Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by LeifCarrotson 941 days ago
Citation needed? Or at least a listing of model numbers with this behavior. I've got a 12-year-old HL-2270DW that's doing fine at home, and have installed an HL-L2340D, an HL-L2380DW, an HL-L2390DW, and an HL-L8350CDW at work. None of them suffer from any of the downsides described to my knowledge.

We run third-party toner in all of them, and they'll keep printing until the print quality fades.

I personally haven't tried refilling toner cartridges in a long time, it's not worth it when third-party toner cartridges are as cheap as they are and the Comprenew up the road takes the empty ones back for recycling.
3 comments
MostlyStable 940 days ago
If you have an old (>2ish years) non Internet connected printer, you're probably fine, but they pushed a firmware update last year that disabled third party cartridges. Luckily, for now you can just pull the drm chip from an official cartridge and put it in the third party one.
link
Astronaut3315 940 days ago
TN43x cartridges don't have the DRM chip, thankfully. They still sell printers that use them. Such printers cost a bit more than Brother's base models but to me, it was worth the extra.
link
criddell 941 days ago
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

At work, we have an MFC-8950DW laser printer and it's not very good. It leaves streaks on the paper and the toner doesn't seem to fix properly all the time. I end up with printed pages that smear or the type rubs off. That printer replaced a much older Brother laser and it was better. We "upgraded" simply because drivers were not available for 64-bit Windows.

link
whynotmaybe 941 days ago
Might be an obvious question but have you changed the drum?
link
criddell 941 days ago
I'm not sure if we have or haven't. Mostly what we print is pretty ephemeral so nobody seems to be all that concerned about it.
link
pmoriarty 941 days ago
> Citation needed?

Brother HL-L8260CDW

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/B06XDS1XW7/R2MQHUVV9JX7N...

link
Astronaut3315 940 days ago
This model's toner is trivially reset with a one-time purchase of a $2 reset gear or a button press combo. The reviewer must not be aware of this.

There's also a fill port right on this printer's starter cartridges. Brother even provided a removable and reusable fill plug.

link