
Refilling an ink jet cartridge with highlighter ink - luu
https://twitter.com/MLE_Online/status/1242969804799012864
======
paulmd
Actually squeezing it from a highlighter is messy and unnecessary. You can buy
bottled highlighter ink for fountain pens pretty cheaply.

(there are special super-broad pen nibs for highlighting work. To use bulk
ink, you have a "converter" cartridge with a piston or squeeze-bottle that
allows you to suck ink out of the bottle and into the pen)

Since you specifically seem to be after fluorescent, here's somewhere to get
started:

[https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/bottled-
ink?filters%5...](https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/bottled-
ink?filters%5Bcustom_fields.fluorescent%5D%5B0%5D=Yes)

Here's an "invisible ink": [https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/bottled-
ink/products/...](https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/bottled-
ink/products/noodlers-blue-ghost-4-5oz-bottled-ink?variant=11884744540203)

Or a yellow highlighter ink: [https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/bottled-
ink/products/...](https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/bottled-
ink/products/noodlers-firefly-4-5oz-bottled-ink?variant=11884744278059)

Pink: [https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/bottled-
ink/products/...](https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/bottled-
ink/products/noodlers-hellfire-3oz-bottled-ink?variant=11884742180907)

I am not 100% sure that the viscosity will exactly match what printer ink is,
but if it's too thick you could cut it with isopropyl alcohol or similar.

edit: on further reflection if your goal is something that is visible outside
of a blacklight, the darker colors might have more pigment and thus be more
visible, although still probably quite light.

~~~
pugworthy
Emily's a hacker who does a lot for fun and amusement. I get the sense that
doing this in an efficient and effective way was not the end goal.

~~~
pugworthy
Seriously, I've followed her for a while on Twitter, and she does a lot of
really fun crazy stuff. I've really enjoyed having a twitter feed centered
around positive, fun feeds.

------
userbinator
Inkjet printers can use a variety of inks, one notable application is the
special third-party inks used for thermal transfers on clothing and such:

[https://www.inksupply.com/heat_transfer_ink.cfm](https://www.inksupply.com/heat_transfer_ink.cfm)

The printer shown here is based on the original HP Bubblejet thermal
technology, and thermal printheads are less flexible with the types of inks
they can use; hence why Epsons (piezoelectric head) tend to be preferred by
those using alternative inks.

~~~
pugworthy
I work with a very small group at HP that uses inkjet technology to dispense
fluids for work in life sciences. Basically, inkjet TIJ technology lets you
dispense very precise amounts of material with very precise timing. Normally
that's just ink, but you can do it with quite a few other things.

In our case, what we do is dispense liquids that normally would be done with a
micropipette. We can mix up to 8 different materials in different combinations
as part of various life sciences experiments.

~~~
justinclift
Guessing you're in the group that makes these?

[https://www8.hp.com/us/en/commercial-printers/specialty-
prin...](https://www8.hp.com/us/en/commercial-printers/specialty-printing-
systems/products.html)

There's no pricing on that page. :(

Any idea what kind of price (even range) they're in?

~~~
pugworthy
These here -> [https://www8.hp.com/us/en/commercial-printers/specialty-
prin...](https://www8.hp.com/us/en/commercial-printers/specialty-printing-
systems/d300.html)

I'm not 100% sure of the price but ... well we don't sell them at Best Buy :)

The whole SPS group (Specialty Print Systems) focuses on using the inkjet
technology for things HP may wish to not sell or market to directly. Like
barcode printers, etc.

Definitely reach out via the contact info at the bottom if you're interested.

~~~
justinclift
Thanks, that's the page I thought I linked to, but didn't get right. :)

Was asking mostly from curiosity, as I've been helping out a local Community
Biolab recently with "tech stuff" ;).

Will remember to point it out to the people there when I'm next in, likely
after this COVID thing dies down. Hopefully. :)

------
obblekk
Maybe this quarantine actually leads to enough random exploration in people’s
free time, that we see an explosion of creative new startups afterwards.

“Creative creation” as the libertarian economists might say.

~~~
carlinmack
If we gave people UBI we could have this "creative creation" happening all the
time

~~~
aidenn0
The one thing I don't get about UBI is who does the "shit" jobs. Those jobs
that are low-skill low-pay under the current system. Most people who do those
jobs do so only because the alternative is worse.

Even in places with generous social-welfare systems there tends to be social
pressure against relying on it, but making the payments universal seems likely
to remove that stigma.

The first order effects are obviously very positive (lookup the term "wage
slavery" for some of the moral arguments against such jobs), but it's hard to
predict what the higher order effects of a transition away from a system that
has basically been in place since the industrial revolution.

~~~
nkrisc
I suppose if those jobs are so terrible that no one who has UBI wants to do
them, they'll have to pay a fair wage to attract people. If they're truly
necessary, wages will rise until until positions are filled. And yes, you may
now have to pay more for work that was woefully underpaid previously.

If your scenario comes to pass, it just means we've been taking advantage of
the people who currently work those jobs because they have no other
alternative.

~~~
mardifoufs
But what happens when all prices go up? If everyone gets paid more, wouldn't
the UBI be worthless? Landlords will just raise prices since working people
will always have more money (UBI + salary) than non workers? Just like now?
Same goes for almost every service.

Real supply and demand will stay the same, real economic production will
probably stay the same too. So what's the point? 2000$ only feels a lot right
now because it's an amount of money that represents a lot of work for a lot of
people. Sure, you can link some small scale UBI experiments, but they have all
been done in the context of a broader economy where the amounts given still
had purchasing power.

There's a reason why most economists don't agree with UBI. I know people on HN
love to discredit economists, but the push for UBI here is ridiculous. It is
akin to simply denying a whole scientific field because you feel it's are
wrong

~~~
minikites
>It is akin to simply denying a whole scientific field because you feel it's
are wrong

Economics isn't a science.

------
jcl
Reminds me of the barely visible yellow tracking dots that some color inkjets
produce:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code)

------
Wowfunhappy
Wait, so why was the print out only visible under a black light?

~~~
barrkel
It's probably very faintly visible in ordinary light, but what makes
fluorescent ink interesting is that it fluoresces, i.e. it reflects UV light
in the visible spectrum, which makes it seem brighter than normal pigments. So
the blacklight makes it much more visible.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Ah! So in the words, the printer is placing a thinner (ie, too thin) layer of
ink on the paper than a human with a highlighter would, right?

~~~
StevenWaterman
Yep, printer ink has much more pigment in it because a few ml of ink has to
cover hundreds of pages

------
magduf
Interesting, but it's a lot easier to just toss out the inkjet and buy an
inexpensive laser printer. You can even buy a small-office color laser printer
for $200-300 these days. And 3rd-party toner cartridges for these printers are
ubiquitous and cheap and work fine. Why does anyone use inkjets any more? The
entire industry is just a big scam.

~~~
eythian
I don't know if you can get highlighter toner for a laser printer.

~~~
ricohboy
Very high end devices (the size of a printing press) will sometimes have spot
color capabilities, for finishes like neon colors or clear coating

------
mdip
I had wondered how this individual was going to make Inkjet printer ink out of
highlighter pens. I mean, considering the ink is priced somewhere around the
same rate as liquid gold, I figured it was either going to end up being "way
too easy" or we'd find out there was some important reason ink was so
expensive.

Neither was the result -- that's a Dot Matrix printer. I'd imagine if I'd have
turned the volume on, you'd hear the obnoxious sound they make when printing.
Still very cool, though.

~~~
detaro
I always am impressed how people _clearly_ can tell someone got the difference
between a dot matrix printer and an inkjet wrong despite working with it for
months, just from seeing a short silent video snippet.

BTW:
[https://twitter.com/MLE_Online/status/1243551232087584770](https://twitter.com/MLE_Online/status/1243551232087584770)

~~~
userbinator
To be fair, I think this may be the first time a lot of people, even HN users,
have seen a tractor-feed inkjet.

~~~
detaro
And if the submission was a question "what kind of printer is this",
misidentifying it would be a completely harmless mistake. Assuming that the
person owning it, clearly labeling it an inkjet, refilling its ink tank (did
dot matrix printers ever have that?) must be the one wrong about it, less so.

