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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

#261

Post by danw1979 »

I spent three hours refilling each of the CMYK cartridges in my HP color laser the other night.

First you use a copper ring to melt a little hole in exactly the right spot, then scalpel open the bag inside, carefully pour and shake the toner from the bottle, all the while huffing clouds of pink and yellow and blue dust and then you find it’s got everywhere. Then you’ve got to use bathroom sealant around a plug in the hole. Then the plug is sticking out too far and you’ve got fade on one side of the page, so repeat the plugging step a few times.

The refill kit was £65. A new set of carts was £200. I’m still deciding if it was worth it.

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

#262

Post by wink »

The 15%/20% figure is wild. I've owned a Kyocera Mita laser printer from 2004ish to 2022 - and I had to change the toner cartridige like 2-3 times. Either this weird filling was not the case for my model, or I could have saved another 60€ in 18 years :D

And while this sounds like a useless purchase, I printed many thousand pages, but apparently for laser printer that's still not a lot.

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

#263

Post by yamtaddle »

jemmyw wrote: post #180
yamtaddle wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know the text is just as real if you read it from the screen? It's not about the text being "real", it's about the UI of printed pages versus screens. You can use the space around you, and leverage spatial reasoning, better with paper. You'd need multiple really big, digital-pen-input-ready, high-res screens, plus some very nice specialized software, to come close to the same experience with computers—and still…

I understand your points, but, for all except "including things like thoughtful typesetting (especially noticeable with poetry)," I don't find them very compelling. For fiction an e-reader has been a great improvement, easier to handle, never lose your place, able to jump around the book and then back again, search, and probably most importantly ergonomics - larger text when I'm tired etc. For non-fiction I do find i…

> For non-fiction I do find it hard to understand how paper is better for you than on a monitor. Open 2 pages at once, yep, side by side is no problem, plus as many other pages as you like open at once with windows or tabs. Full text search AND the index, with clickable links to the places you want to go.

Not stuck to a monitor, for one thing. If you are at a desk, you can have like three open at once, two pages each, no problem, on a desk that's not even very big, plus a notebook out, all at once, no swiping between "desktops" or whatever. (admittedly, the huge-screen version of the iPad Pro can solve the "stuck to a desk/laptop" problem for reading textbooks/papers/etc.—it's pretty great at that, actually—but that's $1,000+ dollars and that only lets you have one open at once)

I do think ebooks are a pretty good—and probably, overall, strictly superior—replacement for casual-reading fiction, but I think the which-is-superior question gets murkier past that. Books can have lots of UI/presentation features and ebooks aren't great at matching all of them, especially when you're reading them on a portable device. Though, again, being able to have 10,000 books in your coat pocket is a pretty serious advantage even if everything else is a little to a lot worse.

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

#264

Post by yamtaddle »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #201
yamtaddle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got kids? All the damn time. Have craft-related hobbies? All the damn time. Patterns, instructions, et c. Despite having a shitload of iPads and extra laptops and such around. Paper's far nicer in many cases, and sometimes cannot be replaced by a screen of any kind.

Given your comment, you may like : https://www.templatemaker.nl/en/ No use for iPad though...

Well. Now I know what the kids are doing this weekend. That's really cool, thanks for the link.

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

#265

Post by Arrath »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #205
trynewideas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nervously looks at the tabletop RPG and CCG shelves next to my printer

Had a friend who was brilliant with a ink printer and cutter who made multiple armies of printed, cut, folded miniatures. He was ridiculously good with precision. And patience...

I am in awe.

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

#266

Post by nebula8804 »

pifm_guy wrote: post #254
nebula8804 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lets put aside the fact that you wouldn't know the correct values for whatever garbage generic toner the refill company gave you. How are you going to deal with the fact that the printer already has particles of the old toner in the system and now you are introducing contamination with a set of different particles from the new cartridge/refill?

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

#267

Post by nebula8804 »

sgc wrote: post #235
nebula8804 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zerowater is great but man their expensive filters do not seem to come near the advertised amount. The expense and lack of good third party alternatives for their filters just adds salt to the wound(since it didn't get filtered out HA!).

What is the appeal of these compared to just getting a 10 inch under the counter filter set? I have a double filter set, with two different multistage filters. The water is extremely well filtered and it's relatively cheap to change the filters a couple times a year as per manufacturer recommendations. It took me 35 minutes to install, but it's been running fine for years.

You make a good point. I'd imagine the large upfront cost + the effort required to install.

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

#268

Post by nebula8804 »

hammock wrote: post #226
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…

I recommend Zerowater which have a 5 stage filter that includes ion exchange.

I also recommend Zerowater although it seems like their filters empty out faster than expected(as per their chart explaining how long the filter would last per initial TDS reading). Wish there was an ecosystem of third party filters like Brita has to help put downward pressure on the price. I also hate the fact that they don't really have a recycling program anymore. These filters are huge and I feel guilty just tossing them.

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

#269

Post by aidenn0 »

bigfudge wrote: post #241
techdragon wrote: post #223

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.

B&W Brother lasers are the "least-bad" if you don't need color.

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

#270

Post by kcartlidge »

aidenn0 wrote: post #269
bigfudge wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

B&W Brother lasers are the "least-bad" if you don't need color.

> B&W Brother lasers are the "least-bad" if you don't need color.

Over a decade in on my B&W Brother HL-something-or-other-im-away-from-the-desk. No shenanigans, just good printing.

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