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CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

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Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#151

Post by bombcar »

ghaff wrote: post #102
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inkjets have to be used regularly or they will suffer from clogs and in the case of Epson you're SOL if a head clean doesn't work. You can leave a laser idle for years and it will print fine.

For a lot of people a laserprinter is probably better than an inkjet, especially given that a lot of people don't print much these days. And you can get even color lasers for a pretty good price these days. I've had a B&W laser at home forever. About a year ago, I just got rid of my inkjet rather than spending a bunch of money to get new ink. It was a large format photo printer and was sometimes nice to have but not…

I've found that Walmart is perfectly acceptable (and cheap) for printing normal photographs (pickup in an hour!) and if I want to go larger they offer that too.

Of course you can order things printed online and shipped, but a black-and-white laser covers most of my needs there.

Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#152

Post by mc32 »

simcop2387 wrote: post #148
TurkishPoptart wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nuts. What's the rationale for that, aside from possibly selling more cartridges? So wasteful!

For some of these it may be a quality issue. With less material to deposit in the cartridge it may not apply evenly. Lots of times this could be fine but it might not always be the case.

That's possible and understandable for high volume printers. But for personal/desk printers they should have an option like. Cartridges are running low on toner, would you like to enable degraded printing? Rather than having labyrinthine steps to overcome out of toner error (which are not in the manual mind you). My experience is that full color printouts do not suffer. When they do run out, it's noticeable and comes nearly at once --rather than slowly degrading.

Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#153

Post by ilyt »

jmyeet wrote: post #19

Never, ever, ever buy a printer that takes cartridges. They’re discounted to at or below cost where they make the money back on cartridges. They use ink to clean the heads. They say empty when they’re not. The cartridges that come with the printer aren’t full. There is a constant firmware update war to defeat third party cartridges for obvious reasons. Buy a tank printer that you fill with ink bottles.

I'd say they would put DRM on paper if they could

Except fucking Dymo did: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/worst-timeline-printer...

On plus side choosing which brand label printer to buy was very simple...

Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#155

Post by bewaretheirs »

lancesells wrote: post #136
ska wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any indicator that tells you when a consumable needs I'm not a fan of the blinking reminders either, but it's not a monitor it's just a flashing version of the "remind me in the months" wheel or whatever. The problem they face is a hard one. There are really two timelines you care about, one is how long it stays effective, the second is how long it is safe. The first one especially is highly affected by both usage…

Instead of a timer you could have a counter. The Brita filter looks to last 40 gallons. My Brita pitcher holds 10 cups. 10 cups equals 0.625 gallons. Which means my filter lasts for ~64 fills of the pitcher. So using a counter until 64 would tell me to refill. All you need is a plus sign and some way to reset. Now that I've done the math I might start writing this on a pad next to my refrigerator because I never have…

At one point Brita distributed a spring-driven mechanical ratchet counter that would sit on top of the filter cartridge; it had some sort of diaphragm arrangement that would sense the water level and "tick" once per refill cycle and tell you when it was time to swap in a new filter.

Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#156

Post by xav0989 »

ck45 wrote: post #76
mc32 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brother lasers also have a funky reset procedure (depends on model, but searchable on internet). It’s outrageous. You can get another 500 to 1000 pages out of it.

I have an older Brother HL-2035. It can be convinced to keep on printing by covering two holes on the cartridge with some duct tape.

My brother laser printers have a setting on the web interface for what to do when the "replace toner" warning comes up: either continue printing or stop. They'll happily keep printing if configured to "continue".

Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#157

Post by pugworthy »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #21
gryf wrote: post #10

Yeah. My HP toner cartridge has been "empty" for about a year and is still printing fine! It has done more pages since it was empty than before it was empty.

My HP LaserJet has been telling me that it is low for the better part of 10 years. Still prints fine.

It's hard to really judge what this means without knowing how often and much you print, as well as how much was printed before the warning was given.

PS

Blame/thank Canon. It's their mechanism and cartridge in the HP printers. Also some utilize Samsung print engines for A3 paper.

PPS

It's a testament to ink vs toner that it can remain functional after 10 years.

Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#158

Post by nebula8804 »

darkteflon wrote: post #133
nebula8804 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Brita filters are just activated Carbon that improve the taste and filter some of the worst pollutants but nothing else. One way to test is using a TDS meter to see if over time the amount of dissolved solids increase. This is not a bulletproof test but it may give some indication of when the filter is saturated. Again, the Brite/PUR filters do not do much to begin with. This video shows how the Brita filters perf…

We use Brita at home. Fwiw, it seems to be pretty successful at filtering chlorine - I did a little before/after experiment with a chlorine test kit purchased off Amazon.

Yes Chlorine can affect taste so it is one of the things it does filter although I have had friends tell me that it does not do a good enough job and they still taste it. I guess it depends on the person.

Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#159

Post by martinflack »

mc32 wrote: post #47
nuodag wrote: post #41

If you have a Samsung laserprinter with number pad and empty toner / imaging unit try menu # 1904 menu and reset the counter, then happily print thousands of pages more

Brother lasers also have a funky reset procedure (depends on model, but searchable on internet). It’s outrageous. You can get another 500 to 1000 pages out of it.

At least with Brother you can mail in the old laser drums that you pull out. I hope to God they're doing something sensible to reuse ink/parts.

Re: CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge

#160

Post by ghaff »

bombcar wrote: post #151
ghaff wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lot of people a laserprinter is probably better than an inkjet, especially given that a lot of people don't print much these days. And you can get even color lasers for a pretty good price these days. I've had a B&W laser at home forever. About a year ago, I just got rid of my inkjet rather than spending a bunch of money to get new ink. It was a large format photo printer and was sometimes nice to have but not…

I've found that Walmart is perfectly acceptable (and cheap) for printing normal photographs (pickup in an hour!) and if I want to go larger they offer that too. Of course you can order things printed online and shipped, but a black-and-white laser covers most of my needs there.

Yeah, I don't need many photos printed and, when I do, there are lots of options that don't involve $100+ in ink cartridges. I did sometimes print color maps too but B&W is usually fine at the end of the day, I can print a map, or (usually) on a phone/tablet works.
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