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Pulling from a few Reddit threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/14xgrym/does_aftermarket_toner_still_work_for_the_brother/ https://www.reddit.com

Pulling from a few Reddit threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/14xgrym/does_aftermarket_toner_still_work_for_the_brother/ https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/14xgrym/does_afte... > No firmware blocks them out. Major issues have to do with the chip holder and brothers intellectual property on their floating chip technology. Additionally, when power cycling the chips on aftermarket tend to blow the little battery capacitor in them. 2 main aftermarket chip suppliers and awhile back they made some progress in the chip design. I sell ink and toner for a living and for the past year, have had 1 defective only pertaining to the chips...and considering how often they had trouble before..a solid result. Trouble is most consumers have no idea of the technicals, and just order whatever. Not great for this model. https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/v8imcc/aftermarket_brother_toner_no_toner_bad_chip/ https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/v8imcc/aftermarke... > Tbh, if u want an actual fix, it's to get some better toners...for a few years now we have no longer had this issue. It goes back to the chip assembly, and quality of the chip. There is so much variation on these depending on what factory in China they are pumped out of. > If you utilize a remanufactured tn227 with oem floating chip technology, with the current chips that don't seem to short, you'll have no issues. >There really is no suggestion or work around in my book besides better supplies. I am glad this issue is behind us based on the workmanship of the supplies. The issue seems to be that aftermarket manufacturers had problems manufacturing the chips, not that Brother was enforcing DRM on them.

MostlyStable 2y ago
That is somewhat confusing. If the problem is that 3rd party toners can't get the "chip holder design" right, then why would putting in a new chip fix it? Either that is a confusing name for something about the chip itself, rather than the mechanism on the cartridge for holding it in place, or else swapping the chip won't work because the "chip holder" is on the cartridge. The capacitor is, I suppose, a more credible explanation and would explain my observations, but tbh, Both options sort of just seems like DRM by a different name. I can't think of a legitimate reason for requiring such a feature, other than making it more difficult to use 3rd party cartridges. That would mean that it isn't a firmware issue, which is good to know, but it also means that Brother is engaging in the same category of practice: making it unecessarily more difficult to use 3rd part toner.
- ikiris 2y ago
  “If they can’t get lightbulb design right, why did replacing the lightbulb fix it?” Because the replaced chip worked, not in the sense that it passed a drm check, but in the sense that it functioned and wasn’t a broken counterfeit.

MostlyStable 2y ago

That is somewhat confusing. If the problem is that 3rd party toners can't get the "chip holder design" right, then why would putting in a new chip fix it? Either that is a confusing name for something about the chip itself, rather than the mechanism on the cartridge for holding it in place, or else swapping the chip won't work because the "chip holder" is on the cartridge. The capacitor is, I suppose, a more credible explanation and would explain my observations, but tbh, Both options sort of just seems like DRM by a different name. I can't think of a legitimate reason for requiring such a feature, other than making it more difficult to use 3rd party cartridges. That would mean that it isn't a firmware issue, which is good to know, but it also means that Brother is engaging in the same category of practice: making it unecessarily more difficult to use 3rd part toner.

ikiris 2y ago
“If they can’t get lightbulb design right, why did replacing the lightbulb fix it?” Because the replaced chip worked, not in the sense that it passed a drm check, but in the sense that it functioned and wasn’t a broken counterfeit.