The part of this that really makes me mad is that brother use to be the chosen one but they pushed a firmware update and now I have to pry the chips of first party toner and glue them into generic.
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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Once they get a taste of that market share it's hard for them to give it up. So they'll start doing this shit to keep people in their ecosystem. They make nothing on their printers and hope to make it up with ink/toner sales. So they want you on their brand.
Fuck printers, fuck print drivers, fuck toner and definitely fuck fax machines. Watching a nurse print something to fax it somewhere else, then for that person to scan it back in. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. All they do is generate waste.
honestly one of the things I had no idea about was how fucked up windows printer drivers were. I used to think it was just because they were all crap, but then I fully moved to linux and discovered that Microsoft is the issue! Printers just work in linux.
Yeah I remember being super confused that my printer just worked without any extra effort the first time I tried Linux!
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Hmm my 4-year-old $100 Brother printer is due for its first toner swap. Generic ones are $20 but Brother owns are like $75. I'm gonna have to see if this applies to mine.
The older Brother printers are amazing and exactly what is needed in a printer. Nothing more or other BS. Unfortunately, recently changed of course.
Even the Brother printer I got in undergrad needed electrical tape on the toner sensor so that it wasn't lying to you and telling you that you needed to buy a new cartridge at 33%. That was from 2008, 2009 tops.
I can decide for myself when I need new toner. I don't need some service in the Amazon cloud to do it for me, I literally see what the fuck the page looks like when it's finished.
Fuck printers.
Is the firmware update something that needs to be manually done or do I have to live in fear of my brother updating on its own?
https://www.therecycler.com/posts/new-firmware-updates-affect-aftermarket-cartridges/
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now/
Sorry for the reddit link but there is still so much useful info there.
Here is an archive link https://archive.li/CYIkm
I've never got a prompt for a firmware update and just used whatever generic drivers was automatically supplied. Might be in luck with being an older model.
Their bottle printers are bad?
I just got a cheap brother laser printer and the toner seems to last forever.
Since 1999 I'm only on my second Brother Laser printer. They are champs and 3rd party toner is inexpensive.
Don’t update the firmware. In 2022 they released firmware that blocks non genuine toner.
Well, that's good to know. Thanks!
Does anyone else think there might be a market for open-hardware, "not-enshittified" printers?
Clearly not, or it would have caught on by now. I've been using Linux for almost 20 years now, I've tried open hardware phones and e-readers. Not bragging, just saying I would be the target demographic here, but I've never even heard of a serious open hardware printer effort.
What do you think hinders the open source community to develop a printer.
that there's already an established oligopoly that sells their machines at a loss
Hm yeah, competing with such loss leader printers would be difficult. But how come I've never heard of anyone making things such as bootleg printer ink? Or does the police barge into the doors of anyone who tries?
there is bootleg printer ink, and the OEMs hate it so they put chips and sensors to only make printers take “genuine” ink
Can confirm that bootleg printer ink is a thing. It used to be all I used. While sites dedicated to it off Amazon doesn’t cut it.
But as someone else pointed out, manufacturers have been adding “DRM” to cartridges in more recent years. Even in older printers, I will get complaints doubting the authenticity of the cartridges I was putting in.
You can find plenty of bootleg printer ink around, you just have to ensure you have a printer that isn't locked to the manufacturers ink.
Can confirm that bootleg printer ink is a thing. It used to be all I used. While sites dedicated to it off Amazon doesn’t cut it.
But as someone else pointed out, manufacturers have been adding “DRM” to cartridges in more recent years. Even in older printers, I will get complaints doubting the authenticity of the cartridges I was putting in.
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The thing about printers, is that unlike most other common modern computer peripherals, they're mechanically complex, and with precise tolerances at that, given that they have to be able to feed paper through the system with pure friction.
A daisy wheel or other character-based impact printer could probably be produced in a few months' steady work by a sufficiently stubborn and enthusiastic DIY type, but almost no one would buy or build one because it's a step backward in terms of output results—text output in the font face and point size on the daisy wheel only. There might be a niche for them as ruggedized, easy-to-repair printers in developing countries or other awkward situations.
A laser printer would probably take a couple of years of development to reach reasonable feature parity with current closed-source offerings, and then you'd have to set up a production line. The problem there is likely to be funding: you're going to have a hard time finding an investor to dump money into creating something that already exists, and it's difficult to spin "open hardware" as a selling point to businessmen. So you'd need to be independently wealthy, or convince someone who is to back the project.
Inkjets? Not a prayer, I don't think. Too much expensive-to-produce microminiaturized equipment involved in the ink-spraying. It's also the newest of the technologies, so the most likely to have a patent minefield lying in wait for the unwary. And existing ones are usually sold below cost, so it would be difficult for such a project to break even.
The problem there is likely to be funding: you're going to have a hard time finding an investor to dump money into creating something that already exists, and it's difficult to spin "open hardware" as a selling point to businessmen.
I think it would be really cool if someone came up with an open source full design. An example where this actually happened is those cheap transistor testers you can find all over eBay and Amazon. I'd be willing to be that "someone" someday, but my current focus is on getting my first job so I can't do it right now.
I would love it if there was a smaller company like Framework or System76 that made printers that weren't enshittified. Something with open firmware and hardware that also could be easily repaired. Or at the very least an open standard that existed for printers to use. I know companies like HP or Epson wouldn't buy in, but maybe some smaller players could join in with that if there was.
I have an old brother laser I've refilled by hand a couple times. But when it dies I might just use the 5¢ printer at the library for the few print jobs I need.
A lot of libraries have free printing now. It's great
Luckily here in Kansas City the library does b&w printing for free.
Fuck HP. I bought a printer at the start of quarantine and HP bricked it when I opted out of their ink subscription service, so yeah, I'll just use my tax-funded printer instead.
When people expect to get A LOT for very little, this is to be expected 🤷.
Buy a second hand HP 1100 1200, 1300, 4200, they'll last you a life time, but... nobody listens 🤷.
My first IT job, we literally had a team who got paid to fix the 4250 swingplate assembly. They wore down that frequently.
Wait, are we talking about the same printer?
These were beasts man, going through 40k pages withought a hitch.
Yeah, that and another model. It's frequent enough that there are videos on YouTube on how to replace it. That part would wear down around 30k pages, or once a month for our fleet of printers; there were several hundred of those printers on the network. Minimum 2 hours of work for that part. We went with Ricoh and Xerox for the next contract and the reliability was better.
Maybe, I've only had experience with a few of them, not hundreds... never had any problems with the swingplate. Feeder rubbers, yes, but that's a common problem on all printers, you just sand those down a bit and they work like new.
These can still be pretty good if used for home printers, 30K pages without a problem, that's a lot for home use. You could probably still get one of these for like $100 second hand. That's not a bad deal considering how good these things are.
Ricoh are great, but I've had bad experience with Xerox. Xerox used to be great, but they dropped in quality the last decade or so. Ricoh are still great though.
I've been using a Samsung black and white laser printer for quite a few years now and I've been happy with it. I put in a third party toner cartridge two or three years ago and it's still going strong.
I have a Samsung as well. It's quite old and in order to print I have to:
- press print
- wait for it to try and fail
- turn it off and then on
- press print again
- push the paper in right as it's trying to grab (otherwise it won't grab any).
If I don't follow all these steps it won't print. I bought a 2 pack of toner, though, so I am not allowed to get a new one until I use it all, which will take forever since I rarely print because it's such a pain.
Anyone have thoughts on a color laser printer? I’ve got a high schooler with the occasional need to print in color, but I’m not sure if it’s worth getting a color laser or just going somewhere to print for those odd jobs, and just getting a regular laser printer.
If its an oddjob evey once in a while, try not to buy a printer. The cheap ones use ink that dry out if you dont use it, and the lasers that will do what you want run in the $300-400 range and all of them are predatory.
Try the local library. They often have cheap or free printing. Also a great way to expose your kid to a public service.
Anyone have thoughts on a color laser printer? I’ve got a high schooler with the occasional need to print in color, but I’m not sure if it’s worth getting a color laser or just going somewhere to print for those odd jobs, and just getting a regular laser printer.
They are expensive. You'll want to set your driver to default all jobs to black & white and change it when you want to print in color. Otherwise a kid could go through them quick. I'd recommend just having it done at a print shop or office type store. I'd rather pay the few cents for b&w or few dollars for color than ever deal with a printer again.
I have a black and white laser but am considering color for crafting purposes. But the B/W laser has done well for years and rarely needs toner.
For the past 20 years, I’ve used my B&W LaserJet for black and white work and sent any colour jobs to one of the local print shops. It’s worked out just fine; I’ve never needed colour work done in a hurry.
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Anyone have thoughts on a color laser printer? I’ve got a high schooler with the occasional need to print in color, but I’m not sure if it’s worth getting a color laser or just going somewhere to print for those odd jobs, and just getting a regular laser printer.
I think it's amazing how well the tiny factories built with low-cost parts work. DRM is terrible but I haven't dealt with that first-hand.
My old canon printer is still going strong. 3rd party cartridges are very cheap.
Cool... But I am not sure how this adds value to the issue at hand?
With time old printers will break and people will be forced into these clown "ecosystems"
I'm not american and i can pretty much live without any printer.
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