Hi, it's random dumpster, tear down time and look what? I Found a classic bit of obsolete technology. Hands up. anyone who still uses a fax machine this is a brother. They were the duck guts of faxes back in the day.

Name a better fax machine back in the day. Um, this is the 83 60p 33600 bits per second. thank you very much screaming along And it is just a fax machine. It's not one of these new fangled uh things.

although it is a high-speed laser fax, so that's pretty. uh, relatively new fangled fax machines up? Nobody like they've gone the way of the doo. Does anyone still use them? I would have killed for a machine like this like 25 uh, 30 years ago cuz I had before the internet before the worldwide web I actually used a fax machine the polling feature as my website I could store up there I think four pages in my brother fax machine so I could store them in memory and then people would dial I I had two phone lines. People could actually dial my fax machine and actually pull my um, you know, latest product price list and everything from the fax machine.

And you know, at some points the the thing was like ringing all day. it's got a little bit of paper left. but yeah, it doesn't do anything else. And yes, we do have the uh, comically long screwdriver for this thing and this would have been probably I don't know.

Was there a better better fax machine then it's full of dust? Oh jeez. Okay, not good, but anyway, let's start taking it apart. As I said, these things were the Ducks GS and the staple of any office back in the day. I'm talking the 80s and the early '90s Uh, they didn't survive too much into the uh, the end of the 90s because pretty much, you know, um, email was, uh, starting to take over by that point.

I I Don't know. Hands up. Leave it in the comments. When do you think fax machines are officially died anyway? Uh, what? Yeah, we got line.

uh, extension and phone and that's it. All right? I'm not seeing any other screws. Um, this is rather annoying. have to flip it up.

What do we got? Uh, there's some sneaky buggers behind the paper trait. Maybe that'll start something, but I reckon there's probably some snap off panels or something like that on the sides. maybe and down in here. Yep.

so of course this is going to be pretty much a standard, uh, laser printer. but anyway, we'll see what she's like the Vintage of this thing I don't I don't know, haven't looked it up, but uh, you know it's a more modern one as far as fax machines go. Anyway, would that be used in any anything else? A TN 6600? um yeah, it's got the drum in there and looks like a genuine that looks like an unpopulated USB and a um, is that a centronics? Interesting, cuz this thing wasn't like, isn't supposed to be a printer I Don't think it's just designed to be a fax machine? say yeah, the laser in this thing, you know it wouldn't even need to be 300 DPI would it? Well, nope I was about that apparently like it's a copier as well. up to 14 pages per minute and actually 600 by 300 resolution.

So yeah, not too shabby. but like I don't think it actually worked as a printer doesn't uh seem to have have but you could actually use it as a uh copy function. So I guess it was uh, when machines were like crossing over and they had to find more uses to keep the fax machine going, it became like an Office hub. The office fax machine could also be used as the office copier.

but I can't remember ever using a fax machine as a copier really. Although if I did I can like you know when you were sending fax jokes who can remember? um, you know you would send get a fax joke instead. you know before email Like A supplier would send you like and would fax you like an Electronics uh joke and then you'd copy it and you pass copied in low resolution on the Meax machine. Then you'd pass it around.

You know this is before our email was a was a thing. There we go, we have a battery backup. V Jobby I That's gone the way of the dodo but looks of it, three cells in there I Do actually rather enjoy using the long screwdriver I Got to admit, it's quite fun, you know, and also you keep your distance. you know, just in case the thing's going to attack you.

Well, there a lot of shield in around here, but there you go. Looks pretty beefy and it's got some memory. uh, expansion there. All right, let's try and get the rest ofart way.

there we go. There's our modem interface for you. uh, modem afficionados who were hanging out I Guess you don't have to watch the end of this video. That's all you're here for, right? I Know it.

Oh, looks like they got a couple of, uh, neon bulbs there as protections, vertical resistor there, and a single cider board. Got to keep that cost down of course. and big Earth wire. Oh, that's just like come, no, is that an earth wire or is that the pull something out? Um, it's just flapping around in the breeze and well, we got a D Is that for like, an external keyboard can only presume um and that's buggering off to some processor board somewhere, but that's the only thing on it.

They went to a fair bit of effort there now I Can't help but notice small things like this. Look, there's a cut out there which seems to have no other purpose but to let me get access to that screw. Um I Just like that that it's just little things like that I always notice nice and likewise again, there's a little cut out there that the only reason for it is to get my screwdriver in there. All right.

So I am seeing some plastic Clips here so maybe I don't know if the top comes off first or these will pop off I No idea. I'm not treating this kindly, that's for sure. There we go. Woo Well, the dust and there we go.

I got that slid that cover plate off once we got all the Uh connections off. there's our earthwire connecting that over. So there's that board on the back that uh, you know that has that uh, Centronics uh printer connector on it and made in Japan all the best stuffs made in Japan but yeah, that's obviously not the main I don't think that's the main processor for this thing cuz um, once I said as I said it's got that memory uh slot there but is that the main processor for this thing? Perhaps it is I don't know but uh yeah, that's I don't know what that is custom brother jobby or something like that and again, for the line interface of Fados, there's our Main's power supply there that looks all right. Got a ceramic fuse jobby and a single sided of course.

Um, there you go. Those look like Nickon Chemon Jobbies. So yeah, decent pass. It's got some little carbon trimmers on there made in China though.

well and if we get that, uh Mya high voltage isolation sheet off. Uh, we got two separate boards here. Are they joined? Yes, they are. indeed.

Um so not sure what that one's doing. Bunch of uh sensing, um drive for the laser mechanism, but the board up here for the laser? perhaps? Let's get those Boards out. Looks like we got our high voltage board there for the Corona wires. Oh and there really is nothing on the other side of that board.

So yeah, that's just uh, doing a whole bunch of just sensor interface and stuff like that. For you know, there's a lot of uh uh like roller sensors and paper sensors and you know Jam sensors and all sorts of things inside a printer like this. Yeah well. I should have cleaned this before I uh took it apart making a bit of a mess here and this front panel's all held.

it's just coming to gutter completely. Come on there. We go there, We go there, we go. Front panel off there.

got a board on there. Now that's interesting isn't it? They got a membrane uh board here with the integrated Um switches on them. That's that's really interesting is it not? Um, usually you don't see that. Usually you get like a separate rubber mat for the keys which which can often come down onto a membrane keypad.

but these are actually integrated so that's pretty groovy. I Like that. Jeez, you know they got a lot of effort and that PCB there drives both the uh, that chip drives both the uh keypad and the LCD by the looks of it and you can see that's a that's a chip on board Jobby right there and I I won't be gentle. There you go.

um you can see that's a that's a chip on board there and uh yeah, they've just got like a little small little micro there. not sure what it is, not that fuss. Oh all right I looked it's some sort of um NEC uh processor. So and we got a whole bunch of uh, molded injection molded.

um this one's a double. Is that a double shot or is that got an inset in there? but uh yeah, they all the keys on the front panel and couple of screws on here and we get the upper um, scanner roller part of it so looks like there's our there's our scanning head across there and oh there's only one. Oh, there's only a couple of wires in there. There you have it.

There you go. Nice. uh. Mitsumi motor there.

Yeah, you'd scrap that. of course. you know if you're scrapping parts from something like this, you know Motors are thing you know Motors are one thing you'd keep gears and stuff like that little uh you know Optical sensors and things like that. um maybe the Pcbs to scrap some parts, but you know there not much you can do with any of the other stuff and what are you going to use? The uh, you know the scanner head for now.

this is interesting. The scanner head this module in here and I noticed a little drop down latch there so if you push it, push it like that it drops out. Isn't that neat? There you go. So there's the there's the sensor head that just it comes out nicely and it's got an illumination uh array in there and um and the actual linear um scan head itself.

So oh, we could have a look at that under the uh microscope, but you know, not that interesting. I Still have no idea of the optimum way to get into this thing, but um, it doesn't really matter cuz I'm not. I'm not trying hard, we just want to see. but I don't think there's going to be much left in here.

There's going to be the actual print head itself, the laser print head, and look, you know, side flap there. So there's going to be a procedure to get this apart. But unless you got the service manual or you do this or you take your time and figure it all out and well, this is just a quick tear down. So yeah, buger, whoa look at that.

There you go. Oh I got a speaker there. Oh yeah cuz you got to hear the dial tone. of course forgot all about that.

Still got no idea how this outer plastic bit all comes off. It's got like it's just nuts. There's Clips everywhere and I like I Expected it in more pieces and more uh panels to sort of like take off and stuff like that. Expected sort of size to come off.

but wow they really really gone to town on this. Unbelievable Wow. this is actually this top covers one piece. like like unbelievable I just have to rip that apart cuz that is like one complete shell which goes over the top and Bug it if I can find where like any screws that hold that like it should just like it should just lift off.

but it must have lifted off off like that. but it had so many clips that it was just way too annoying to actually do it anyway. doesn't matter, this is always a destructive tear down. Got to be careful, my ESD gun is still here still waiting for my stupid um digital pot and there you go.

That's what you find in any old school uh laser printer. So yeah, we got the laser head here which will'll have a spinny mirror in the laser and a spinny mirror and it scans across. uh like that and so we can take that apart. Look at the Optics um one of the wires that goes.

yeah that's probably one of the wires that goes to the uh fuser which is just a big heating element. Uh, basically so you know a big part of the power supply goes into heating that up so that it fuses the toner onto the paper. That's why it all comes out warm and it smells that has that Lo lovely laser printer smell. Got ourselves a fan I don't know the brand of Made In China Eh, whatever.

and that's the other end of our fuser I believe and that goes off to the connector. We got a solenoid down there which I don't know that engages some sort of paper mechanism. This is not like double-sided or anything. doesn't do anything fancy like that.

so not sure what's going on there, but there's a lot of COG work in that. As always, you'll get inside these cuz I've torn down Laser Printers before and photocopiers and they're all you know, like hideously complex. Actually, there's another design touch. Get through to the screw on the other other side.

when you're designing 3D stuff like this, you have to think about those sort of things. Highway to the danger zone. Hey, there we go. There, we go.

She's out there. You go that's rather, uh, rather complex isn't it? No, no, it's all. it's all kaming gutsa sorry I'm probably not going to be able to show you it all spin in no, no, it's all come a Guta and it all goes up into those gears up there. So this isn't a particularly complex one in terms of like paper handling.

but jeez. Anyway got ourselves a dipped um, heat sink driver there. look at that Bobby doler few through hole resistors and Bob's your uncle and in fact it looks like Nidc uh made the motor and the driver as well cuz that's uh, Nidek brand as well. So they did the entire oh there we go does spin.

They did the entire solution there so they designed of course. you know different gear ratios to keep the paper in. uh, like various. you know going the way they want it to go in under the right amount of uh, tension and speed and whatnot? Yeah, like what good is something like that like you can't I don't know.

can anyone think of use for something like that? I wouldn't even keep like a like a PCB motor like that one really? You can actually see that, see the coils around there. Actually it's one of the first sensors that we've seen Optical Jobby which goes through into the part of the paper handling stuff down in there. yeah, around about there. oh no, that's that.

Looks like it might be a detection for the Tona cartridge. Perhaps that seems overly complicated. uh for that, but H or is that part of the uh, low tone detection thing? Maybe maybe it uses an optical from outside? Yeah, it's going to be hard to see down in there, but I think you can see there's sort of some Optical lens down in there. So yeah, I think that's I think that's how it's doing the uh toner detection.

There you have it. there's the laser assembly and there's our laser dood here. uh driver. it goes through little prism thing there and then got this little flappy doad which um it looks like yeah there it is there.

Well there it is there. It's like a little shutter thing which uh blocks off the laser. So I guess when you pull it out that' be like a safety thing. Perhaps when you pull it out it doesn't you know, um shine in anyone's eye.

But there you go. there's our spinning mirror thing prism there mirror here on the front and just bounces the times it and bounces it off and Bobs your unle and of course this one looks too short to go the full width of the page. you know, none of that Us letter rubbish A4 here thank you very much. So it actually pops out through here, goes through another mirror, goes through another lens there and then goes to another mirror here which then that is the width of your A4 page there.

no Walkers hi there I am So yeah that's that's pretty cool huh how it actually folds over like that and you know keeps it relatively uh, compact because if you try and spread the beam just in one, go like that you can. You know you get sort of like nonlinearities and that you can't easily correct for and you get Pro I Can imagine that you would get no Optics Expert I Can imagine your errors would increase as you go out and stuff like that. So just in terms of uh you, you know the timing and the Um scanning across the Uh page so your DPI might like decrease you? Well, the accuracy of your DPI might decrease as you get towards the edges. So they they have this multiple stage thing like that presumably just to, uh, make it a bit more.

Even Stevens um when it scans across the page? Neat, huh? There you have it. Bunch of uh, boards and stuff like that. Not really anything that interesting in there that you'd really um Salvage out of that. So yeah, this is a bit of a loser and the rest of it.

Well yeah, um yeah, no. um I wouldn't bother getting one of these old Laser Printers and uh, scrapping it for Parts you don't get too much in here I mean I Jeez, you got you know, one stepper driving the whole thing and the power supply? I'm not sure you'd um, even bother, uh, keeping that. Although you know you might be able to salvage a few, you know you might toss it in your power supply junk bin I Guess to uh, you know, salvage some uh, protection, uh, components. Or you know, you might need a common mode choke or something like that.

But you're not going to reuse any of the Caps or anything. You might need an opto coupler one day, maybe for something. but yeah, you know, generally. um, we don't really have much of value in this thing at all, unfortunately.

So it's about all she wrote. It's a bit of a bummer, but you know. dumpster. Anyway, there you go: tear down of a dumpster, fax, leave your best fax stories down below.

and uh, my entire business was based on a fax machine when I was a boy. Does anyone still use them for anything? There's got to be some Niche areas where they're still being used by some sort of law or requirement or something like that, but basically not go the way of the dodo. Anyway, if you like the video, please give it a big thumbs up. As always, discuss down below: catch you next time.

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