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HP Printers Have A Pre-Programmed Failure Date For Non-HP Ink Cartridges (myce.com)
An anonymous reader quotes some harsh allegations from Myce.com:
Thousands of HP printers around the world started to show error messages on the same day, the 13th of September... HP printers with non-HP cartridges started to show the error message, "One or more cartridges appear to be damaged. Remove them and replace them with new cartridges"... When [Dutch online retailer 123ink] emailed their customers asking them if they wanted to check if their printer also had issues, they received replies from more than 1,000 customers confirming the issue...
Consumers who complained to HP were told the error was caused by using non-HP cartridges. A day later HP withdrew that statement and explained the issues were a side effect of a firmware update, [but] printers without any internet access started to reject non-HP cartridges. Therefore it's very unlikely that a firmware update caused the issues and the only other logical explanation is that HP programmed a date in its firmware on which non-HP cartridges would no longer be accepted.
"Printer worked fine for nine months," complains one of many angry users on HP's web site. "Then on 9/13 HP uploaded without my permission a firmware update that caused a message 'damaged cartridge' for all my cartridges and then it refused to print."
Consumers who complained to HP were told the error was caused by using non-HP cartridges. A day later HP withdrew that statement and explained the issues were a side effect of a firmware update, [but] printers without any internet access started to reject non-HP cartridges. Therefore it's very unlikely that a firmware update caused the issues and the only other logical explanation is that HP programmed a date in its firmware on which non-HP cartridges would no longer be accepted.
"Printer worked fine for nine months," complains one of many angry users on HP's web site. "Then on 9/13 HP uploaded without my permission a firmware update that caused a message 'damaged cartridge' for all my cartridges and then it refused to print."
IIRC the brother cartridge has a small peephole with a mirror on the far side, and if an infrared beam reflects back it means that there is no toner in between the window and the mirror. With the dark tape in place it won't see the reflected beam, the low toner won't trigger, and you can keep on printing.
While it perhaps triggers early, at least it requires a certain amount of toner to have been used at all. Some other vendors use a chip that simply counts the pages, and will claim that you're low/out after -x- pages regardless of how much or little toner you've actually used.
Epson makes an EcoTank printer which supposedly just has a "tank" of ink that you refill *gasp* from a bottle. They charge you more for the printer because they're not recouping costs by jacking you on ink, but once you buy it you can put in whatever ink you want.
If you know printers, HP printers have the nozzles in the ink carts. Nozzles are the primary factor that determines DPI. This means that the Officejet's driver or firmware nerfed it to a lower DPI for no reason other than that it was a lower cost printer.
This was when I stopped buying or recommending HP..
When it comes to 3rd party ink, I can understand a manufacturer that has a separate print head being sensitive to the quality and source of ink. However HP printers have the nozzles/head in the ink cartridge. The nozzles are also extremely low voltage, so the chance of damage to the printer from 3rd party ink is very low. As we all know this is a money grab, as the consumables are where the money is in printing. Margins on the hardware have been driven to nothing or less.
Silence is a state of mime.
It's saying it's low, which doesn't mean replace, it means get off your lazy ass and buy a new one so when you run out you can pop the new one in immediately, thus interrupting workflow for a minimum amount of time.
This kind of bullshit from HP that caused us to move to Dell Printers 5 years ago. We started having service issues with HP where they would refuse to service the printer in warranty, then we started having issues like this were our non-HP ink would fail to work no matter what we did. We have never had any issues with Dell plus they will bend over backwards to fix issues as needed. We have never looked back. On a side note: we have discovered over the last few years that HP computers and laptops are also having issues, break faster than normal, or just don't work well. We are slowly switching to Dell computers and have had no issues. We are beginning to think HP is having some major issues with their company. -WS
It always seem to be that the most frustrating and/or ridiculous computer stories have something to do with printers.
One personal experience I will never forget had to do with a Canon multifunctional I purchased. It was a printer/flatbed scanner and was pretty good at both. But one day it simply stopped reading the cartridge. It gave a message that I needed to insert a cartridge even though one was in there. Replaced it with a new cartridge just in case but still wouldn't recognize it.
I thought to myself "well, the scanner still works very well and it's really fast so at least I can use it as a scanner, right?"
Wrong. The printer would remain in 'flashing light error' mode and would not allow me to dismiss it in anyway whatsoever, preventing me from ever using it as a scanner. Seemed like a waste of a perfectly good scanner.
Once you know that "PC" stands for "Paper Cartridge", it becomes clear that the printer is asking you to put Letter size paper into the paper cartridge.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Well, as an employee of Canon, thank you. :)
Even in the ultra productivity roll-to-roll lines, where I work, Canon is competitive, especially with our acquisition of Oce a few years ago. I've worked on Konica Minolta, Ricoh, and Xerox machines, and while they're not bad, the Oce manliness are especially built like tanks.
Inkjet performance in that category is FAR surpassing toner, though, in quality, reliability, and price. Our laser machines are still on the market but for high speed (1000+ pages per minute) ink is the future. I envision better consumer grade equipment soon, so hopefully issues like this bullshit from HP end. Marketing a better product is difficult when the industry has wrecked the reputation through shitty business practices.
We have had to be ULTRA careful in our communications to customers about 3rd party inks/toner. While they tend not to be as good in many ways, they're definitely cheaper and nobody wants to get sued. I still support many people with 3rd party consumables, and I can say that most of those folks see me more. That said, in the small business or home office environment 3rd party stuff is fine.
This *IS* a plug for HP. Everyone should buy their printers...
Just not their *INKJET* Printers.
Buy a laserjet 4000 series, or maybe even find an old used Laserjet 4 or Laserjet 5. The laserjet 8000/8100 series are built like TANKS. I have seen dozens of those printers with MILLIONS of pages printed, and they are still going. They are repairable, Use PCL language that is supported by EVERY operating system, and even support both US and European paper sizes. You could by a new HP inkjet printer every 2 years for $150 (plus countless ink cartridges), or ONE HP Laserjet for 30+ years.
I've had good experiences with both my recent Brother printers. I used a CISS system and also refillable cartridges, they work fine.
Google showed 28 meanings for CISS. Here are the top ones:
CISSInput Capacitance
CISSCollectif Interassociatif sur la Sante (French: Inter-Association Collective on Health)
CISSCampbell Interest and Skill Survey (Pearson Assessments)
You're welcome.
The very popular HP m451 is a Color Laser with a very attractive price, but the cartridges (e.g. the black CE410X) is priced at HP at $103.99 each. I was replacing that, and the three color cartridges about every six months. But, I got suspicious. So, when the messages started showing up on my computer about the toner being low, I decided to ignore them. Then the printer started demanding I press the "OK" button to print because, it claimed, the "Black cartridge is Very Low." After I punched the button, the next message suggests that print quality will be poor, and "could become gray."
However, I have now printed more than a ream and a half (about 750 pages) with not a single flaw in the quality of black printing without changing the cartridge (yet). It is clearly a scam.
I think there's a specific intent to delude customers into buying excessively-priced cartridges LONG before they're empty, as a means to increase HP's supplies income at the expense of customers. By charging excessive prices, and rigging their printer software to emit scary messages long before the toner is exhausted, HP is reaping huge income increases. Messrs. Hewlett and Packard are spinning in their graves, because the company has now sunk so low as to scam their customers with specifically designed software to encourage them to throw away still usable toner cartridges.
If others can share similar stories, this seems ripe for a class-action lawyer to file a legitimate case of fraud against HP for designing the software to try to scare people into buying over-priced cartridges when the existing cartridge is far from empty.
I have a Brother laser printer. It really is a fantastic printer, and it was quite cheap to buy. But it has a fuser assembly that's good for about 10-15,000 pages and will cost about twice as much to replace as I paid for the whole printer. I wasn't aware of that when I bought the printer and it means the printer is going to have a very short life before becoming landfill. I really hate Brother for playing that game.
Canon also came up with an optical remaining ink-sensing system for their inkjet printers, meaning their ink cartridges are transparent so you can actually see how much ink they contain and how much is left. None of this BS of selling you a huge black plastic cube which is only 1/4 full.