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

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251–260 of 276 posts

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

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the entire situation is best summarised as ... "Beware of printers" They basically all (but I will leave room for the possibility of a non-evil printer vendor) suck in a myriad of different ways from poor quality, to all the various dark/anti-patterns in both the original sale and the subsequent consumable sales.

I actually want a printer, but know this and have put off buying one for about a year now because I can’t be bothered to spend hours working which is the least shitty.

Same for me. I’ve wanted to get a printer for quite a while but don’t want to spend the time researching which one won’t try to rip me off, lie to me and defraud me. So I haven’t bought one.

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

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the entire situation is best summarised as ... "Beware of printers" They basically all (but I will leave room for the possibility of a non-evil printer vendor) suck in a myriad of different ways from poor quality, to all the various dark/anti-patterns in both the original sale and the subsequent consumable sales.

I actually want a printer, but know this and have put off buying one for about a year now because I can’t be bothered to spend hours working which is the least shitty.

If you're not set on a laser printer have a look at the epson ecotank range. You can literally just fill up the tank in the printer with ink and there are 3rd party inks available for a fraction for the price of 1st party refills. We have one that we have "converted" to a sublimation printer simply by filling it's tanks with sublimation ink. It's capable of some impressive results https://imgur.com/a/QTyDPu8

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most are refillable if you follow an unofficial online guide. Beware that toner dust is really nasty stuff and gets everywhere, so however careful you are you'll still have clouds of toner dust escape and stick to every surface of your house inside and out... Top tip:. Never clean toner dust with warm water. It will stick and become permanent.

Be warned that mixing different formulations of toner could cause the toner to not stick tot he drum properly and start to pool up in your printer requiring expensive maintenance.

Typically one can fix that by adjusting the transfer drum voltage, normally found in the service section of the menu.

You might also need to adjust the fuser temperature for non-oem toners

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

#256
post #248

The modern answer to printer manufacturers' woes is of course to simply offer consumers a monthly subscription that unlocks the ability to use the ink that they've paid for. I mean, yes, you've already paid for the ink, but have you paid to use it? I think not. The store you bought the printer from will take a 30% cut too, to compensate them for the ongoing effort they expend in having sold you the printer. The premi…

> any copyrighted material.

Which is pretty much any material. Including material for which you yourself own copyright (but probably never bothered to register it).

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

#257
post #82

I'll always remember when our fairly expensive prosumer all-in-one-printer suddenly wouldn't let me scan pages because there was "no more ink" in the printer right before an important task. A straight up scam. I'm surprised no one has disrupted the sad state of affairs in the printer industry yet even though it's slowly dying.

At the lower end of the market the printers are sold below-cost and the profit is in the ink. Above that, there's laser printers, which are far less prone to this. Are we looking for someone to sell an ink-based printer that will cost more up front than its competitors, and then willingly forego the revenue that comes from market ink prices?

Kodak tried that 10+ years ago. The experiment only lasted a year or two before the printers were discontinued for poor sales.

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the entire situation is best summarised as ... "Beware of printers" They basically all (but I will leave room for the possibility of a non-evil printer vendor) suck in a myriad of different ways from poor quality, to all the various dark/anti-patterns in both the original sale and the subsequent consumable sales.

I actually want a printer, but know this and have put off buying one for about a year now because I can’t be bothered to spend hours working which is the least shitty.

I have a brother laser, it doesn't have a counter and will run past the point where there is no ink, so I can replace the toner when I'm ready to.

If it is low and the page is faint that's fine for my home printing. I don't need HP to tell me to replace the cartridge. Caveat to that is that it is "only" black and white but then I've never needed to print colour.

They also support Linux so all the computers in the house work fine with it.

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

#259

Looks like they market CT scanners. Otherwise I'd ask - why not cut it open instead?

You have never opened a toner cartridge, have you? Toner dust is extremely messy, you definitely don't want to cut a cartridge in half.

Source: several years ago I was a teacher and a stupid student had the brilliant idea to open a toner in the classroom, took us forever to clean it.

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

#260
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

This might be a bit off topic, but what are you guys using all these printers for? Perhaps it’s generational but for me they’re in the same package as landline phones, it’s been years since the last time I’ve seen one.

I have a printer in my home office only because of work.

For work we use QuickBooks Enterprise and it’s oriented to paper checks.

More interesting, some tasks are _faster_ when you use a paper print. I’m thinking of processing payrolls. You should verify before authorizing the processor to complete the run. I prefer to not waste paper and routinely verify the PDF on screen. But if things go sideways and I’m under pressure, a hard copy is the way to go.

Finally, I do my own vehicle maintenance, and a hard copy of the service manual page is good to have on hand.

I could go to Staples for the service manual pages, but for work that’s just a waste of time.

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