[macvoiceover] Re: embosser drivers

  • From: Travis Siegel <windowbridge@xxxxxxx>
  • To: macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:48:59 -0500

Don't believe it.
If it has a serial, paralel, usb, ethernet, or some other method of talking to the computer, it *can* be made to work on the mac.
The only question is:
How much time and energy are you willing to put into it.
And, if your tractor feeds break again, send the damned thing to me. I've fixed lots of braille printers. It's tough (with some things, there's no doubt) but it's certainly not over 700 dollars worth of tough.
That's just insane.

The biggest problem in repairing such devices is getting the adaptive companies to send the parts. I have several printers now (I buy them on ebay) and I generally scavenge from them for parts now, since it's easier than asking companies to send me parts. Electronic parts are harder to fix, but mostly, circuit boards can be replaced (that's how I fixed one of my printers) and mechanical parts can be repaired easily enough if you can find the right people to do the repairs (since I've moved, I'm having to find those kinds of people all over again, but I'm getting there)
I can't believe how much some of these companies charge for repairs.
It's generally because they don't want to repair, they want to sell you a new one.

When I first had a printer that needed repairs, I called the company in question, and was told they didn't repair that model any longer, because after their merge with another company, they no longer had the parts, because they were all in florida, and this was the maryland office.
However, they'd be happy to sell me another one.
That is what started me on my campaign to *never* ask an adaptive technology company for repairs again. So far, I've only broken that policy once, and that was with a note taker from Artic Technologies (when they were still answering their phones) I had no complaints with the repairs (though they did cost nearly twice what they told me at first) but I'm very happy with the results of the repair, so I'll not complain.

There really needs to be a company that will take up the task of repairing adaptive technology for those of us who need it. I'm sure such a company could make *tons* of money charging 20 bucks an hour for repairs and still come out cheaper than some of these folks asking ridiculous amounts for repairs.


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