How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps • Hacker News Board

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#171

Post by aprdm » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 7:36 PM UTC

kmarc wrote: post #108

antonvs wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article opens with a hint at another possible course of action: buy a cheap Brother laser printer, which currently go for about $129 in the US. Read the beginning of the article for the testimony, which many people have found for themselves. What you actually need to avoid are manufacturers like HP, unless the idea of an “ink subscription” appeals to you. It’s also best to avoid ink jets both because of ink costs…

I happen to have an HP inkjet printer which I use every three or so months, and never had the dried ink problem. Always works reliably, including the display ink level function. I think this "the ink dries up!" mantra is either outdated, doesn't affect HP anymore, or I got extremely lucky with my HP printers since 2014

Same here .. and it was super cheap. Their subscription is a dollar a month and they mail me inks when I’m about to run out of — happened once

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#172

Post by to11mtm » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #133

somehnguy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Page count ratings aside, the issue I've always had with Inkjet printers is that I print rarely - so nearly every time I go to print, I need to buy new cartridges! It isn't very fun to spend $60 on ink so I can print 3 pages because my last cartridges dried/clogged up in the last 3 months. My laser printer will sit there quietly out of the way indefinitely. Then I surprise it with a print job and it just does what I…

> so nearly every time I go to print, I need to buy new cartridges! It isn't very fun to spend $60 on ink so I can print 3 pages because my last cartridges dried/clogged up in the last 3 months. Wait, do you know that most printers have the ability to clean these clogs (by wasting a large chunk of the ink)? You don't really need to throw the cartridge away. This is why I say that printing the rated amount of pages is…

> Wait, do you know that most printers have the ability to clean these clogs (by wasting a large chunk of the ink)? You don't really need to throw the cartridge away. This is why I say that printing the rated amount of pages is difficult, since these cleanup operations waste a large chunk of the ink.

That sometimes works. The last HP I bought, cartridges would easily start choking after a few months of non-use, and no amount of cleaning would stop prints from having soft lines/etc. Unfortunately my printing was so infrequent that I'd be lucky to get 50 pages out of a cartridge.

The only environment where I've seen Inkjet cartridges actually 'get fully used' in the last 15 years or so has been in CAD. [0]

Compare and contrast to my Father, who goes through ebbs and flows of printing. Since switching to Brother, his overall 'ink/toner' costs have gone down since there's less waste, also Brother drivers are a bit less offensive than HP.

[0] - I'll add that while the quality of HP Plotters went down substantially between the era of the OG DesignJet 750C and the DesignJet 4000. Sure, the latter was faster, had a way nicer spittoon setup[1] and separate nozzle/ink cartridges, but had a number of design issues that prevented any real use of batch plotting. Any time we did a large series of prints unsupervised it would wind up feeding output back in and jamming the whole thing. [2]

[1] - Tl;dr- where excess ink went between jobs. Part of me wonders if the lack of such bits in consumer printers leads to more clogged nozzles.

[2] - Nothing like telling your boss your print job broke a 2 week old printer that cost almost as much as the compact sedan you bought a couple years prior...

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#173

Post by somehnguy » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 7:39 PM UTC

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #133

somehnguy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Page count ratings aside, the issue I've always had with Inkjet printers is that I print rarely - so nearly every time I go to print, I need to buy new cartridges! It isn't very fun to spend $60 on ink so I can print 3 pages because my last cartridges dried/clogged up in the last 3 months. My laser printer will sit there quietly out of the way indefinitely. Then I surprise it with a print job and it just does what I…

> so nearly every time I go to print, I need to buy new cartridges! It isn't very fun to spend $60 on ink so I can print 3 pages because my last cartridges dried/clogged up in the last 3 months. Wait, do you know that most printers have the ability to clean these clogs (by wasting a large chunk of the ink)? You don't really need to throw the cartridge away. This is why I say that printing the rated amount of pages is…

I’ve never once had that cleaning process work. I’ve even tried a number of convoluted multi-step processes involving iso alcohol and a freezer to fix the cartridges. Always left with streaky prints.

But I’ve only tried it with 2 inkjet models before throwing those pieces of junk away and getting a laser. Printing bliss ever since.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#174

Post by to11mtm » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

rekabis wrote: post #82

rtpg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to advise against this. Most people selling their printer are doing so out of frustration due to paper jams or other nonsense. I have gotten 2 used printers out of not wanting to generate e-waste, only to have constant printer jams and other frustrations leading to me having to just print at the grocery store instead. "That Brother printer" will cost you more (and be Yet Another Plastic Thing To Go To A Lan…

> Most people selling their printer are doing so out of frustration due to paper jams or other nonsense. Consumer printers? Sure. Highly likely. That stuff was designed to be disposable. Business-class or Enterprise-class printers that had been used in larger offices or have low page counts? A much lower probability. The business/enterprise stuff is meant to last because they cost a lot going out the door, and so are…

> The business/enterprise stuff is meant to last because they cost a lot going out the door, and so are built robustly. You just have to ensure either a low page count, or some sort of proof that the machine had been serviced regularly by properly-certified printer techs.

On the large format side, OG DesignJet 750Cs were pretty dang serviceable for the longest time. The first one I had to repair took a good day or so to disassemble/reassemble, but the next 2 I was able to handle in the second half of a workday.

(Also, they're built better than the newer ones)

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#175

Post by 2b3a51 » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #125

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine also bought a monochrome laser Brother. It was about half of what you paid; but it came with one toner, and it was only half-capacity. Already a bad start. The stock toner only lasted for a year or about 200 pages. A replacement toner costs 50€, more than a single black ink cartridge would cost, and the toner is rated for 1k pages only while the 44€ ink cartridge is rated for 2.2k. (!) In fact, for e…

I own a HP M15w, bought 2 years ago for ~£100. They're still available for ~£100. I'm still on whatever toner came with the printer. It uses the 44a toner, which is ~£45 on Amazon (or third part ones are available for £12), and it's rated for 1000 pages. I had a look at the HP and brother range of cartridges, and every single one of them was rated less than 200 pages. I found _one_ brother cartridge that does 500 pag…

I'm part way through a third party toner for our M15w and it seems to be holding up well.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#176

Post by robinsonb5 » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

mwint wrote: post #97

gregmac wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing I've been told by a manufacturer: paper quality is apparently the biggest factor in longevity of a printer. To the point they custom order "the worst paper" for testing purposes (which apparently a speciality paper mill agreed to do, but absolutely refused to put their name on). I don't know the specifics of this, beyond if you buy the cheapest paper you can probably expect your printer to jam up sooner…

Used to work for a BigCo printer maker. This is true. You wouldn’t believe the things people print on, there are racks and racks of weird papers from around the world. Tested at different temps/humidities (matters for the electrostatic process in laser printers). Bamboo paper is a thing.

I spent a "happy" 20 minutes peeling semi-molten polyester labels off a fuser belt a few months back. (Lesson learned, I duly told the machine it was printing on a thinner paper stock, and ran the rest of the job without issue...)

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#177

Post by buzer » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 7:57 PM UTC

mynameisvlad wrote: post #98

soitgoes511 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.. It is near impossible to change a phone number for most accounts. My US banks would not allow for the same amount of digits as my European phone number had. Wiring money from my own accounts wanted to send a 4 digit pin to my US number which would not work in France. You seem to imply that in 2023, we are not capable of making a banking application accept more than one format of phone number. And the fact that…

I mean, why would a bank care about phone numbers outside of the country it serves? Do you expect a US bank to recognize the number systems of every single one of the 195 countries out there when 99.9% of their customers live in one? Do you expect a French one? An Ethiopian one? Banks are explicitly not global businesses, they are generally national at the largest. It's not like they lose a whole lot of business if t…

Google certainly moves accounts between countries automatically: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27560705

At least according to that they won't ask you to accept new ToS, probably due to the fact ToS allows them to change ToS at will.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#178

Post by bityard » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:22 PM UTC

benjamoon wrote: post #70

I bought a Brother monochrome laser printer (with built in scanner) for £250 and it was bundled with 6 spare toner cartridges. That was two years ago, we’re still on the first cartridge. The printer before that was also a monochrome laser printer and that lasted nearly a decade (only got rid of it because it didn’t support wireless and I couldn’t be bothered running cables anymore). Basically, I think monochrome lase…

I have a Brother monochrome printer too and it's been a great machine. I just want to caution people that while they are much more reliable than an inkjet, they still require _some_ maintenance every so often.

In my case, I had to buy a new (aftermarket) drum unit, and have to go in and clean the rollers, and dust it out every one in a while. I suspect most owners don't do these things and decide to just buy a new one every 5 years or so.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#179

Post by gambiting » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 8:36 PM UTC

kroltan wrote: post #141

gambiting wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make sense - obviously black-only laser printers exist and manage to be compliant just fine

Regulation is "color print er s need telltales", not "color prints need telltales"

I do not believe that a colour laser printed can't switch to whatever tracking dots mono laser printers use when out of yellow ink. I'd believe laziness over compliance issues.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#180

Post by tornato7 » Sun, Apr 02, 2023, 9:01 PM UTC

robswc wrote: post #113

I actually have no idea how printers (things that have been around for ever) are _still_ just so bad. I do get cheap printers tbf... but sometimes they just flat out do not work or can't connect or get jobs stuck in the queue, etc. I never experience this when buying other "cheap" peripherals, yet, printers just seem to consistently suck in almost every way.

Using the cheapest possible hardware and investing the bare minimum in software, and good engineers aren't choosing to work on HP Inkjet DRM software.