5 ms·

My mom worked in the printing industry with a company doing refills. She told me newer printers are hardwired to unrecoverably die after a fixed number of pages

by sly010 10y ago

My mom worked in the printing industry with a company doing refills. She told me newer printers are hardwired to unrecoverably die after a fixed number of pages. Depending on the model you can even query how many pages you have left in the machine (not talking about ink here). Also my vet once told me he replaces his home printer every time it runs out of ink, because replacing the cartridge costs the same order of magnitude as a new printer and this he can always have the latest and greatest.

72deluxe 10y ago
Laser printers: The imaging drums have a chip on them which counts how many pages they have processed, and will refuse to work after a certain number of pages even if the drum itself is fine. They do this to stop potential damage to the drum. You can buy cheap chips to put into the printer if you want to risk it - search for "drum reset refill chip".
- Yxven 10y ago
  Is damaging the drum dangerous, or is it a profit scheme?
- bonzini 10y ago
  That's not to stop potential damage to the drum. It's because on average the drum starts showing damage around 30.000 pages (a damaged drum it leaves lighter or darker bands on the paper, same as on old badly-maintained photocopiers). But because _sometimes_ it starts shows damage earlier, and they don't want you to confuse a damaged drum and an empty toner cartridge, they just force you to change it around 20.000 pages. The drum reset refill chip is not even a chip, it's a 56 ohm resistor that acts like a fuse. The drum has two resistors in parallel, one with very low resistance and one that's like 200 000 ohm. If the printer sees a high current when you turn on the printer, the firmware thinks it's a new drum and resets the page counter. After a short while the 100 ohm resistor burns (quite literally), and from that point on the firmware will only see a low current when you turn on the printer, and it will not reset the page counter. So the drum reset refill chip lets you connect the two pads where the printer applies the current with a resistor like the one on a new drum. You can buy a 56 ohm resistor yourself to achieve the same effect. It's literally a resistor and some plastic, only usable once, and they sell it to you for $10, which makes it much more of a scam than anything printer manufacturers do.
  - 72deluxe 10y ago
    Thanks for the info!
blowski 10y ago
Why would they kill the printers when they make their money off the consumables? If my HP printer dies I might replace it with an Epson, so they would lose that revenue stream. Also, I find it difficult to believe that they would be so explicit as it could cause legal trouble. Now cartridges needing to be replaced prematurely 'because we haven't figured out a technology to prevent them drying up' does sound suspicious.
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  I wouldn't be suprised if what his mother said was true. The printer industry must know about printer chip reset chips, universal refill systems, drilling out their liquid gold containers, and refilling with better/cheaper ink, etc. My printers sit idle. First it was the price of ink. Then I just found I didn't like fiddling with them. Then I just got used to not using them. I think the printing industry is in a huge hole, and it will take a lot of ass kissing, and honest innovation, that benefits the consumer, to bring home printing back. Good luck-
rayiner 10y ago
He should stop buying inkjet printers. You can pick up an HP m402dn laser printer on Amazon for $150. It's fast, plugs directly into an ethernet network, and handles full duplex without a hiccup. It's a printer, what more innovation do you need?
- ssharp 10y ago
  Once I realized home laser printers were cheap, I switched and it was the best decision on a printer I'll probably ever make. I can get generic toner cartridges for $15-20 that last a long time, don't yell at me if I don't replace according to their schedule, and print black and white super fast. The printer I bought was a Samsung and cost right around $100. Compare that to my old HP inkjet that cost more than that and required upwards of 5 ink cartridges. I don't get color printing out of this but I can't recall the last time I needed to print in color. If I want to print photos, it's cheaper and easier to just order them.
  - GFischer 10y ago
    Ironically, I bought a cheap Samsung printer (Ml2165W), and I had to flash its firmware to let it accept generic cartridges. I ended up buying an used, better model, which had more generic toners available. I hope HP doesn't start doing that crap.
    - mpnordland 10y ago
      HP already does, in fact, they don't let you refill either, although there are workarounds.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>It's a printer, what more innovation do you need? Yeah, a lot of people also said that about cellphones and then the iPhone came out. :)
  - justinlardinois 10y ago
wlesieutre 10y ago
You should let you vet know that the printers ship with "starter cartridges" that are lower capacity than the replacements. Buying new ink cartridges might cost $10 more than the new printer, but it'll give him twice as many pages.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Sometimes the cartridge is the first thing to fail, especially if you go days between printing anything. The delicate print heads get tarry ink deposits. Pages per dollar means something if you're printing in bulk. Otherwise, its trouble-free-printing-per-dollar. Which may be improved by buying a new printer periodically as a sort of prophylactic maintenance.
  - darryl42 10y ago
    Which is why I bought a black and white laser printer 10+ years ago. Never need to worry about the ink drying out. I am still on the starter toner. Not sure if I will be able to buy toner when it runs out, but it still works even with Windows 10 over USB. Network mode only works for printing, no network scanner drivers anymore.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  I've figured it makes most sense to have a cheap'n'stupid B/W laserprinter at home, and just order whatever photo prints I need from a print shop. Occasional color photo printing at home is more expensive per photo than getting it from a shop i I'm not printing photos every week.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    Ditto. I have a ten year old Dell 1110 that continues to work despite moves, drops, and abuse. This includes a period when it was stored in a hay barn.
    - phil21 10y ago
thesimpsons1022 10y ago
I worked IT when I was a freshman in college and the printers were known to fail automatically after a certain amount of pages. To fix it, we would just remove a certain part and out it back in. We'd get much more life out of it because it just reset the counter.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Well in the Canon Pixma case they have the "discharge sponge" which collects ink and is used when cleaning the heads. That "fills up" apparently and then the printer is dead. My wife spent a couple of interesting weeks going around and around with customer service trying to understand how a product can be designed to fail like that, they eventually gave up and sent her another one, but I was thinking it would be interesting to take it to court to see how California's warranty protection laws would be interpreted. (I think its a defect to have a designed in product killing part that isn't replaceable).
FabHK 10y ago
I got my mom a nice Lexmark MFP, so she could print and scan and copy and fax (she still faxes, yes). After a while, the printer started complaining on the beautiful big touch screen display, and said "Service cartridges" or print head or something along those lines (my mom might have put in non-"genuine" replacement cartridges, I seem to recall, but not sure). Fair enough - we had gotten her a cheap laser for printing anyway by that time, as it's really cheaper and far less trouble. However, this stupid Lexmark thingy would not allow you to acknowledge that warning and then start up, so mom could at least still scan and fax - no, it would just sit there and complain about the print head or ink or what have you and refuse to do anything! Needless to say, we tossed it. Still need to get a scanner and fax now :-/

by sly010 10y ago

72deluxe 10y ago

Laser printers: The imaging drums have a chip on them which counts how many pages they have processed, and will refuse to work after a certain number of pages even if the drum itself is fine. They do this to stop potential damage to the drum. You can buy cheap chips to put into the printer if you want to risk it - search for "drum reset refill chip".

Yxven 10y ago
Is damaging the drum dangerous, or is it a profit scheme?
bonzini 10y ago
That's not to stop potential damage to the drum. It's because on average the drum starts showing damage around 30.000 pages (a damaged drum it leaves lighter or darker bands on the paper, same as on old badly-maintained photocopiers). But because _sometimes_ it starts shows damage earlier, and they don't want you to confuse a damaged drum and an empty toner cartridge, they just force you to change it around 20.000 pages. The drum reset refill chip is not even a chip, it's a 56 ohm resistor that acts like a fuse. The drum has two resistors in parallel, one with very low resistance and one that's like 200 000 ohm. If the printer sees a high current when you turn on the printer, the firmware thinks it's a new drum and resets the page counter. After a short while the 100 ohm resistor burns (quite literally), and from that point on the firmware will only see a low current when you turn on the printer, and it will not reset the page counter. So the drum reset refill chip lets you connect the two pads where the printer applies the current with a resistor like the one on a new drum. You can buy a 56 ohm resistor yourself to achieve the same effect. It's literally a resistor and some plastic, only usable once, and they sell it to you for $10, which makes it much more of a scam than anything printer manufacturers do.
- 72deluxe 10y ago
  Thanks for the info!

blowski 10y ago

Why would they kill the printers when they make their money off the consumables? If my HP printer dies I might replace it with an Epson, so they would lose that revenue stream. Also, I find it difficult to believe that they would be so explicit as it could cause legal trouble. Now cartridges needing to be replaced prematurely 'because we haven't figured out a technology to prevent them drying up' does sound suspicious.

icantdrive55 10y ago
I wouldn't be suprised if what his mother said was true. The printer industry must know about printer chip reset chips, universal refill systems, drilling out their liquid gold containers, and refilling with better/cheaper ink, etc. My printers sit idle. First it was the price of ink. Then I just found I didn't like fiddling with them. Then I just got used to not using them. I think the printing industry is in a huge hole, and it will take a lot of ass kissing, and honest innovation, that benefits the consumer, to bring home printing back. Good luck-

rayiner 10y ago

He should stop buying inkjet printers. You can pick up an HP m402dn laser printer on Amazon for $150. It's fast, plugs directly into an ethernet network, and handles full duplex without a hiccup. It's a printer, what more innovation do you need?

ssharp 10y ago
Once I realized home laser printers were cheap, I switched and it was the best decision on a printer I'll probably ever make. I can get generic toner cartridges for $15-20 that last a long time, don't yell at me if I don't replace according to their schedule, and print black and white super fast. The printer I bought was a Samsung and cost right around $100. Compare that to my old HP inkjet that cost more than that and required upwards of 5 ink cartridges. I don't get color printing out of this but I can't recall the last time I needed to print in color. If I want to print photos, it's cheaper and easier to just order them.
- GFischer 10y ago
  Ironically, I bought a cheap Samsung printer (Ml2165W), and I had to flash its firmware to let it accept generic cartridges. I ended up buying an used, better model, which had more generic toners available. I hope HP doesn't start doing that crap.
  - mpnordland 10y ago
    HP already does, in fact, they don't let you refill either, although there are workarounds.
enraged_camel 10y ago
>>It's a printer, what more innovation do you need? Yeah, a lot of people also said that about cellphones and then the iPhone came out. :)
- justinlardinois 10y ago

wlesieutre 10y ago

You should let you vet know that the printers ship with "starter cartridges" that are lower capacity than the replacements. Buying new ink cartridges might cost $10 more than the new printer, but it'll give him twice as many pages.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Sometimes the cartridge is the first thing to fail, especially if you go days between printing anything. The delicate print heads get tarry ink deposits. Pages per dollar means something if you're printing in bulk. Otherwise, its trouble-free-printing-per-dollar. Which may be improved by buying a new printer periodically as a sort of prophylactic maintenance.
- darryl42 10y ago
  Which is why I bought a black and white laser printer 10+ years ago. Never need to worry about the ink drying out. I am still on the starter toner. Not sure if I will be able to buy toner when it runs out, but it still works even with Windows 10 over USB. Network mode only works for printing, no network scanner drivers anymore.
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
I've figured it makes most sense to have a cheap'n'stupid B/W laserprinter at home, and just order whatever photo prints I need from a print shop. Occasional color photo printing at home is more expensive per photo than getting it from a shop i I'm not printing photos every week.
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  Ditto. I have a ten year old Dell 1110 that continues to work despite moves, drops, and abuse. This includes a period when it was stored in a hay barn.
  - phil21 10y ago

thesimpsons1022 10y ago

I worked IT when I was a freshman in college and the printers were known to fail automatically after a certain amount of pages. To fix it, we would just remove a certain part and out it back in. We'd get much more life out of it because it just reset the counter.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Well in the Canon Pixma case they have the "discharge sponge" which collects ink and is used when cleaning the heads. That "fills up" apparently and then the printer is dead. My wife spent a couple of interesting weeks going around and around with customer service trying to understand how a product can be designed to fail like that, they eventually gave up and sent her another one, but I was thinking it would be interesting to take it to court to see how California's warranty protection laws would be interpreted. (I think its a defect to have a designed in product killing part that isn't replaceable).

FabHK 10y ago

I got my mom a nice Lexmark MFP, so she could print and scan and copy and fax (she still faxes, yes). After a while, the printer started complaining on the beautiful big touch screen display, and said "Service cartridges" or print head or something along those lines (my mom might have put in non-"genuine" replacement cartridges, I seem to recall, but not sure). Fair enough - we had gotten her a cheap laser for printing anyway by that time, as it's really cheaper and far less trouble. However, this stupid Lexmark thingy would not allow you to acknowledge that warning and then start up, so mom could at least still scan and fax - no, it would just sit there and complain about the print head or ink or what have you and refuse to do anything! Needless to say, we tossed it. Still need to get a scanner and fax now :-/