Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 September 20

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September 20

KEY BOARD FUNCTION KEYS

One of my friend bought an 'HP PAVILION 15 Notebook PC 15-E016TU' model laptop recently. There some additional keys (such as 'fn') and he wants to know the meaning(functions) of those keys. Where can he find the details of the keys and functions? Thank you.175.157.16.32 (talk) 01:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

User guide here. [1] Fn key usage is on page 26. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:11, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Microsoft office need to close message comming of office 2007

Dear

Iam using microsoft office 2007

every time i am getting Microsoft office need to close message sorry for the inconvenience message

i ready i uninstall and install several times please post the solution — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.251.31.210 (talk) 09:17, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

More details are probably needed. What version of windows for example, and the circumstances under which it is happening. "every time i am getting Microsoft office need to close message" is not particularly clear. Is this during install, or when you first try to open an office program? ◅ 220 of ^Borg 09:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

They're probably getting it when editing/writing documents, as that's the only time I've ever seen that. Suprising though that uninstalling and reinstalling did nothing... but without further information, we can only speculate. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 03:31, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the IP is referring to the "(Application) has (Microsoft-specific euphemism for "screwed up") and needs to close" crash message. I don't know about that specific case but usually, if a program keeps crashing after a reinstall, you have to uninstall, remove the remaining files and folders, and remove the "HKEY_Local_Machine/Software/(Corporation)/(Product)" registry branch. In that case, it would pobably be HKEY_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Office 2007.

Unfortunately, Microsoft keeps adding layers of confusion. It could be a corrupted DLL, too, or even a corrupted .NET framework, which is harder to fix. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 08:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Using an inkjet printhead.

If I were to buy and old (working) inkjet printer and remove the print head - how hard would it be to drive it from (say) an Arduino. I have plenty of software coding skills and I can wire up simple logic gates and such.

What I guess I'm wondering is how much "black magic" goes on in the software/firmware of a printer to make the ink come out of the nozzles? Do they just set a logic level for each color and each nozzle to tell it to shoot a splotch of ink - or is there some complicated sequence of operations needed?

SteveBaker (talk) 19:18, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I have no direct experience, but Thingiverse and Make have articles on DIY inkjet printers that may have some useful information. There is a kickstarter project for interfacing an Arduino with a print head. --Mark viking (talk) 19:37, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Wow! That's stunningly useful! Thanks. SteveBaker (talk) 16:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

You may need to look into the various 'squirting' technologies used. I worked on Siemens PT80i2 inkjets that used piezo-electric principles. This required rather high voltages from a driver board, so I think that type of print-head would be to be avoided. I would think that your "level for each color and each nozzle to tell it to shoot a splotch of ink" would be about right. I would be surprised if the print-head was any smarter than that, but it it possible. The ones I worked on also included a heater in the head to keep them at a constant temperature. This seemed unnecessary as we still used ones where the heater had gone open circuit, though I had to bypass the temperature level alarm. The printing result seemed much the same, but these were just B&W text logging printers, not high-res colour.÷ 220 of ^Borg 04:15, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, after perusing Inkjet printing I withdraw my comment about avoiding piezo type heads as they are fairly common: "Most commercial and industrial inkjet printers and some consumer printers (those produced by Epson and Brother Industries ... )", use piezo printheads.
Steve, I presume you have a more interesting application planned than printing text? :-) œ 220 of ^Borg 05:41, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm considering adding one to the head of my lasersaur laser cutter so I can print perfectly registered color on top of laser cut parts. But I will need considerable control over the printing - and also will need to modify the thing so I can feed it with bulk ink bottles rather than the $50 a pop thimble-sized cartridges. I have found kits for that modification - but I'll need to control the ink feed and the speed that my laser head moves. SteveBaker (talk) 16:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Steve, wouldn't it be easier to use your laser to etch a metal-foil stencil, or burn out the emulsion on a silkscreen master stencil, and then manually apply inking over the stencil in a second step? You'd have to be careful about alignment, but that is a tractable and solvable problem. Silkscreen printing is the standard procedure in industrial electronics manufacturing, and it sounds like your lasersaur is practically industrial-strength. Nimur (talk) 14:17, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, we make relatively small batches of model buildings (check out http://RenaissanceMiniatures.com) - and for us, there is great benefit to being able to toss a sheet of plywood into the machine, push the "GO!" button and let it run for several hours before we have to empty it and start over. Using an ink head inside the lasercutter to ink in some stuff like sign-boards that need lots of colors - but not much area - is pretty efficient compared to adding an entire new processing stage. The perfect registration of print and cut/etch would also be beneficial. Also, we have about 300 different parts that we make - and just storing 300 2'x4' silk-screens would pretty much kill us! We're always interested in processes that engineer the human out of the loop - and as a one or two person business - anything that eliminates extra steps for a human to do is worth having. SteveBaker (talk) 22:22, 22 September 2013 (UTC)