Optimizing your printer

http://ncannasse.fr/blog/optimizing_your_printer

by robin_reala • 15 years ago

49 18 15 years ago

kmm• 15 years ago

Fascinating that the printer and the toner communicate with light. Isn't the technology to do that way more complicated than a simple metal contact? Is it because a laser printer manufacturer already has optical sensors and the like lying around?

Also, he's lucky the printer decided to go with it, he could have easily gotten a "No toner detected" message.

cube• 15 years ago

-- just guessing here --

my guess would be, that the window is used to determine the filling level inside the toner by shining light / laser through it. he says there are windows on both sides.

if the cartridge is emtpy light goes through, if not it's stopped. so closing the windows would work.

replacing the cartridge could trigger a check wether it's full or not. if the printer thinks it is a full cartridge, the page count is reset and it'll print again.

itsameta4• 15 years ago

No, there seems to be something else, otherwise the printer wouldn't know that there had been exactly 1500 pages printed. I think you're on the right track, but the trick OP described triggered "Oh, this is a new cartridge", not "Oh, this cartridge has ink in it".

It'll be interesting to see what happens in another 1500 pages - what exactly will the printer compare to, and will you be able to reset?

zdw2• 15 years ago

An alternative route would be to find the sensor in the guts of the printer and block it there, rather than doing it on every cartridge.

A dark marker or one that dispenses paint would likely be useful for this.

prakashk• 15 years ago

I recently had to do the same thing on my HL-2140 printer. I believe I found the trick on Amazon discussion forums.

Splines• 15 years ago

One of the reasons I like my Canon home printer. It comes with see-through cartridges so you can tell that it really is empty.

On an older model I had it was easy to refill them myself using a DIY kit from Costco. These days I can buy 3rd party cartridges pretty cheaply and they work fine (and are probably worth it to avoid the mess of DIY refills).

zdw2• 15 years ago

I'm more hesitant to refill inkjet cartridges that don't have an integrated print head, as I've seen cases where mixed ink vendors resulted in unfixable clogged heads. This was only with very cheap ink refills though.

For HP and Lexmark printers where the head is built into the cartridge, it obviously isn't an issue, but for Canon and Epson I'm more hesitant to do so.

trustfundbaby• 15 years ago

This is (or should be) a well known issue with Brother printers. for example ... http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2008/08/...

Just look on the Amazon pages for the toner of your Brother cartridge and you should see tons of reviewers complaining about the same thing and getting the advice you just posted.

dasrecht• 15 years ago

For Brother Printers this one worked quite well for me.

http://www.nrdy.ch/2011/05/07/printer-hacking-101-reset-your...

I reset the original cartridge the second time now and it's printing like the first page.

abredow• 15 years ago

I have a Brother Laser that did the same thing... however, it has a setting in it's web admin called "Replace Toner" with the options of Continue or Stop. All I had to do was select "Continue" and it kept printing until the toner was actually gone. No cartridge modification required!

pasbesoin2• 15 years ago

I skimmed this, but the topic is a known issue with SOHO Brother printers (e.g. 2140, 2170, their 22xx replacements, etc.).

There's an optical sensor. When it triggers, a significant quantity of toner remains in the cartridge. Cover the cartridge's window, and it looks like it's still full of toner. You can get dozens or perhaps a few hundred additional pages, depending on what you print.

BTW, this class of Brother has a reputation for being trouble-free (well, one odd day-of-the-week driver bug that I'm aware of) including in *NIX environments, while being dirt cheap if you look for sales. A 2270W network printer having Ethernet, USB, and wireless occasionally drops to $80. You're left deciding whether to purchase a new toner cartridge or an entire new printer (albeit with a lower-capacity "starter" cartridge).

These days, you can get a color laser for a couple of hundred. But if you're cranking out a lot of black and white, one of these Brothers makes a good "beater" printer.

(The one caveat being the eventual drum replacement. If your printing is really high volume, you might want to look for something with a more durable drum -- although again I think people manage to take Brothers past their official metrics.)

andyking• 15 years ago

My Brother HL-1250 was rescued from a skip outside a closing-down local authority office where a relative worked. There were at least ten just thrown out in the street. I got it home, it worked perfectly and has done ever since, with no toner change. This was FOUR YEARS ago--they must have thrown it out with a full cartridge. (I still feel a bit guilty when I look at it and see "Property of Cheshire County Council" stamped on the front, but they shouldn't have skipped it!)

I agree, the thing is built like a tank. It's not the fastest machine in the world, and it's about as elegant as Kryten from Red Dwarf's head, images are an indistinct mass of foggy grey, but for what I do, churning out black and white text documents, the quality is perfect. It works flawlessly under Ubuntu too. You can't argue with the price, either--but even if you can't nick one from a skip, they're about £20 used.

(I've been beaten in the "beater" printer category, though. The workplace I left this week has an HP LaserJet 5 of a 1995 vintage still clunking away in the corner printing news scripts for the radio, with a page count in the 300,000s. I believe it could soon be coming to the end of its life, though, not because it's knackered, but because they've stopped selling the cartridges. I love using old tech like this, for some reason.)

pasbesoin2• 15 years ago

There is still a significant used market for the old HP printers, for reasons such as you describe. There have been several posts mentioned/referred to here or elsewhere about how they differ from the current HP SOHO line -- plastic and much less durable, as I understand it.

Actually, I'm reminded that a relative has a 4MP purchased... a decade or more ago?, that is still chugging along just fine. It's awfully slow by today's standards, but -- while small and designed for the SOHO -- it is indeed "built like a tank", for the most part.

By the way, the Brother 2[1|2]40, 70, etc. look all right, and their image quality is ok (for a basic B/W printer -- don't expect an Ansel Adams print ;-).

Optimizing your printer

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