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HOWTO: The Anti-Printer
Compu486 writes "Inventgeek.com has an interesting article on modding laser printers. In this how to mod they have converted a standard Xerox laser printer into an automatic high volume paper shredder. Just what we need to take care of those pesky alien autopsy photos, TPS reports, and Apple & IBM's CPU Contracts."
Big deal...at my office there's a printer that randomly shreds documents without any sort of modification. ^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
pesky alien autopsy photos
Aliens are make believe, just like elves and gremlins and eskimos!
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
A laser printer seems like a much more useful tool than a paper shredder. That is considering that they have shredders at my local office store for next to nothing.
:-)
Hacks are wonderful things... but this is like turning a 911 into a Chevette.
Ignore Alien Orders
...modding a fax machine or photocopier like this :)
I would like a modded HP toner+drum cartridge that randomly shreds documents. Then I could cause much hilarity in the office as the presentation-making, paper-shifting, twoddle-spouting marketing types try to print off their presentations 5 minutes before their meetings.
And paper jam feature (V3 laser printers). And when they said paper jammed, they really meant it. I also loved the paper folding feature where the paper was folded in a width 0.5inch harmonica.
They really miss these good old features on this Xerox. Too bad, else it would have been worth to spend some time on it.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
You mean Esquimaux.
In fact, you mean Innnnnnnuit.
Now if I could just mod that paper shredder into a laser printer
...the middle man.
No-one reads most of the docs that get printed in offices anyway.
How about applying this mod to an ATM?
I'd like to see the reactions...
I like some of the other projects on the site a bit more, like the LCD Window casemod. I could see real potential for that with a touch screen and IR as a dual-head media PC. Information about what you're viewing in the actual case (along with browsable directories while you're watching something else) while the video displays on your TV.
I thought not.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Just what we need to take care of those pesky alien autopsy photos
I believe that the submitter was referring to this Xerox "real customer testimonials" advertisement.
Do you like German cars?
Unless it can be turned into a cross-cut shredder, with paper detection switch, reverse, safety switches and paper bin for under £20 which is what such a shredder costs at Argos. I own such a shredder and it works fantastically for the price and it's well worth it.
I'm waiting for the duplex version of this mod, so I can print then shred my documents in one go, Futerama bureaucrat style.
How come I was expecting the article to be about installing Linux on the printer?
This is as dumb as it gets.
Did everyone miss that? It's here: http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20050803/index.h tml
Now instead of deleting pdf documents I can just print them to the shredder.
The sad thing is, if I say that out loud here, it would probably become office policy.
Speaking of shredders, I remember seeing a handheld, wand-shaped, shredder for sale once. My first thought was that this was a dumb idea. Then, I realized that they would be perfect for those goobers that are constantly shoving flyers at you when you walk into a shopping mall or down city streets. I can just see how the interaction would go:
[goober] Would you like a flyer explaining our cause to fight discrimination against people with excessive ear hair? It's also good for 10% off a facial a Chez Whositz.
[me] Sure, thanks! {immediately runs it through handy shredder}
[goober] you're an asshole, you know that?
[me] {chuckling to myself}...yea....
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Somebody!! Quick!! Load it into the Coral cache before their server explodes!
Phew..
difficulty: experanced
Is it as difficult as spelling?
Bah, it would be cool if they used the laser to shred the papers into tiny little confetti. Then we could begin the whole "printers with lasers on their heads" comment storm!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
The parts may be cheap, but the time spent on this tweak probably costs more than shipping & shredding in China (or dumping half-way).
Dearest Mods: No, this is not a troll, just a potentially lame attempt at humor. This is a troll.
Set laser printers on stun!
Underholdning.info
"This motor is actually scavenged from an additional paper shredder"
Sooo, take one functioning printer, one functioning shredder, combine the two and what do you have; one functioning shredder that looks like a printer and a pile of spare parts
I love mods for mods sake
what the fuck does f$ck mean?
...since a cross-cut unit isn't that much more than a strip unit. The guy says he doesn't need cross cut... well, perhaps.
But consider this; assume the shredder takes a vertically-aligned piece of A4/US-Letter paper. That's not too bad if you've printed the document in the same orientation.
On the other hand, if you've printed the document as 'landscape' (or simply fed it in that way), the text is rotated by 90 degrees, and it's quite possible to get a COMPLETE LINE OF TEXT LEFT INTACT. Sure, it might get cut in half. Or it *might not*... and this is a near-certainty if you have one of those cheap shredders that only does really wide strips (7-8mm). Not to mention that the latter, assuming the documents in the bin haven't become too mixed, will be relatively easy to reconstruct because there are so few pieces.
In addition, feeding the paper 'correctly' (as a printer mechanism would) improves the alignment and hence *increases the problem*!
I bought a cross-cut shredder which reduces to fairly small pieces (4 x 22mm). Although it might be possible to have some meaningful information remain intact (e.g. a short account number), this is far less probable. Even if this happens, as it's not part of a long run of text, the context and meaning will be separated (e.g. the account number might not be recognised as such), and unless someone *really* knows what they're looking for, they'll probably miss it.
Plus, they have *many* more pieces to search through, and they're easier to mix up if you're really paranoid.
Yeah, the FBI could still get your information if they got their hands on the shredded paper (I bet they have pretty advanced 'stitching' software and the money to pay people to scan the pieces properly), but there's little information I have that the FBI couldn't find far easier in another manner. It'll stop everyone else, and that's good enough for what I use it for.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
A young executive is leaving the office late one night when he finds the CEO standing over the shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.
"This is a very sensitive official document," says the CEO. "My secretary's gone for the night. Can you make this thing work?"
"Sure," says the junior exec as he turns on the shredder and hits the start button.
"Great," says the CEO. "I just need one copy."
_______
2B1ASK1
im sure i remeber hearing about a system where you scan in all the shreds of paper and software reassembles the edges to recreate the documents. now quite apart from the fact that a paper shreder can be bought for pennys, wouldnt it be far more use to have the printer just to print a huge black box or just go up to the roof with a trash can and matches.
"PC Load Letter"? What the fuck does that mean?
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
Why not to make a shredder from a Xerox photocopier?
Once in my former work I was a consultant and part of my job was to obtain weekly timesheet reports signed by local employee. Other duties involved shredding some sensitive documents which needed to be destroyed (no, I wasn't working for Enron). The catch: shredder was standing next to photocopy machine. From the day one I was sure disaster just has to happen, this way or another.
(No it hadn't happen for me, but as far as I know, devices still stand next to each other).
Those are Eskimos from France, aren't they?
Reminds me of the time we got the high speed paper shredder and put it in the copy room next to the high speed band printer. The other tech and I looked at each, grinned, and promptly fed the output from the continous feed printer into the input of the shredder. It was a close race, but the shredder won, proving conclusively that it is easier to destroy than create.
WTF does that mean? :-P
Cornbread.... ain't nuttin wrong wit dat!
http://www.hp.com/Click Here!
R.
Everybody's joking, but I've got a box full of credit card offers and such to shred. Everybody says don't just throw them out, the identity-theft guys will get you. But I didn't have a shredder, so for years I've been saving the things in this big box. Now I have a shredder, and it's a decent one that can shred a whole 9 sheets at a time...and this is taking me frikken forever. I need an automatic feeder!!
For a cost of "$200-$800" and they couldn't even get it to cross-cut shred!
Nor does it run NetBSD. I've got this great toaster that....
"experanced", yeah...
Something between esperance and rancid? ;-)
The only thing insightful here is that the parent can't be bothered to read before commenting.
Big deal, the HP in our office automatically becomes a high volume paper shredder if it isn't cleaned every 3 months or so...
Chris
I'm thinking of swapping out our fax machine with one of these, then keeping a log to see how long it takes before someone notices........
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Epson MX-80s did this over twenty years ago.
cost: $200-800
difficulty: experanced
time : 4.5 hours
coolness : shreddy goodness
geek score: 7.00
Not that I would have spent my precious time doing the project, but for someone who can use a soldering iron, flip bits, etc., surely can fire up a spell-checker with their favorite word processor.
I had visions of a laser printer with the laser cranked up so much that it sliced the page to bits. Too much Austin Powers I guess :(
We have printers on our network with the following names:
shredder
pc_load_a4
toner_low
paper_jam
warming_up
fax_machine
The helpdesk tickets are rather amusing.
Toms Hardware Guide had this about a month ago. Keep up with the times.
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
Learn to read idiot.
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
I was the most absurd design ever. It would print the page fine. Once it was done you would have to grab it immediately or it would suck the page back in and screw it up into one of those fan things.
I can't see what the point of having the roller reverse direction at the end of printing is except to deliberately increase the number of pages that people woud print.
It eventually died because no one designed a switch to make it refuse to print when the paper out lid was closed.
The shredder engine they used is a far cry from what would be certified to shred Top Secret (as you see on their paper) documents.
Sneak in and replace the old printer with a modded one. Watch the confusion as people try to print and copy. There would be many confused people in my office.
Google has a room full of these sytems linked with the GFS to handle shredding all the paperwork in violation of SEC regulations...
I suspect Enron also had been in the process of making similar modifications...
Move all sig!
So they convert shredders to laser printers there?
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
"PC Loadletter? WTF is PC Loadletter??"
The BOFH would have definetly liked that.
"Insert your paper upside down to print on the other side. Oh, not again! You know, this printer appears to be faulty. Never mind, that document was crap anyway."
At one place of employment we had a shredder that you could feed a good sized phone book into and get confetti out the other end.
I loved that machine, particularly when I left the job. All my file cabinets went through that shredder.
The only mod I'd make to the original is a cross cutter as strips can be re-assembled with a little bit of effort.
However, re-assembling confetti is a whole lot harder.
I thought this was going to be a cool mod. Instead the guy bought a shredder from Wal-Mart and stuffed it in the printer shell. My hope was the guy tweaked the laser so it would cut paper. Oh well...
Ouch! I feel sorry for the person who decides to photocopy their bum!
convert a cpu into a backscratcher, next on the award-winning 10 o'clock news.
it's certainly cool but i don't ever wanna turn an expensive laser printer into a paper shredder, which i can pick up for 8 bucks.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
It only shreds paper? A proper "anti-printer" would take a stack of printed documents and convert it into a stack of blank paper and a full ink cartridge. Now that would be useful.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Nuttin' better than a hot French-Eskimo kiss.
XEROX 3450/B Laser Printer: $500
Aurora 5 Sheet Strip-Cut Paper Shredder: $15
Other assorted parts: $20
Having the boss pay you on company time to do something you would do on your own for free anyway?: Priceless...
A use for those old inkjet printers. Bolt the shredder to the output and send the thing 100 form feeds. No circuit layout required.
Have you ever used a HP Deskjet?
a Beow...