Hacker News Reader

Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

Nothing a printer has ever done has pissed me off more than the time an HP "all in one" printer 'expired' $180 worth of unopened ink cartridges we had on the shelf as spares so that we'd have no downtime.

Apparently for "quality reasons" a smart chip in the ink made the printer refuse to use it after an arbitrary expiration date set at the factory. It was only 6 months.

I don't even mind being robbed of the $180. The surprise downtime, however, landed the printer in the dumpster and a Xerox laser took its place.

Edit: I actually tore the scanner portion of the device open and harvested the 2 12-volt cold cathode lights in their beautiful extruded aluminum holders from the scanner bed before chucking it. I mounted them under the desk just over my keyboard drawer to light my keyboard and serve as a warning to other printers that might get any ideas about mishandling their ink...

View on HN

In the same vein, Brother laser cartridges will work reliably for months after they are "empty" according to the printer.

In fact, I never managed to actually get it to show any signs of low toner. I just got sick of taking the cartridge out and putting it back in to reset the "out of ink" setting.

+1, I have been printing for months with an "empty" Brother cartridge. Just stick on a little tape on the side of the cartridge to block the laserbeam that "measures" the ink, that way you can leave it in.

Crooks!

Exactly, and while you're at it, don't ask your barber if you need a haircut.

I'm sure the low ink warning is justified somewhere on the grounds of ensuring consistent quality, but as long as the prints come out good enough, print away.

There is no reason to keep using a (visibly) empty toner cartridge, in fact, it can cause 2 issues:

a) When the cartridge has no toner, there is still a 'buffer' of toner that is in the developer roller that transfers the toner to the drum.

Now, it will last for quite a few copies, until it becomes completely depleted, and then developer itself starts transfering to the drum; Best case it causes premature wear, worst case it does serious damage and you end up with a costly repair bill.

b) When a laser detects low toner density, it ups the voltage bias to compensate, this too is bad for the drum, but more importantly, when you finally add that new toner cartridge, the printer will be suddenly 'overtoned' and has to get rid of the excess toner from the developer roll somehow. The way it does this is to print black copies (which get cleaned off the drum, straight into the waste toner container).

I'm not saying don't use the toner cartridge until it's completely empty, since sometimes the sensors do misdetect the toner level and report it empty when there is a small amount left - just don't over do it.

Yeah, I found that tip on the Amazon product page for the replacement cartridge. Which really amuses me.

Got my HP Laserjet (CP1518) cartridges to last literally 2x as long by setting the manual override. The printer will complain for months that it's out of ink, all the while printing beautifully.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com