Printer toner woes
Discussion
I have a HP Colour Laser jet M252DW which worked really well when new. It's now a few years old and needs new toner. Last batch was non-OEM and has been a bit s
t from the start but now produces faint print and yellow/pink/cyan spots.
Looking at the alternatives toners, HP OEM ones are around £230, with another (prob crap) non OEM at £50ish.
We dont use the printer much and it was only bought for the kids project work for A Levels (now all away at Uni).
I'm torn between OEM (risk that print will still be st as non-OME toner has borked it), more cheap non-OEM toner (prob be st) or bin it ( I hate the idea of the waste) and get a new mono one that only needs 60 quid toner when needed (and is £100 to buy)
Views?
And yes I know how the laser printer business model works and I am being a dick
t from the start but now produces faint print and yellow/pink/cyan spots. Looking at the alternatives toners, HP OEM ones are around £230, with another (prob crap) non OEM at £50ish.
We dont use the printer much and it was only bought for the kids project work for A Levels (now all away at Uni).
I'm torn between OEM (risk that print will still be s
t as non-OME toner has borked it), more cheap non-OEM toner (prob be st) or bin it ( I hate the idea of the waste) and get a new mono one that only needs 60 quid toner when needed (and is £100 to buy)Views?
And yes I know how the laser printer business model works and I am being a dick
I ditched colour as really have no need for it, now have a cheap as chips brother mono laser which can have the toner refilled 4-5 times without any quality issues!
In days gone by you could buy a new colour laser with toners for less than new toners, now they supply them with "starter toners", marketing speak for half empty so you buy new toners!
In days gone by you could buy a new colour laser with toners for less than new toners, now they supply them with "starter toners", marketing speak for half empty so you buy new toners!
The M252DW colour cartridges are only capable of 1400 pages or 2300 pages for the high capacity X versions, which is low by laser standards. This is always going to be an expensive printer to run on OEM cartridges.
I see you can get a pack of compatibles - all 4 colours - from Amazon for just over £40 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/GPC-Image-Compatible-Repl...
They must be refilled using slave labour with no meaningful quality control at that price. The drums don't last forever - once the drums are worn you will get print quality issues. There shouldn't be any damage to the printer itself from using bad toner cartridges.
I've used compatibles from here for about 20 years and never had an issue, I did once have a dodgy inkjet cartidge from them and they sent me another FOC without quibble: https://www.choicestationery.com/search?q=HP%20Col... They want £93.00 for a full set of X compatibles (if you buy all 4, they give you one of them for free), vs £356 for OEM so still a decent saving.
I see you can get a pack of compatibles - all 4 colours - from Amazon for just over £40 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/GPC-Image-Compatible-Repl...
They must be refilled using slave labour with no meaningful quality control at that price. The drums don't last forever - once the drums are worn you will get print quality issues. There shouldn't be any damage to the printer itself from using bad toner cartridges.
I've used compatibles from here for about 20 years and never had an issue, I did once have a dodgy inkjet cartidge from them and they sent me another FOC without quibble: https://www.choicestationery.com/search?q=HP%20Col... They want £93.00 for a full set of X compatibles (if you buy all 4, they give you one of them for free), vs £356 for OEM so still a decent saving.
I bought my mum a cheap HP laserjet 1020 printer years ago, from memory it was well under £100. Since then I have bought the cheapest toner cartridges from eBay and the print quality is as good as the day I bought it.
In my experience stick to HP printers, they seem to go on forever. Around the same time I bought a Samsung laser printer for myself and it was nothing but trouble, it never fed the paper properly and I got so sick of it I took it to the tip.
In my experience stick to HP printers, they seem to go on forever. Around the same time I bought a Samsung laser printer for myself and it was nothing but trouble, it never fed the paper properly and I got so sick of it I took it to the tip.
I got fed up with inkjets about 15 years ago and bought a mono laser. HP's inkjet efforts in the last 15 years - even the OfficeJet range - are extremely poorly made and built to an unsustainably low price. Epson devices are better made, but the ink systems are prone to issues with infrequent use - relatively minor blocked nozzles usually but if you only print a couple of times a month and it takes you 20 minutes to get a working print it grates, and the fixed printheads means the printer is toast if they clog up.
I ended up buying a Canon MX475 about 7 years ago because my daughter needed to print something urgent for school in colour - it wasn't expensive and was available locally on a Sunday. It sits on my desk being used infrequently and apart from needing a reboot every couple of months because it seems to drop off the WiFi it's never missed a beat. There is no bloatware or useless tools in the drivers - just everything you need laid out simply. Genuine cartridges are about £40 for an XL pair of black and colour which do 600 pages - I think I'm only on my third set since I bought it. I put the laser up in the loft when we moved house 5 years ago and it's never been back out.
I've recommended Canon inkjets to many family and friends and I've never had any problems reported.
I ended up buying a Canon MX475 about 7 years ago because my daughter needed to print something urgent for school in colour - it wasn't expensive and was available locally on a Sunday. It sits on my desk being used infrequently and apart from needing a reboot every couple of months because it seems to drop off the WiFi it's never missed a beat. There is no bloatware or useless tools in the drivers - just everything you need laid out simply. Genuine cartridges are about £40 for an XL pair of black and colour which do 600 pages - I think I'm only on my third set since I bought it. I put the laser up in the loft when we moved house 5 years ago and it's never been back out.
I've recommended Canon inkjets to many family and friends and I've never had any problems reported.
quinny100 said:
I got fed up with inkjets about 15 years ago and bought a mono laser. HP's inkjet efforts in the last 15 years - even the OfficeJet range - are extremely poorly made and built to an unsustainably low price. Epson devices are better made, but the ink systems are prone to issues with infrequent use - relatively minor blocked nozzles usually but if you only print a couple of times a month and it takes you 20 minutes to get a working print it grates, and the fixed printheads means the printer is toast if they clog up.
I ended up buying a Canon MX475 about 7 years ago because my daughter needed to print something urgent for school in colour - it wasn't expensive and was available locally on a Sunday. It sits on my desk being used infrequently and apart from needing a reboot every couple of months because it seems to drop off the WiFi it's never missed a beat. There is no bloatware or useless tools in the drivers - just everything you need laid out simply. Genuine cartridges are about £40 for an XL pair of black and colour which do 600 pages - I think I'm only on my third set since I bought it. I put the laser up in the loft when we moved house 5 years ago and it's never been back out.
I've recommended Canon inkjets to many family and friends and I've never had any problems reported.
You could replace any of the brands in the text above for any other brand and it would match what's been said in other posts when talk/arguments around printers come about.I ended up buying a Canon MX475 about 7 years ago because my daughter needed to print something urgent for school in colour - it wasn't expensive and was available locally on a Sunday. It sits on my desk being used infrequently and apart from needing a reboot every couple of months because it seems to drop off the WiFi it's never missed a beat. There is no bloatware or useless tools in the drivers - just everything you need laid out simply. Genuine cartridges are about £40 for an XL pair of black and colour which do 600 pages - I think I'm only on my third set since I bought it. I put the laser up in the loft when we moved house 5 years ago and it's never been back out.
I've recommended Canon inkjets to many family and friends and I've never had any problems reported.
Some people never have/had problems with any of those brands, and some people have problems with every brand they buy.
Some people complain about 'quality' and short-life when they've paid £29 for a throwaway colour printer.
Joey Deacon said:
In my experience stick to HP printers, they seem to go on forever. Around the same time I bought a Samsung laser printer for myself and it was nothing but trouble, it never fed the paper properly and I got so sick of it I took it to the tip.
I replaced my useless (ate toner for fun, much like the HP it replaced!) HP Colour Laserjet with a Samsung. Worked fine until just out of warranty. Contacted Samsung about buying a part to be told HP had purchased their printer business! I'll not touch either ever again.I bought a Brother mono laser during freshers week... 17 years ago... three/four compatible toner cartridges later and it's still working fine for the occasional print (ebay label, tickets, boarding pass)....
It's big, bulky and slow, but until it stops working there is no justificaiton for getting rid of it.
It's big, bulky and slow, but until it stops working there is no justificaiton for getting rid of it.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
What happens if they just dry up? I stuck with an HP Inkjet for years, mainly doing photo prints, but it seemed like almost every time I used it there was a battle with one colour or another. It was always on standby and it did its noisy cleaning routine quite often.Have a look online for Toner reset chips for your printer.
The printer counts the pages you print and deducts these form what it thinks is the maximum capacity it can print from each toner. Some pages will use more black, some more colour etc so its more than likely the toners are not even close to being empty.
Simply swop the chips in the toners which resets these print numbers and you can keep printing until you see the actualy toner running out on the page. They are usually really easy to swop.
And if anyone is looking to buy a printer there are some units available where hackers have cracked the firmware and stop them counting pages so you dont even need to swop chips.
The printer counts the pages you print and deducts these form what it thinks is the maximum capacity it can print from each toner. Some pages will use more black, some more colour etc so its more than likely the toners are not even close to being empty.
Simply swop the chips in the toners which resets these print numbers and you can keep printing until you see the actualy toner running out on the page. They are usually really easy to swop.
And if anyone is looking to buy a printer there are some units available where hackers have cracked the firmware and stop them counting pages so you dont even need to swop chips.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Mine did it itself (generally in the middel of the night!) - that's why you're supposed to leave them powered on, in standby. I unplugged it when I went away for 3 weeks and it was screwed when I got back.I thought the HP instant ink programme demanded it was left on standby, apart from anything else, so they can interogate the printer remotely.
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