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This makes me smile. I bought a Canon Pixma inkjet photo printer last year, and upon taking apart the cartridges I was surprised to find the only thing inside w

by petee 5y ago

This makes me smile. I bought a Canon Pixma inkjet photo printer last year, and upon taking apart the cartridges I was surprised to find the only thing inside was a 6 pin chip connected to nothing else but the printer -- no level sensing at all; I believe the printer just guesses how much ink it uses and records that on the chip.

isoprophlex 5y ago
This kind of shit is so hilariously anti-consumer... and I don't think there's a consumer brand of photo printers that doesn't try to swindle its users. Thankfully there are many cheap online photo printing services with rapid turnaround where I live. I just use those instead, and accept that getting a photo printed isn't instant.
alex_anglin 5y ago
I too have a Canon POS inkjet printer/scanner. Recently had to change change out the black ink cartridges, because those are the only ones that really deplete. Picture my frustration when all of the cartridges needed to be replaced at the same time (even those full of ink), lest the printer not register the new cartridges. I will never buy another Canon printer again and think twice about any of their other products. At least they're giving HP a run for seeing which firm can burn their brand the fastest.
- wildzzz 5y ago
  I've got a Canon MX920 series printer. I only use third party cartridges (EZ Ink or something). Carts are cheap and I've got no issue only replacing them one at a time. Sometimes the wireless printing gets a little wonky but this has probably been the best printer I've ever owned. It just works and the ink is so damn cheap. One thing that is a little annoying is that you can't print without all of the carts being non-empty and you need both black pigment and regular black but this is typical of any inkjet printer.
- GordonS 5y ago
  I got totally sick of it a couple of years back - I'd had HP, Epson and Canon inkjets over the years, and with all it seemed like every time I just wanted to print something, I had to do a silly dance of "realigning print heads" or "unclogging" or whatever, all of which consumed both time and ink. And invariably after printing more than 3 pages it'd moan about low ink levels. And genuine ink cartridges are expensive! The practice of locking to prevent using generic cartridges is terrible. Inkjets are a scam, plain and simple. So, I bought an inexpensive Brother laser printer. It's black only, but I switched to printing most photos at Costco years ago anyway - the quality is just so much better than you can achieve at home. Anyway, what a revelation! It starts up in a couple of seconds, and when you hit "print", it just does it, again in just a couple of seconds. No moaning about maintenance. No asking me to change a cartridge every 3 minutes - just a printer that works when you need it to! And it came with a "small" ink tank, that is somehow still going! Even when I do need to buy another ink tank, a full sized one, it'll only cost something like £30 and probably last for at least 5 years!
  - alex_anglin 5y ago
    Yeah, the consensus view these days seems to be that Brother laser printers are the way to go.
  - tagoregrtst 5y ago
    Epson’s more professional line is (was) pretty decent. The cartridges are big and cheap, and they even have a printer line that takes straight ink (ie there’s a tank you top off). The printers are more expensive though (at least $100 more for the same functionality - which is probably the profit they estimate they’re forgoing on the ink), and the last one I bought was cheap (still going though). Never buy a consumer grade printer though.
    - GordonS 5y ago
      The HP and Canon ones I had were actually pretty expensive, and one of the HP ones even did A3. So I don't think this is only an issue with low-end consumer models.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  HP already burned their brand to the ground. I did pick up an HP color laser printer on eBay — but a model for which the toner-pirates have already hacked the chips. Apparently HP's more recent offerings don't have such a ready supply of 3rd party toner vendors. Definitely a fucked up world we're living in. I feel bad for those less tech-savvy. Worst still for our planet though as I suspect that rather than lining HP or Canon's pockets, the less sophisticated users are simply tossing out these peripherals faster than an old VHS player.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
    The original HP is now Keysight. HP the printer company got the name, but Keysight has the engineering.
- ezconnect 5y ago
  HP burned their printer brand a long time ago, my last HP inkjet was the HP 720c and was very reliable and had a big ink that can print tons of documents. After that they made the ink so tiny you have to buy ink every month.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
Most if not all inkjet printers with cartridge "chips" do exactly this -- it's why there is a large market of cartridge chip "resetters"; just search around.
userbinator 5y ago
AFAIK it was Epson who did it first (over 20 years ago now): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177 (you'll need to read the article from the Internet archive, since it has unfortunately disappeared) The chip is just an EEPROM. The printer presumably has a pretty accurate estimate given that it knows how many pixels were printed, and the volume of each one.
timcederman 5y ago
The nice thing with the Canon printers is they at least let you override the low ink warnings and still print. Sometimes I get a normal extra print or two, but it's usually pretty accurate.

by petee 5y ago

isoprophlex 5y ago

This kind of shit is so hilariously anti-consumer... and I don't think there's a consumer brand of photo printers that doesn't try to swindle its users. Thankfully there are many cheap online photo printing services with rapid turnaround where I live. I just use those instead, and accept that getting a photo printed isn't instant.

alex_anglin 5y ago

I too have a Canon POS inkjet printer/scanner. Recently had to change change out the black ink cartridges, because those are the only ones that really deplete. Picture my frustration when all of the cartridges needed to be replaced at the same time (even those full of ink), lest the printer not register the new cartridges. I will never buy another Canon printer again and think twice about any of their other products. At least they're giving HP a run for seeing which firm can burn their brand the fastest.

wildzzz 5y ago
I've got a Canon MX920 series printer. I only use third party cartridges (EZ Ink or something). Carts are cheap and I've got no issue only replacing them one at a time. Sometimes the wireless printing gets a little wonky but this has probably been the best printer I've ever owned. It just works and the ink is so damn cheap. One thing that is a little annoying is that you can't print without all of the carts being non-empty and you need both black pigment and regular black but this is typical of any inkjet printer.
GordonS 5y ago
I got totally sick of it a couple of years back - I'd had HP, Epson and Canon inkjets over the years, and with all it seemed like every time I just wanted to print something, I had to do a silly dance of "realigning print heads" or "unclogging" or whatever, all of which consumed both time and ink. And invariably after printing more than 3 pages it'd moan about low ink levels. And genuine ink cartridges are expensive! The practice of locking to prevent using generic cartridges is terrible. Inkjets are a scam, plain and simple. So, I bought an inexpensive Brother laser printer. It's black only, but I switched to printing most photos at Costco years ago anyway - the quality is just so much better than you can achieve at home. Anyway, what a revelation! It starts up in a couple of seconds, and when you hit "print", it just does it, again in just a couple of seconds. No moaning about maintenance. No asking me to change a cartridge every 3 minutes - just a printer that works when you need it to! And it came with a "small" ink tank, that is somehow still going! Even when I do need to buy another ink tank, a full sized one, it'll only cost something like £30 and probably last for at least 5 years!
- alex_anglin 5y ago
  Yeah, the consensus view these days seems to be that Brother laser printers are the way to go.
- tagoregrtst 5y ago
  Epson’s more professional line is (was) pretty decent. The cartridges are big and cheap, and they even have a printer line that takes straight ink (ie there’s a tank you top off). The printers are more expensive though (at least $100 more for the same functionality - which is probably the profit they estimate they’re forgoing on the ink), and the last one I bought was cheap (still going though). Never buy a consumer grade printer though.
  - GordonS 5y ago
    The HP and Canon ones I had were actually pretty expensive, and one of the HP ones even did A3. So I don't think this is only an issue with low-end consumer models.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
HP already burned their brand to the ground. I did pick up an HP color laser printer on eBay — but a model for which the toner-pirates have already hacked the chips. Apparently HP's more recent offerings don't have such a ready supply of 3rd party toner vendors. Definitely a fucked up world we're living in. I feel bad for those less tech-savvy. Worst still for our planet though as I suspect that rather than lining HP or Canon's pockets, the less sophisticated users are simply tossing out these peripherals faster than an old VHS player.
- SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
  The original HP is now Keysight. HP the printer company got the name, but Keysight has the engineering.
ezconnect 5y ago
HP burned their printer brand a long time ago, my last HP inkjet was the HP 720c and was very reliable and had a big ink that can print tons of documents. After that they made the ink so tiny you have to buy ink every month.

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

Most if not all inkjet printers with cartridge "chips" do exactly this -- it's why there is a large market of cartridge chip "resetters"; just search around.

userbinator 5y ago

AFAIK it was Epson who did it first (over 20 years ago now): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177 (you'll need to read the article from the Internet archive, since it has unfortunately disappeared) The chip is just an EEPROM. The printer presumably has a pretty accurate estimate given that it knows how many pixels were printed, and the volume of each one.

timcederman 5y ago

The nice thing with the Canon printers is they at least let you override the low ink warnings and still print. Sometimes I get a normal extra print or two, but it's usually pretty accurate.