Printer Rant

[guitarmike2107]

In a world where we are striving to be green, environmentally friendly , how is it that printer manufactures continue to supply printers and cartridges that stop printing when there is still loads of life left in them.
Remember the good ole days with the ribbon printers and you could print as many times as you liked even if the ribbon barely left any trace……. Who came up with this rubbish idea

Another thing about this printer I have is that every 10 pages or so it does a head cleaning exercise, so it uses the colours ink up even though you don’t ever print colours, so eventually you get the message that you cant print anymore because the magenta is all used up, even if you only want to print a black text sheet.. come on!

I print between 10 – 15 pages a day , last July my Brother printer stopped printing and told me I had to change my black , magenta and another colour cartridge. Ok but the last print was still perfect.
So I found out how to override the cartridges and have since printed over 1000 more pages and it still looks good!!

Power to the people!

Imagine if amp manufactures started fitting devises to valve amps to stop the player playing and force them to change the valves, speakers etc.
Imagine if your car decided you needed new brake pads and just would not drive until they had being serviced or the petrol/gas tank was half full and the car made you stop until it was full up.

[Steve Conner]

That's all a printer is, a device to make you buy cartridges. The printer itself is sold at a loss.

The SVT Classic reissue seemingly has a device that shuts it down if the power tubes get mismatched.

[guitarmike2107]

The industry I work in at the moment has a similar set up, we sell electro-hydraulic lifting equipment for cost and have 500% mark up on spares.
But at least when a customer has to buy a spare its because he needs it.

The printers may be cheap but the branded cartridges are not. That’s why it stings so much.

Anyway I am sorted with my override for now, just felt like I needed a rant. I have many other rants building up too.

[Bill Moore]

But you didn't share the paper clip trick with everyone! I use it on my wifes HP all in one. My old deskjet, I just switch to slow speed, and get another 50-75 pages before it starts ghosting.

[guitarmike2107]

On my printer there is a little window in the cartridge that it monitors. I just painted it black or white and it has worked ever since. I have easily had another 1000 pages printed since.

[Bill Moore]

On my wifes HP all in one, there is a small hole that you can insert a paper clip, and it resets the ink display to full.(Like you say, you can still print black, whether or not a color cartridge is empty).