Old_Printer
August 27th, 2015, 07:30 PM
I like to share new things that I discover with computers and other electrical devices. Yesterday I performed an emergency toner hack. I don't recommend it to anyone -- especially if you're just leasing your laser printer. I own mine.
I hadn't planned on running a small 300 quantitly 11 x 17 printing order on the laser printer yesterday; I was going to go on the press with it. With my ASUS taking a dive on me, and with me spending time trying to get it up and running, my schedule became a bit tight for what I wanted to get done.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Ubuntu connects to my network printer nicely through my local LAN router. I did't use a driver disk to install it last week when I tried it, but I think there was some dialog regarding the printer possibly having a driver onboard. Either way, a successful test page was produced on Ubuntu / Zorin. Cool.
So, not being prepared by having an extra black toner cartridge on hand, I weighed my options and decided to run the tabloid job, which was two-sided, on the laser printer.
The amount of black toner that I had in the machine would have probably lasted until the end of the year. As it turned out, I now need to order some. I use the printer mostly for typsetting proofs. Once in a while I'll print some posters on it for a local organization.
I had about 30 sheets to go and what do you know . . . I ran out of black toner. I shook that thing and shook that thing and re-inserted it back into the machine. It spun and spun and worked its way up to telling me that it still wanted a new cartridge. Well, a cartridge would be about two days out and I needed the job done right away.
I know that the drum units have quite a bit of toner in them at all times. Not only that, but the small rubber tube that brings toner to the drum unit is always full, as well as the toner pump. My machine is CMYK, so there are four drums, four pumps, and four cartridges. Interesting note: the black is the most commonly used color, so they put that cartridge the fartherest from its drum. I suppose to avoid caking in the other colors. Their hoses are shorter due to the fact that they're not used as often.
My machine was fully supplied with black toner -- it was simply short in the cartridge. It was bone dry. I needed to get the machine to run 30 more sheets.
I took ahold of my black cartridge and pulled it out of the machine. I then proceeded to pop off the colored end that faces me when it's installed. The toner tube had a flat end, with a slightly concave center. I put a 1/2" drill bit in my drill and put a hole in the center of the tube's end. I then fitted it with a funnel and duct taped the whole setup to my car trailer outside at the back of my shop, with the tube vertical and the funnel on top, of course.
Now I needed some toner. I didn't have any black, as I've said, but I needed something to put in that empty black cartridge. I just need the machine to auger something -- whatever it could be. I didn't want to mess around with using colored toner as that stuff is about four times more expensive than the black. I have an off-brand red that doesn't do solids very well, but still, it's a color and I don't want to waste it. I went for something dirt cheap. I mean realy cheap.
Ever hear of the waste toner bottle on a laser printer? I don't know much about them, except that about every two years I need to dump it out, and there's basically about two cartridges worth of toner in there, albeit all four colors: CMYK. This was my newly-discovered black toner supply -- for emergencies.
The toner from the waste bottle was an off-black color, tilting on the fence of a chocolate brown. There must have been a lot of yellow and red in it. I filled my empty black cartridge about halfway. I then put a piece of duct tape over the hole and popped the plastic cover/handle back onto the end. I did use the vacuum cleaner to suck out any loose plastic pieces prior to filling, which may have been left over from drilling the hole.
There, now I had my new toner cartridge. There's one thing: the machine still won't take it because the RF chip on the end of the cartridge has already been written to by the CPU in the laser printer. The printer wrote to the chip and told it that the cartridge is empty.
To get the machine to take my refilled cartridge, I popped out the dead RF chip and replaced it with the RF chip from my off-brand red. It fit down in the little pocket just perfectly, and I put a piece of Scotch tape over it to hold it in place. I slid the cartridge into the machine and it powered passed the toner request and started printing again. Woo hoo!
Now, there's the question about having an off-color black in the machine. Yes, but when I get my new cartridge, I'll simply open a document on my computer, 11 x 17, and create a fill box of the same size and color it black. I'll just send that document to the printer for a quantity of about five or six sheets. However, I won't send my purge document to the printer until one of my proof prints starts to take on the off-color black. With a new cartridge installed, the new black toner will work the off-color toner down through the machine. If I wait to run the purge document, I just might be able to run for several days, if not a couple of weeks, printing proof sheets on the original black toner that's still in the drum unit.
Now, about that RF chip being called a sheet counter. I won't along with that. If I printed nothing but a single 8 point period in the middle of the sheet, I could run that machine for six weeks, day and night, before I would run out of toner. Maybe not six weeks, but you know what I'm saying. It's all about how much toner coverage is on your document. I once used an entire cartridge in one day, printing post script black halftone photos, tabloid size, two sides, 1,200 sheets. The machine must have a sensor to tell it whether or not there's toner coming out of the cartridge, but I won't called that RF chip a sheet counter.
I can re-install the RF chip back into the red cartridge, which will enable me to use that again someday if I need it.
There's my toner hack. I don't recommend it. :D
Old_Printer
I hadn't planned on running a small 300 quantitly 11 x 17 printing order on the laser printer yesterday; I was going to go on the press with it. With my ASUS taking a dive on me, and with me spending time trying to get it up and running, my schedule became a bit tight for what I wanted to get done.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Ubuntu connects to my network printer nicely through my local LAN router. I did't use a driver disk to install it last week when I tried it, but I think there was some dialog regarding the printer possibly having a driver onboard. Either way, a successful test page was produced on Ubuntu / Zorin. Cool.
So, not being prepared by having an extra black toner cartridge on hand, I weighed my options and decided to run the tabloid job, which was two-sided, on the laser printer.
The amount of black toner that I had in the machine would have probably lasted until the end of the year. As it turned out, I now need to order some. I use the printer mostly for typsetting proofs. Once in a while I'll print some posters on it for a local organization.
I had about 30 sheets to go and what do you know . . . I ran out of black toner. I shook that thing and shook that thing and re-inserted it back into the machine. It spun and spun and worked its way up to telling me that it still wanted a new cartridge. Well, a cartridge would be about two days out and I needed the job done right away.
I know that the drum units have quite a bit of toner in them at all times. Not only that, but the small rubber tube that brings toner to the drum unit is always full, as well as the toner pump. My machine is CMYK, so there are four drums, four pumps, and four cartridges. Interesting note: the black is the most commonly used color, so they put that cartridge the fartherest from its drum. I suppose to avoid caking in the other colors. Their hoses are shorter due to the fact that they're not used as often.
My machine was fully supplied with black toner -- it was simply short in the cartridge. It was bone dry. I needed to get the machine to run 30 more sheets.
I took ahold of my black cartridge and pulled it out of the machine. I then proceeded to pop off the colored end that faces me when it's installed. The toner tube had a flat end, with a slightly concave center. I put a 1/2" drill bit in my drill and put a hole in the center of the tube's end. I then fitted it with a funnel and duct taped the whole setup to my car trailer outside at the back of my shop, with the tube vertical and the funnel on top, of course.
Now I needed some toner. I didn't have any black, as I've said, but I needed something to put in that empty black cartridge. I just need the machine to auger something -- whatever it could be. I didn't want to mess around with using colored toner as that stuff is about four times more expensive than the black. I have an off-brand red that doesn't do solids very well, but still, it's a color and I don't want to waste it. I went for something dirt cheap. I mean realy cheap.
Ever hear of the waste toner bottle on a laser printer? I don't know much about them, except that about every two years I need to dump it out, and there's basically about two cartridges worth of toner in there, albeit all four colors: CMYK. This was my newly-discovered black toner supply -- for emergencies.
The toner from the waste bottle was an off-black color, tilting on the fence of a chocolate brown. There must have been a lot of yellow and red in it. I filled my empty black cartridge about halfway. I then put a piece of duct tape over the hole and popped the plastic cover/handle back onto the end. I did use the vacuum cleaner to suck out any loose plastic pieces prior to filling, which may have been left over from drilling the hole.
There, now I had my new toner cartridge. There's one thing: the machine still won't take it because the RF chip on the end of the cartridge has already been written to by the CPU in the laser printer. The printer wrote to the chip and told it that the cartridge is empty.
To get the machine to take my refilled cartridge, I popped out the dead RF chip and replaced it with the RF chip from my off-brand red. It fit down in the little pocket just perfectly, and I put a piece of Scotch tape over it to hold it in place. I slid the cartridge into the machine and it powered passed the toner request and started printing again. Woo hoo!
Now, there's the question about having an off-color black in the machine. Yes, but when I get my new cartridge, I'll simply open a document on my computer, 11 x 17, and create a fill box of the same size and color it black. I'll just send that document to the printer for a quantity of about five or six sheets. However, I won't send my purge document to the printer until one of my proof prints starts to take on the off-color black. With a new cartridge installed, the new black toner will work the off-color toner down through the machine. If I wait to run the purge document, I just might be able to run for several days, if not a couple of weeks, printing proof sheets on the original black toner that's still in the drum unit.
Now, about that RF chip being called a sheet counter. I won't along with that. If I printed nothing but a single 8 point period in the middle of the sheet, I could run that machine for six weeks, day and night, before I would run out of toner. Maybe not six weeks, but you know what I'm saying. It's all about how much toner coverage is on your document. I once used an entire cartridge in one day, printing post script black halftone photos, tabloid size, two sides, 1,200 sheets. The machine must have a sensor to tell it whether or not there's toner coming out of the cartridge, but I won't called that RF chip a sheet counter.
I can re-install the RF chip back into the red cartridge, which will enable me to use that again someday if I need it.
There's my toner hack. I don't recommend it. :D
Old_Printer