, and they've been happy to let their broken printers gather dust at my house instead of theirs.

Years ago (before I started writing down projects on this blog) I took apart a few of those printers. I was fascinated by the amount of engineering that went into even entry-level printers. But I was frustrated by the fact I didn't understand very much of what went on, and couldn't put the components to other use. At least the metal parts got recycled and I kept the circuit boards out of landfill.

But I've learned a lot since my last inkjet teardown. I managed to put one power supply to use (multiple times, actually) and I've learned things like driving stepper motors I pulled from those printers. I have an oscilloscope and a logic analyzer now, and I have 3D printing to help reuse the mechanical bits. I still won't understand everything inside an inkjet printer, but I will understand more than before, and that's good enough to embark on another run.