23 ms·
CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge
- jonbruner 4y agoAlso, the difference between a full cartridge and an empty cartridge is minimal; about 20% of the toner reservoir is filled in a new cartridge, dropping to 15% when the printer says the cartridge is empty.
- loyukfai 4y agoSounds like a lot of space wasted?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoMany laser cartridges are legacy designs from before they started cheating on the amount of toner. That "extra" space was used to provide 10,000+ sheet capacity standard cartridges.
- nebula8804 4y agoThis does not pass the sniff test given if you look at a new printer cartridge it is quite compact from the old school HP Laserjet behemoths.
- daneel_w 4y agoSo effectively you only get to use 25% of what has been manufactured and what you pay for? What a terrible waste.
- colechristensen 4y agoAt least for my laser printer you can buy two kinds of cartridge: the one that’s kind of full and the one that’s actually full.
- bombcar 4y agoI would like to see cartridges designed ecologically - refillable perhaps, or at least designed to flow as much out as possible - and allowing you to override the "toner low" warning and keep printing even if it's almost dry.
- colechristensen 4y agoToner cartridges are generally recyclable / refurbished. You don’t throw them away, you take spent ones back to the place of purchase when you buy a new one.
- nerpderp82 4y agoI have never used one, but I think it is interesting that Epson does sell a line of printers that have easily refillable ink reservoirs. https://epson.com/ecotank-ink-tank-printers https://epson.com/ecotank-ink-tank-printers
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoInkjets have to be used regularly or they will suffer from clogs and in the case of Epson you're SOL if a head clean doesn't work. You can leave a laser idle for years and it will print fine.
- RobotToaster 4y agoI think eco tanks (and some other modern inkjets) will purge the heads regularly if left on, so it should be fine if left on standby constantly.
- someweirdperson 4y agoMine doesn't, some nozzles clogged every time I wanted to print (infrequently, sometimes months). Now I'm printing a test page every week to prevent that (maybe should add a cron job). A contributing factor could be that the best-before date on the bottles is in the past. Though I have no idea how that date would matter for filling up, and no idea how to observe it after the ink is in the printer and the bottles disposed of.
- jdsully 4y agoUnlike ink jets most laser printers will let you disable the low toner “lock outs” although by default it may refuse to print. Then you just wait for the streaks to appear to know when you’re out. You can shake it to extend the life once that occurs. I’ve printed hundreds of pages after the printer said I was out of toner. There’s probably some small quality loss but for text you don’t really notice if it’s not streaking.
- ceejayoz 4y agoYep; we went eighteen months between the first "no toner" and visible impact on print quality, despite two kids in school needing stuff printed daily.
- voxelghost 4y agoOn the topic of ink jets - I am so glad I changed to an Ink-tank printer a few years back - never going back
- jiveturkey 4y agoMy laser doesn't _refuse_ to print, it makes you click through a warning on the printer itself for each print job. Like you said, that can be easily disabled (it's a menu item -- no secret procedure). I've found the toners to easily print double the nominal capacity.
- kittyn 4y agoi’m not buying it. i’ve replaced enough toner cartridges to know there’s significant weight difference between full and empty. it’s a shill article for their industrial CT scanners
- burnished 4y agoWouldn’t there also be a significant weight difference between full and 50%? Or full and 30%?
- jstanley 4y agoMaybe they add increasing amounts of lead weights to the cartridges each year, so that whenever you put a new one in it weighs more than the old one.
- _jal 4y agoI'm so glad I saw your post before rushing right out to buy my own CT scanner in order to save on toner. You saved me from Big Imaging's clutches.
- _carbyau_ 4y agoBut think what else you could use a CT scanner for! - how much medicine is left in your brown UV medicine bottles? - where did that sock go in the washing? - how many grains are really in your ammunition? ... I'm looking to hang my CT scanner off the side of my apartment building as soon as I get committee approval.
- eis3nheim 4y agoThe printer industry needs a revolution.
- rohan_ 4y agoDoes it? It’s a dying industry. When was the last time you printed anything?
- hu3 4y agoYesterday, unfortunately. Had to print some contracts.
- maerF0x0 4y agoa few days ago?
- Arrath 4y agoHaven't done much government contracting where documents are required to be submitted on paper in triplicate, eh? Sometimes I think I've singlehandedly kept one paper mill open with my current project. E: With the submittals I'm preparing this morning, I expect to print just north of a thousand pages of documentation by the end of the day.
- _carbyau_ 4y agoI know a guy who does printer support for biiiig (1 ton, length of the room, $100k+ easily) printers. He takes stacks of paper. Running a 500 page ream through is a test. If it is something like streaking, which requires hunting down and cleaning up toner leaks and accumulations, he can run many many tests... Feel not guilt for actual valid use.
- squarefoot 4y ago3 hours ago, and yesterday, and the other day, etc. etc. Some activities still need documents to be presented and signed in dead tree form.
- trynewideas 4y ago
- gryf 4y agoYeah. My HP toner cartridge has been "empty" for about a year and is still printing fine! It has done more pages since it was empty than before it was empty.
- sidewndr46 4y agoMy HP LaserJet has been telling me that it is low for the better part of 10 years. Still prints fine.
- pugworthy 4y agoIt's hard to really judge what this means without knowing how often and much you print, as well as how much was printed before the warning was given. PS Blame/thank Canon. It's their mechanism and cartridge in the HP printers. Also some utilize Samsung print engines for A3 paper. PPS It's a testament to ink vs toner that it can remain functional after 10 years.
- landswipe 4y agoSame here, I'll only change it once I start seeing streaks, it must be a scam it has been like this for years.
- Steve44 4y agoWe have about five HP 4200 printers in our office and I use genuine 38X toners which I think are rated at 12,000 pages. When we get a Toner Low message it'll then do about 500 pages before it reports Toner Out, after that print will rapidly fade. We can probably scrape 1-200 pages on Toner Out, but it's not good enough quality to send out. Basically their Low and Out warnings seem pretty accurate in my experience.
- unglaublich 4y agoManufacturers want to provide a product that produces reliable high quality prints. That's why the toner low warning comes up very early, so that there's no chance that your important documents look unprofessional due to low toner levels. As a consumer, naturally, you can almost always ignore the warning and use the toner until you can't even read granny's apple pie recipe anymore.
- klodolph 4y agoAgreed. I spent some time maintaining a fleet of printers, among other things. Toner cartridges streak when they are near empty, and can be restored by shaking them, for a time. Shaking them more and more as they near the end. I can understand why you’d want a cartridge to report “empty” before it starts streaking. I don’t really care about a bit of wasted toner, though. What I really want are more durable mechanical parts (gears, etc) and a ready supply of replacement parts like fusers. I also wonder how the printer counts its toner “empty”. If it’s just a page count, surely it wouldn’t be accurate. I know that you can measure page coverage, but I wonder if they actually do it. I’m also sure that they have no incentive to make the “empty” threshold more accurate.
- CivBase 4y agoThis is being a bit too generous. If that were the case, they could provide a warning about print quality instead of just saying that the toner is low. But then people wouldn't be as compelled to needlessly buy more overpriced printer supplies.
- DangitBobby 4y agoYes. The "print quality" excuse provides plausible deniability (to some audiences), but in reality they are intentionally misleading customers.
- daneel_w 4y agoSame with ink cartridges from all inkjet manufacturers. It's a massive case of fraud and environmental crime in one.
- novaRom 4y agoIt's not different from what a well-known company does with their devices by installing low-grade batteries with leaking capacity. Intentionally, planned obsolescence.
- InCityDreams 4y agoName names, please?
- daneel_w 4y agoAll rechargeable batteries lose capacity over time, with every cycle. If you think you're sitting a scoop that you can prove then you should let the world know.
- jmyeet 4y agoNever, ever, ever buy a printer that takes cartridges. They’re discounted to at or below cost where they make the money back on cartridges. They use ink to clean the heads. They say empty when they’re not. The cartridges that come with the printer aren’t full. There is a constant firmware update war to defeat third party cartridges for obvious reasons. Buy a tank printer that you fill with ink bottles.
- 1123581321 4y agoBetter to buy a laser and send the occasional photo quality ink job out to a print shop, unless you’re running a creative studio. Even the starter Brother laser toner prints for ages.
- loloquwowndueo 4y agoWell - buy the printer and once it runs out of ink toss it and buy another printer :) I did that with an HP inkjet - got me out of trouble until it ran out, then I replaced with a Brother laser that was half of what the ink refills for the HP would have been. Toner for the Brother is like 20 bucks and lasts for a couple of years given my level of usage.
- jmyeet 4y agoYears ago I used to do this when I rarely but occasionally needed a printer. Less than $100 for a printer that'd last me 2-3 years then just buy a new one. I fully support this strategy if your usage is really, really low.
- jerry1979 4y agoRegarding the brother printer, what do you do with your replacement ink things?
- loloquwowndueo 4y agoI sell them to one of those shady “cheap toner/ink” places, I imagine they refurbish and resell the cartridge in turn.
- maerF0x0 4y agoupvote both for such a cool application but also to say that typically when my toner cartridges start to say "empty" or get a few streaks, all i have to do is pull it out, give it a few firm taps all around (think tapping a nail into drywall) and then give it a few horizontal shakes to redistribute the material across the drum. I get 100s of more pages this way doing it multiple times.
- dlmiller 4y agoThat's not necessarily toner left in the cartridge. It could be developer. Laser printers have 2 separate forms of powder inside of them. One being toner, and the other being developer. The developer has fine metal particulates inside that "charge" the toner, enabling the toner to be pulled off of the drum, and onto the page. Larger copiers have the Developer, and toner separate. However, the cartridge pictured is the full process unit.
- pifm_guy 4y agoDeveloper is, in all modern machines, a roller. It lasts almost forever - far longer than any home user will use their machine at least. When it does run out, I don't think it's due to wear or the metal particles being 'used up' in any way, but instead because a layer of dirt has stuck to the surface of the roller, so it is no longer any good at transferring toner.
- dlmiller 4y agoDeveloper loses its charge over time. You have to replace it. Every laser copier/printer still uses developer. If you can show me a model of laser printer that does not, I'm all ears. There is also a transfer roller in each copier, maybe that's what you're talking about? I could be mistaken, but as recently as 2020, every commercial copier I worked on, still uses developer. I have never worked on, or heard of a laser copier without developer.
- l8rlump 4y ago"Mono-component" toner is toner that is magnetic in its own rite, so it doesn't need separate developer (iron powder) to make it magnetic. I believe the original mono-component toners had magnetite in them, but I believe now there's non-magnetic mono-component toner too.
- Animats 4y agoXerography is electrostatic, not magnetic. Magnetic printers, with magnetic toner, have been built [1] but never really caught on. It was one of those dead ends from the early years of trying to build a faster printer. Somehow I managed to encounter, early in my career, the first CRT phototypesetter prototype (Harris-Intertype), the first electrostatic liquid printer prototype (Clevite-Brush), the Data Interface Magnetic Printer, the Teletype Inktronic (swept a beam of ink dots with deflection plates, like a CRT), and a Corning Glass display that used photochromic glass (write with UV, view in green, erase with IR). None were successful products, although for a decade or so, electrostatic liquid printers from Versatek [2] were a thing. They used "dark juice", toner particles in a liquid suspension. A row of electrodes charged the paper, which passed over a liquid surface where the paper picked up toner particles. Then a heating station fused the toner and evaporated the liquid. Required special paper. Print quality was mediocre, but the devices were quiet and fast. [1] http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DataInterface/Data_Interface.DI-240.1973.102646310.pdf http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DataInterf... [2] https://archive.org/details/TNM_Electrostatic_Printers__Plotters_-_Versatec__20170915_0165 https://archive.org/details/TNM_Electrostatic_Printers__Plot...
- mmcgaha 4y agoThat is why we shake it.
- euroderf 4y agoShake it like a Polaroid.
- nuodag 4y agoIf 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
- mc32 4y agoBrother lasers also have a funky reset procedure (depends on model, but searchable on internet). It’s outrageous. You can get another 500 to 1000 pages out of it.
- ck45 4y agoI have an older Brother HL-2035. It can be convinced to keep on printing by covering two holes on the cartridge with some duct tape.
- yamazakiwi 4y agoI have an older Brother. I usually have to hit it a few times to get it to print any documents for me but you know how family is.
- TurkishPoptart 4y agoThat's nuts. What's the rationale for that, aside from possibly selling more cartridges? So wasteful!
- simcop2387 4y agoFor some of these it may be a quality issue. With less material to deposit in the cartridge it may not apply evenly. Lots of times this could be fine but it might not always be the case.
- mc32 4y agoThat's possible and understandable for high volume printers. But for personal/desk printers they should have an option like. Cartridges are running low on toner, would you like to enable degraded printing? Rather than having labyrinthine steps to overcome out of toner error (which are not in the manual mind you). My experience is that full color printouts do not suffer. When they do run out, it's noticeable and comes nearly at once --rather than slowly degrading.
- TimTheTinker 4y agoLooks like they market CT scanners. Otherwise I'd ask - why not cut it open instead?
- danbruc 4y agoYou will get dirty if you cut it open, we are no longer living in the stone age.
- consumer451 4y agoAdam Savage just put out a neat video that featured this company’s CT scanners and software. They scanned two vacuum tube-esque components. https://youtu.be/iTJvb-qibKQ https://youtu.be/iTJvb-qibKQ
- greesil 4y agoTIL what is a hydrogen thyratron
- abruzzi 4y agoyeah,my first tought was--yeah, a hammer shows that as well.
- pezezin 4y agoYou 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.
- bingaling 4y agoMy Brother laser printer counts toner consumption (i.e. page count) with a keyed gear on the toner cartridge, different cartridge capacities have different shaped gears, resetting the gear orientation resets the counter.
- zwieback 4y agoThe whole stranded toner/ink issue is why subscription is becoming popular in this space, nobody wants to feal cheated and per-page pricing is pretty straightforward.
- blululu 4y agoFWIW, this exploration does not require a CT scanner. A simple 2d x-ray would suffice.
- stvnwd 4y agoOr just a screwdriver.
- tailspin2019 4y agoSomewhat related, I recently bought a Brita water filter jug which has a little led on the lid which glows red when the disposable filter cartridge has “expired” and needs replacing. Before I even started to use the thing I knew what to expect. Sure enough it starts to glow red after a ridiculously short period of time of using a brand new filter cartridge. I’ve been ignoring it for a few weeks now and checking for any difference in taste of the filtered water but haven’t detected anything yet. I’d recently been wondering about how to verify the filter’s effectiveness somehow as I’m sure this indicator is less than useless and essentially setup to “lie” for profit. There should be laws against this sort of thing. Any indicator that tells you when a consumable needs to be replaced should have to meet some level of accuracy in order to be legal.
- bombcar 4y agoMy fridge has something similar but at least it tells you what it does - it simply counts down 3 months. So I just reset it and tell it there is a new one and it stops beeping at me.
- hgsgm 4y ago
- chucksta 4y agoI'm fairly certain its disclosed somewhere that light is just on a timer, there is no realistic way to monitor something like that otherwise. Depends on your tank, see "how do I read and reset" https://www.brita.com/support/faqs/replacement-filters/ https://www.brita.com/support/faqs/replacement-filters/
- ogn3rd 4y agoget a cheap TDS meter.
- dharma1 4y agoThose filters (usually coconut shell carbon) can start having bacterial biofilm grow on them over time, and generally get saturated with gunk, that’s why you’re meant to change them frequently. I guess when they do depends on a lot of factors and the recommendation is an average length - ideally would have some better sensors on when to change them but gets more costly
- fitzroy 4y agoEmpty Ink Cartridge has Better Medical Access Than Most Americans
- kossTKR 4y agoI'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.
- johannbok 4y agoAt 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?
- sgerenser 4y agoKodak tried that 10+ years ago. The experiment only lasted a year or two before the printers were discontinued for poor sales.
- davchana 4y agoLong time ago, in around 2006, a computer shop guy wanted to charge me 3 times more for color scans jpegs than black & white scans, because "color ink" is expensive!! I was like, its a paper to pdf, you are not using any ink at all, but he was like no, how will your pdf get colors from?
- LorenPechtel 4y agoUnfortunately, with ink-jet an out-of-ink can actually do damage, not merely produce a bad print. They have no incentive to make a reliable ink measuring system, though.
- DataOverload 4y agoAre we at all surprised when the incentive is for them to make you buy ink as frequently as possible? There are even subscription services now for ink - all for that sweet Recurring Revenue investors love. They've made their systems hard to service yourself or use third-party components/cartridges so no player is going to make a "value" option anytime soon.
- davidw 4y agoI've always loved this, from The Oatmeal: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers
- loufe 4y agoI can't stand forced product refills from the OEM. I refilled my Sodastream maybe a half dozen times before buying a 5lb tank, an adapter hose off Ebay. It paid for itself in 2 refills of the 5lb tank at a nearby homebrew store.
- SoftTalker 4y agoIt's a very old business model. Often cited in introductory businesss classes as the "Kodak model" (give away the camera, sell the film) or the "Gillette model" (give away the handle, sell the blades). Generically you use the initial equipment purchase as a loss leader and then profit by marking up the required supplies.
- processing 4y agoI don't own a printer for this very reason. As of late though I've had to question if this is viable anymore - UPS price gouged me for 2 A4 sheets of black/white paper prints for $6.40.
- davchana 4y agoI got few prints from UPS, black & white long ago. Now I use staples, color one side letter prints are 70 cents or something, black white around 14 cents. Assuming your files are as pdf, on a fat32 usb.
- processing 4y agoappreciate the tip.
- kyruzic 4y agoCheck if your library let's you print. Mine let's me print something like 50 pages a month for free then you pay for any additional pages.
- MetaWhirledPeas 4y agoThe horror stories are a bit overblown. I've had good luck with a regular old inkjet printer. Been using a Brother inkjet for years. It was $50 brand new (!!!), prints beautiful photos (use glossy paper), has a built-in scanner and photocopier, and even prints double sided. The last time I bought generic ink it cost me $22 for 3 full sets of cartridges. Aside from having a wonky UI it works flawlessly.
- duffyjp 4y agoWe print out worksheets for the kids almost daily so we need a printer. I bought the cheapest HP laserjet that had an internal paper tray and it's been fine. I'm pretty sure I bought it in 2018 and we're still on the starter toner despite it having the low toner warning light on since 2019.
- novaRom 4y agoAsk yourself before buying anything: cost per year times its lifetime. Kilowatt hours, disposal costs, quality degradation (battery, software slowdown), etc.
- nebula8804 4y agoThere is a benefit to the convenience of printing something at home instead of going to Staples to get it printed. That is a subjective cost that cannot easily be measured.
- duffyjp 4y agoI ordered a replacement toner cartridge for our HP laser printer in 2019 when it reported it was low. We print a few pages a day on average and the new one is still in the box... I haven't even had to take it out and shake it.
- radicaldreamer 4y agoDoes Big Printer have lobbyists in Congress? This, along with coffee pod DRM, shouldn't be allowed.
- onemoresoop 4y agoI think we should slap all these companies with class action lawsuits till they start behaving. This is outrageous behavior. How can these executives sleep at night?
- zelon88 4y agoI'm sure it gets easier if you're rolling in money.
- brundolf 4y agoVery glad I only need to print something about once a year these days. Everything about the industry feels like a race to the bottom
- ElijahLynn 4y agoBought an Epson "Ecotank" a few years ago, best printer I've ever had. Only had to refill the ink tanks a couple of times, and the refill ink is super affordable. Paid a much higher up-front cost for the printer but damn... I print out TONS of photos now, and don't have to worry about the ink cartridge depleting at a fast rate.
- jbm 4y agoAs a counterbalance, I bought that same one at Costco and hated it; I am much happier after switching to a Brother laser printer. During the pandemic it was especially helpful for the kids' school work. I went through 3 or 4 ink cartridges (literally thousands of pages of printing), but the 3rd party cartridges worked fine and not expensive at all.
- culi 4y agoMany printers are sold at a loss because the cartridges are where the money is made. I've heard of people buying brand new printers when their ink ran out because it was cheaper than new ink
- Animats 4y agoI still have one of those. I don't print enough to keep it from clogging, and often have to run two or three cleaning cycles after not using it for a few weeks. I had to refill black ink once, for a few dollars.
- Nition 4y agoI was ready for "lots" of toner to be left when deemed empty, but 75%!?
- Warputin 4y agoGood call on using a CT scanner, who would ever have thought of opening the cartridge??
- StanislavPetrov 4y agoI bought a Canon ImageClass MF210 for $99 many years ago and it works flawlessly (as long as you don't need to print color). It never forces me to change the toner (I'm merely forced to swap it out when the print starts getting to faint). It also happily accepts cheap, knock off toner replacement cartridges without any sort of modification.
- Mister_Snuggles 4y agoThe last printer I bought (HP LaserJet Pro m254dw) seems to do it right. My black cartridge is at 0% and has been for a while. The supply status printout says something to the effect of "Just because it says 0% doesn't mean it's empty, keep printing until the quality is unacceptable." I ordered a new cartridge about a year ago, but haven't installed it yet because I'm not seeing any quality problems. I don't print much though, so it'll likely sit there for another year (or more).
- Fiahil 4y agoMy laser Brother printer let me print until there is no more ink.
- camilo86 4y agoThe is outrageous. At this point we mind as well build an open source printer with reusable cartridges
- jl6 4y agoThe 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 premium subscription could include indemnity insurance in the event that the onboard-AI detects and auto-reports you for printing any copyrighted material.
- Joker_vD 4y ago> any copyrighted material. Which is pretty much any material. Including material for which you yourself own copyright (but probably never bothered to register it).
- unixhero 4y agoThere needs to be lawsuits
- aqwsde 4y agoNo shit, Sherlock !
- danw1979 4y agoI 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.
- wink 4y agoThe 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.