[PRL] Of printers, jamming, and relative humidity

[Greg Pettyjohn]

Maybe we could get some of those keep-dry packet thingys that they ship 
along with electronics
and put it in with our paper.

On Jul 2, 2004, at 12:03 PM, Richard C. Cobbe wrote:

> As those of you who've been in the office all morning can attest, I've
> had a rather trying day with gaugin and hiro.  In my first attempts,
> gaugin was not able to print a single page before jamming; hiro was not
> faring much better.  This has of course been happening all week, but it
> was significantly worse this morning.
>
> I think I may have a theory about the cause of the problem: the 
> relative
> humidity in here was too much for the printers.  Or rather, it was too
> much for the paper: when there's a lot of moisture in the air, paper
> tends to get thicker, stickier, and curl up, and I can easily see this
> causing jams.
>
> So, I closed the windows, cranked up the A/C, and waited a couple of
> hours.  My first attempt on gaugin resulted in a jam, so I cleaned all
> the paper out of both drawers, opened a new ream, and tried again:
> worked perfectly.  I didn't even have the annoying little creases about
> halfway down the page on the right that I know some of you have 
> noticed.
>
> While I won't claim that this conclusively proves my theory, it does
> suggest that I'm on to something.  If I'm right, then this suggests two
> things:
>
>  1) When it's really humid out, close the windows.  The thermostat in
>     WVH 308 appears to be doing the Right Thing now (or at least a 
> close
>     approximation to same), so we shouldn't need to rely on the windows
>     to prevent it from turning into a meat freezer in here.
>
>  2) Don't open a package of paper and let it sit around on the counter
>     for a couple of days, sucking up all the moisture in the air.  The
>     drawers on both printers can hold a full ream without jamming; just
>     put the whole thing in.
>
>     (Well, Hiro's bottom drawer is still cursed, I think, but otherwise
>     the above statement holds.)
>
> Richard
>
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