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Printer Hardware Hacking Hardware

HOWTO: The Anti-Printer 179

Posted by Hemos from the the-best-printer-ever dept.
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."
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HOWTO: The Anti-Printer More

HOWTO: The Anti-Printer

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  • Ho hum... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:05AM (#13426251)

    Big deal...at my office there's a printer that randomly shreds documents without any sort of modification. ^_^

    • Re:Ho hum... (Score:5, Funny)

      by shanen ( 462549 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:07AM (#13426260) Homepage Journal
      That was exactly the point I was going to make. The only purpose printers have is to shred as much paper as possible. Once in a while they actually print a good page, but that's just bait to trick you into feeding it more paper.

      • Re:Ho hum... (Score:2, Informative)

        by LordSnooty ( 853791 )
        That was exactly the point I was going to make. The only purpose printers have is to shred as much paper as possible

        Er, sounds like you have one broken printer there. Might I recommend an engineer call?

        • Re:Ho hum... (Score:2, Funny)

          by shanen ( 462549 )
          You obviously have very little experience with printers. All spawned by Satan.

          Actually, I should have noted that the point of the original article is that they only unleashed the natural paper-hating spirit of the demon that lurks in the heart of every printer. (Benjamin Franklin excepted.)

          But it still deserves to get modded redundant? Will it help avert redundancy if I tell the story of my three of my early printers? One was this weird thermal paper jobber. Then there was this early daisy wheel thing b

    • We must work in the same office.. some days I just wanna shoot that Nina lady though. If I hear Corporate Accounts Payable, Nina speaking, just a moment one more time I'm gonna snap. And God help you if you say I'm just having a case of the Mondays.

      • Re:Ho hum... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Skye16 ( 685048 )
        Someone actually said that to me at work, non-jokingly, on a Monday morning.

        Generally speaking, I don't have anger issues. I'm laid back, mellow, and "nice". But at that moment, the urge to beat her to death with the fax machine almost overwhelmed me.

    • Re:Ho hum... (Score:5, Funny)

      by /ASCII ( 86998 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:30AM (#13426369) Homepage
      At my old university, there used to be a huge old dot-printer with a really heavy printer head. One day someone figured out that the table it was standing on was pretty unstable, and that when printing a carefully crafted file, called 'devil.ps', the printer head would move at the right speed overturn the table.

      • Re:Ho hum... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by PhotoGuy ( 189467 )
        While this is technically feasible, along with line-printer-music, and other cool hacks, this story smells a bit.

        A postscript dot matrix printer? Has there ever been such a beast?
        • Actually, yes, there are several. Not to mention that there may have been an interpreter in between(ie: ghostscript). I've passed a lot of raw printer data encapsulated in postscript files for our servers over the years.
    • "PC Loadletter? WTF is PC Loadletter??"
  • pesky alien autopsy photos
    Aliens are make believe, just like elves and gremlins and eskimos!

  • Weird (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Crixus ( 97721 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:09AM (#13426275)
    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. :-)

    • Re:Weird (Score:3, Informative)

      by Gordonjcp ( 186804 )
      ... except this was using an already broken laser printer as a sheet feeder to an el-cheapo paper shredder. More useful than you'd think.

    • Re:Weird (Score:5, Interesting)

      by teslar ( 706653 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:18AM (#13426311)
      this is like turning a 911 into a Chevette. :-)
      Yes, well... except that the laser printer they used was actually dead and there was a need for a bulk shredder. And why, so the reasoning goes, buy an expensive bulk shredder when you can build one using the knackered laser printer?

      So yeah, it is like turning a 911 into a Chevette.... except that you've slammed the 911 into a tree the day before and actually have a use for a Chevette - maybe some Chevette fan is offering you loads of money for it? :)

      • Re:Weird (Score:3, Funny)

        by DarkSarin ( 651985 )
        There are Chevette Fans? I never knew...

        • Re:Weird (Score:2, Funny)

          by Alien Being ( 18488 )
          "There are Chevette Fans?"

          A friend of mine married a very elegant French woman who insisted that he buy her a "sporty car". So, one day he handed her a set of keys with a fob that said "Vette".

          It was all hugs and kisses, until she got to the window, at which point her mood changed (permanently, I think).

        • Ya, they help keep the radiator fluid cooled.

      • Re:Weird (Score:3, Informative)

        by schon ( 31600 )
        there was a need for a bulk shredder

        If there was a need for a bulk shredder, why did they use a $15 walmart piece of crap?

        Those things aren't designed to run continuously - it's gonna burn out in less than a week.

        Now this [mbmcorp.com] is a bulk shredder - it will take CD's VHS tapes, and even 3-ring binders (whole - including the rings.)

        • Re:Weird (Score:3, Informative)

          by bluekanoodle ( 672900 )
          That's nice, but did you happen to notice the price on that? Over $30,000!!!!

          You could buy a new $15 shredder at Walmart every week for the next 38+ years for that price!

          • Yeah, but $15 Walmart shredders aren't called "DESTROYITs!"
          • You could buy a new $15 shredder at Walmart every week for the next 38+ years for that price!

            You'd be buying them every day, not week. I don't know about you, but that's not a great way to spend my time.

            And it *still* wouldn't take binders and CDs, unless you were buying them everyy 5 minutes.

            My point was that a $15 disposable is *NOT* a bulk shredder.

        • Re:Weird (Score:2, Interesting)

          by lantenon ( 867508 )
          No no, my friend. That is not a bulk shredder. This [google.com] is a bulk shredder.

        • Re:Weird (Score:2, Funny)

          by modecx ( 130548 )
          Screw that... I'd be fixing a blown small block Chevy to a ginormous grinder before I'd get one of those. I'd make the shredder only Tim Allen and myself could love! Ohhh oh oh...

          Mine will shred bowling balls, whole cabinets full of 3-ring binders and an entire meeting room full of PHBs... All at once!

          I'm the evil midnight shredder what shreds at midnight! Bwahahahahaha!
          --It's the only jib I've got Baby!
          • I've got a small block Chevy sitting in the corner of my garage just waiting for a project like that. Get ahold of me when you get that ginormous grinder, and a blower (or possibly one of the Banks twin turbo [bankspower.com] kits). :)
        • Yea. They should keep a couple dozen backups, er, just in case.

          Also, your solution while envy-producing starts at $32,000.

    • Re:Weird (Score:2, Funny)

      by Gorath99 ( 746654 )
      Don't worry. Tune in next week for a tutorial on how to turn a broken shredder into a fully functioning laser printer!

      Results may vary, of course...

    • Re:Weird (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @09:01AM (#13426520) Homepage
      but I want both.

      I need the shredder on the output of the laser printer for the ultimate in secure documents that are so secure that they must be shredded as they are printed.

  • You could have more "fun"... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mendy ( 468439 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:10AM (#13426279)
    ...modding a fax machine or photocopier like this :)

  • Modded toner cart (Score:4, Funny)

    by frinkacheese ( 790787 ) * on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:12AM (#13426280) Journal
    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.

  • Missing features (Score:5, Informative)

    by jurt1235 ( 834677 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:13AM (#13426285) Homepage
    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.
    • I also loved the paper folding feature where the paper was folded in a width 0.5inch harmonica.

      Our new Canon ImageRunner came with this feature. You'd think that for all the things they list that it does, that they would've included this one. Of course, it doesn't do it very often, so maybe they just didn't want to get people's hopes up...

  • the other way? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now if I could just mod that paper shredder into a laser printer
  • I like some of the other projects on the site a bit more, like the LCD Window [inventgeek.com] 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.

  • Yeah, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:18AM (#13426309) Homepage Journal
    ...does this "Anti-Printer" cause a massive explosion spewing paper shreds and toner, when it collides with a standard Xerox laser printer?

    I thought not.

    • That depends on the relative velocity between the colliding objects.

    • ..does this "Anti-Printer" cause a massive explosion spewing paper shreds and toner, when it collides with a standard Xerox laser printer?

      I thought not.

      Collides yes. Simply comes into contact with, no. You just need a little higher velocity to achieve the same result.

      So, all you need it your LXPS (Large Xerox Particle Sled) to get the two up to speed, and you can have exactly what you wanted.

      I hearn CERN has a facility for printer/anti-printer interaction analysis. :-P

    • Actually, it would create a burst of gamma radiation, not an explosion. The outcome would probably be the same, of course, though, or at least for any bystanders...

  • Stolen Idea (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scoria ( 264473 ) <{slashmail} {at} {initialized.org}> on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:21AM (#13426322) Homepage
    Just what we need to take care of those pesky alien autopsy photos

    I believe that the submitter was referring to this [politiq.org] Xerox "real customer testimonials" advertisement.
  • 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.
    • The point is they used a printer that didn't print and turned it into a shredder feeder. I'd like one for that pile of end-of-the-year crap I shred at home. Save me the hassle of feeding my shredder a few pages at a time.
      • So all the paper you shred fits flat and exactly into paper tray? No receipts, flight tickets, staples, crumpled / folded bits, tear offs or anything else that would jam or not feed properly? Me neither.


        It's a pointless project, pure and simple. The stupidest part is you need to buy shredders and gut a large laser printer in order to complete it.

    • The point is that that shredder will only shred a few pages at a time (maybe 1-5), but the modified printer can shred hundreds of pages automatically. This might not be useful in a potentially malicious environment, such as the govt., in a small business case, where the stuff to be shredded is basically to protect your identity, etc. it would be useful.

  • Duplex (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:23AM (#13426338)
    I'm waiting for the duplex version of this mod, so I can print then shred my documents in one go, Futerama bureaucrat style.

  • And the OS? (Score:3, Funny)

    by rasty ( 212471 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:25AM (#13426350) Homepage
    How come I was expecting the article to be about installing Linux on the printer?

  • Great boon for document security... (Score:5, Funny)

    by StressGuy ( 472374 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:30AM (#13426370)
    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....

    • > [me] Sure, thanks! {immediately runs it through handy shredder}

      That just takes care of the one flyer. Better to run the goober through a woodchipper.

      Better yet, follow the money trail and keep sticking them into the chipper.
    • Earhair discrimination must be stopped!!! You Insensitive Clod
    • Look up the Dilbert strip for April 29th 1992. :) It's not available on the Dilbert website, it seems (they only go back one month - shame), but if you have the books, you should be able to find it.

      You're not the first one to have this idea. :)
      • I have to express a certain fascination that you can ID a 13 year old comic strip to the day...and yea, assuming we are talking about the hand held shredder (which I think I saw on ThinkGeek), it does kinda sound like Dogbert or possibly a Dilbert thing now that you mention it.

        Back in those days however, I was more a "Calvin and Hobbs" and "Bloom County/Outland" guy.

        Cheers,

        Joe
        • *s* Well, I just remembered this strip because I thought it was rather funny, and then took a Dilbert book and looked it up again. ^_~

          Anyhow, in that strip, Dilbert's handing an urgent document to the boss, who promptly proceeds to shred it in his portable shredder, and, when Dilbert remarks how much he hates that thing, asks whether Dilbert's tie's made of silk.

          I think it fits perfectly with the boss' personality. :)

  • What, no laser? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:35AM (#13426396) Homepage
    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!
    • Yeah, that would be cool.

      "boss, I'd like to buy this new ultrasecure shredder. It uses a laser to completely obliterate the document. The only snag is that we'd need to have a 2.5 kA/400V feed brought in."

  • The perfect device for the Bush administration (Score:4, Funny)

    by gearmonger ( 672422 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:40AM (#13426410)
    Wow, this is what the White House have been wanting for a long time: a printer that will immediately shred everything it prints. No more pesky Freedom of Information Act requests, no sir!


    Dearest Mods: No, this is not a troll, just a potentially lame attempt at humor. This [aol.com] is a troll.

  • Mr. Zulu (Score:3, Funny)

    by Underholdning ( 758194 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:43AM (#13426422) Homepage Journal
    Set laser printers on stun!

  • Heh, completely pointless (Score:5, Funny)

    by youngerpants ( 255314 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:43AM (#13426423)
    Becasue printers use stepped motors, from TFA


    "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 :)

  • Why not cross-cutting.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:57AM (#13426493) Homepage
    ...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.

  • Reminds me of a joke I read.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by eyeball ( 17206 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:59AM (#13426510) Journal
    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."

  • arent paper shreders insecure as well (Score:4, Interesting)

    by epaton ( 884617 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @09:00AM (#13426515)
    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.
    • I did some work with a company that handles a lot of confidential paper for other people - they provide off-site, secure, storage, and are responsible for destroying things after they are no longer required. Their solution is to dump everything into a swimming pool which contains bleach (as well as water). This destroys cheap paper almost instantly, and more bleaches the ink from more expensive paper. Periodically the paper mulch is removed and turned into new paper.

      I've wondered if this could be used o

      • I've wondered if this could be used on a smaller scale in conjunction with a conventional shredder - simply have the shredder empty into a bucket of water where the small bits will quickly lose their shape and become impossible to put back together.

        I remember a gadget sold aboot 20 years ago that you put old newspaper into, added water, then it squeezed this into "logs" which you put aside to dry. In winter time, burns like wood. (Normal paper burns too fast for a fireplace, you have to keep feeding in ha

  • Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)

    by TCM ( 130219 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @09:00AM (#13426517)
    "PC Load Letter"? What the fuck does that mean?

  • Printer v Shredder (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ruprecht the Monkeyb ( 680597 ) * on Monday August 29, 2005 @09:35AM (#13426734)
    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.
  • 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? ;-)

  • 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........
  • Epson MX-80s did this over twenty years ago.

  • Similar to our printer names (Score:4, Funny)

    by whyde ( 123448 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @11:36AM (#13427771)
    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.
  • 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.
  • 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...
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • A use for those old inkjet printers. Bolt the shredder to the output and send the thing 100 form feeds. No circuit layout required.

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