Glad to see that there's finally some effort to hack the shitty anti-consumer printer ink DRM.
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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Quite honestly, back in the 90s I thought it was essential to have a printer. Back then I used to buy a binder, and a bunch of those plastic paper holding sleeves. And I'd print out entire gamefaqs which were sometimes 300 pages.
Then ink started to get expensive. So I stopped. Then now these new printers have DRM. So I just never bought a printer since the 90s.
And I feel I'm not alone. I bet there are millions of people who would be printer customers if printer ink weren't the most artificially expensive substance on the planet.
If I could go out and buy a printer replacement ink pack for $5.00 and have it last a few months, I'd just buy them regularly. Instead I haven't paid one dime in close to 25 years. Gee, guess that financial decision paid off for them....
The solution is to just buy a cheap Brother mono laser printer.
for bonus points get a used one!
If you're extra lucky, it'll still be running on the original included demo toner cartridge.
I have a brother multifuction laser. From a thrift store. 6 years so far on a 3rd party XL toner...
I've spent more on paper than the printer+toner
Bonus bonus points: get a free new one!
You might want to look at laser printers. If you're just doing black and white documents, whatever the latest Brother printer is will do a good job, do it fast, and not screech at you about your cyan running out.
It's a few hundred bucks up front, but the toner cartridges print a ton of pages and don't dry out if you don't use them. I can't recommend it enough if you have even a passing desire to make hard copies of documents.
This. I have a brother color laser printer I bought years ago. Literally before COVID happened, so I've had it about 6 years. I replaced the black stock toner, haven't replaced any others yet. Thing still prints like a champ even though it'll randomly forget Wi-Fi settings.... Lol
I bought an HP* color laser before Covid too. It's starting to bitch about cyan, but holy hell I abused the shit out of it during my studies and it's still good as new.
*I know, but their enterprise grade stuff is actually decent.
Agreed, I have a (pre-HP) Samsung laser printer and it works whenever I need it to. Sure, it only works via USB and only has one button and an on/off switch, but it works when needed.
it only works via USB and only has one button and an on/off switch, but it works when needed
That's ideal; the less connected it is, the less chance I'll have to shoot it
I went directly from a dot matrix (ImageWriter II ftw!) to a laser. Except for photo prints, I find it immensely practical to be able to print stuff at home.
Nowadays you have tank printers. They're more expensive upfront but the ink is much cheaper. It's even cheaper if you go for aftermarket ink. I have an Epson and it's great. Don't think I'll go with the cheap ink however, I just don't use it that much to justify the savings
Great news for the population segment that was dumb enough to buy an HP printer in the last 20 years, yet is smart enough to perform this operation!
My HP printer is 15 years old and we are not changing it until it breaks.
We are used to refill cartridges with a ink syringe.
Dad is that you? :D
Unfortunately he bought a "modern" HP a few years back. It's a nightmare.
I have a really old one that doesn't do part pairing and is new enough to do color so it's worth holding on to. The ink expiration, refill and status is still locked and it still can still brick specific ink cartridges if detects stuff like low ink or whatever. At least non-hp cartridges aren't all-out blocked. I might have to steal all the information in the post so I can build my own whatever that is before hp sues everyone involved and purges it from the internet.
Some day I hope I'll find a way to refill the cartridges with ink and hack them to reset the ink levels.
They sure do seem to really hate their customers
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so basically just the hackers to come up with this workaround :D
Been looking for this sort of device for my Pantech laser.
The cartridge is good for 1,600 pages - no more, no less.
All well and good, they’re cheap, except.. the vast majority of my printing is in A5 size (roughly half-letter, or exactly half-A4).
Those half pages count just like any other page against the total, and I get shorted by the better part of 800 pages or so.
I have a basic Brother monochrome laser for high volume. I can buy a compatible cartridge for 9€. An Epson A3+ (tabloid) inkjet for color and photos, not a real photo printer, only 4 inks. Compatible inks cost less than 3€.
A great option is to buy auto reset refillable carts, and refill with genuine epson eco tank ink, super cheap, and guarantees Epson quality
My ecotank died just like all the other inkjets. It went few weeks without printing and blue nozzle dried completely up and on the pipes I can see dried up ink on other colors as well. So I had to dig up old Brother HL3040 back to the duty which I retired after print quality started to drop (it needs new fuse unit or something similar, so not that big of a deal) and I thought having an option to print nice color pictures would be nice.
So, if you plan to run ecotank (which does have pretty good printing quality when it works) set up a scheduled task on your computer to print something, in color, quite frequently even if it wastes some ink and paper. I think the main issue with mine was that even if I print stuff somewhat often there was a period where I only needed b&w documents so color nozzles went unused for a while.
I might get a new set of nozzles and ink tanks for my unit as it's a ton cheaper than a whole new printer, but if you're looking for a printer this is something to take into consideration, regardless of their marketing material.
Edit: Mine is Epson, didn't know that ecotank term is used by other manufacturers.
I have a brother ecotank...i know this one will wake every noon and do some quick maintenance, like attempting a 10 second print. I guess it's exactly to avoid ink drying up.
If you haven’t read the hackaday comments I highly recommend you do. Some really great behind the scenes experiences people are posting. Super cool.
that's just the Old Switcheroo with extra steps !
tbh i have a old hp printer sitting in the closet collecting dust we dont rlly need it anymore
Yeah I've been seeing knockoff and refilled Canon 245 cartridges for years now. Two things to worry about is:
-
Canon Firmware Updates can brick them
-
Some of their branding seems like grounds for lawsuit as they intentionally design their packages to look like Canon Brand. Just search 245 ink on walmart and you'll see tens of knockoffs with white and red boxes.
It's better to just do inktank printers tbh.
So never update my firmware then, got it.
I couldn't afford a Brother, but my Canon MG3620 works phenomenally with 3rd party ink. Another thing I like is that the software is delightfully stuck in the 90s. Simple and straightforward cause it literally hasn't changed since I was a kid. Yet you still get modern features like wireless and mobile printing, as well as borderless options. Everything I need a printer/scanner combo to do, and nothing more.
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