Buy an Epson EcoTank printer. My family owns three. You pay more for the printer but just dump in bottles of ink when they need refilling.
I just got an old HP inkjet that doesn’t care about reported ink levels and cheap ink bottles from AliExpress.
I print white on black because I have so much damn ink and nobody expects dark mode documents. Kinda funny when I take out a sheet of paper and have to dry it out. 120g/m² is absolutely the minimum when doing such crap though. Regular 80g/m² just wrinkles up and leaks through, although that’s also a property of dye ink vs pigment ink.
But I also lucked out on sales combined with coupons
Currently it’s €18.50, though for 0.5L (~1 pint) that’s still cheap. Honestly I am surprised I actually received that.
Nice. We had one printer or another that required expensive ink cartridges before we got the Epson. I used to refill some cartridges but it was a pain. Now I just open a set of bottles and top up the tanks whenever it’s thirsty.
Just make sure you schedule a test print every couple off weeks to prevent clogs, is a little wasteful but if you get aftermarket ink it’s cheap enough that is worth it, otherwise a new head will run you down around 50 bucks.
TIL EDIT: you can get continuous tank mods for most printers on AliExpress! I might give it a try with mine!
They do require maintenance to keep them running smoothly. I’m fairly mechanically and technically capable so I can disconnect the head and run DA-2A through the mechanism to clean it out.
DA-2A works to a point, but if you let the printer sit for a year it might not unfortunately. Like I said print heads aren’t crazy expensive, but still kind of sucks. But hey inkjets still do have their place sometimes.
DA-2A works to a point
I have a 210 L drum of the stuff.
We do a fair amount of printing and run the print head cleaning routine on our printer every few weeks to keep it happy. We’ve had the ET-4550 for over 8 years and it’s still chugging along. If it ever needs a replacement print head it will not owe me a damned thing.
That’s great but it doesn’t sound like this is relevant for home gamers ;)
I just bought a printer. Everything I saw said that if you print infrequently then you don’t want an inkjet. They’re very prone to clogging if left alone for a while. Went with a laser printer instead.
Buy an ecotank printer, they’re more expensive initially but that’s because they actually make you pay for the printer
Ecotank’s use liquid ink that you fill in tanks instead of cartridges
There’s no way they can check the ink on ecotank printers
Is this happening to toner for their laser printers too?
And this is why I’ll never connect my working printer to the internet.
Taking a USB stick to it to print is annoying, but fuck this shit.
They’re all horrible companies
Just connect it to a Server (like a raspi) via USB and share the printer through CUPS
Its a little tedious to set up, but it works
How many cups does it take to transfer the printer over?
I think you can just use 1 large bucket instead of many small cups. Faster that way.
Is there a step by step anywhere to achieve this? I’m adept in tech. But don’t have the training or knowledge to just do it
This is the way.
Why do that when you could just connect it to the LAN and put it on a separate VLAN?
Because the built-in networking stack on printers is garbage and having to install drivers on every client sucks.
I’ve never had issues with networking or drivers with my Brother printer. I don’t have any Apple devices, but on Windows and Linux I just use the drivers that come with the OS.
I’ve not had a Brother printer so, can’t say from experience. My Epson Ecotank needed a driver to work. Setting it up on an RPi 3B with a CUPS server took care of it.
Because it’s a lot simpler and avoids the issue of dealing with printer drivers on all your machines.
I could see the argument that it’s more air gapped this way. Without having physical access to the Pi (or at least SSH access), it’d be hard to get any network connection through USB.
But personally, I just blocked outgoing traffic from the printer.
What’s stopping you from connecting it to the local network but denying internet access? E.g. via a firewall rule or separate VLAN?
effort
Most relatable comment ever.
As if using an USB stick to print isn’t more effort 😂
understandable, have a good day
So… when there is some controversy over an article in Lemmy it gets the strike though? How did this evolve?
If you read the article:
We are aware of the recent false claims suggesting that a Brother firmware update may have restricted the use of third-party ink cartridges. Please be assured that Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines.
So there’s no reason to leave an inflammatory and likely wrong title unchanged or otherwise without notation. The title is completely readable. I’m all for wrong information being flagged, and a strikethrough is a fine method of doing so.
Totally agree. Just the first time I have seen the notation.
I see editability as generally an improvement, especially since the older versions are still visible with a couple of clicks. Reddit titles are not editable. Tweets used to be uneditable; toots are.
The original rationale for not having editing, at least on Reddit and Twitter, was concerns that someone could get a viral post, and then edit it to spam.
That’s not an impossible thing with Lemmy, though we’re not big enough for it to be worth spamming to, for the most part.
We don’t know if it’s wrong though, we just have a statement from the company claiming it is. Now it’s on the community to prove it.
It’s potentially wrong. I guess we’ll see in the coming weeks as people try to prove it one way or another.
That said, the allegation that old firmware isn’t accessible is easy to verify and very troubling for Brother if true (what are they hiding?).
There is no official report of Brother doing what it’s accused of. Only a couple people having issues with a few cartridges, no analysis of whether the flaw was in the third party cartridge or an actual firmware issue, but we should get out the pitchforks and torches and leave a completely unproven statement up? I completely disagree. There’s too much BS passed off as objective truth as it is.
One or two reports could be chalked up to noise. Rossmann provided much more than that. I’m not saying he’s right, I’m just saying there’s sufficient evidence that I’m not just going to accept “nope, we don’t do that.”
We certainly need more evidence, and hopefully Rossmann’s video reaches enough people to get it, one way or another. He has demonstrated admitting when he is wrong, and he has also demonstrated doing the research.
I doubt this is the last we hear about this, and I sincerely hope Brother is redeemed.
I am in no way suggesting we shouldn’t be wary and not investigate. Crappy 3rd party engineering could be an issue. Placing a declarative title with no qualification as truth (because nobody reads the article) despite the quote from the corporation itself denying it in the article shouldn’t be done. Like I said, too much of that happening these days.
Crappy 3rd party engineering could be an issue.
Sure. However, I’ve seen allegations that swapping chips worked for one person and failed for another. That needs to be investigated.
too much of that happening these days
Agreed. Only claim what you have the receipts for. Clickbait blows.
Yes…the engineering could have been in the chip.
The rest, we’re on the same page.
You can edit the title, so if you want to strike through it, go ahead.
Anyone know which ip addresses to block to stop the updates?
If you set the wrong gateway in the static IP settings or a reserved DHCP lease, it won’t be able to get out.
But will it be able to be reachable by other printers on the network?
It will be reachable by LAN. The gateway address is the router you use to get to addresses outside the subnet mask you set.
First search result explains it more thoroughly if you’re interested
https://www.networkcomputing.com/ip-subnetting/ip-addresses-subnet-masks-and-default-gatewaysGood to know, and thanks for the link!
Why? Does the printer need to be connected to the internet at all, if not for firmware upgrades? (Note: LAN != internet)
Many people use WiFi to connect to their printers for the sake of convenience
You can have devices on your wifi network without giving them access to the internet. You set your firewall (which, for most people, is the router that comes with the internet subscription) to block all internet traffic to and from those devices while still allowing them to communicate with the other devices on the same local network. Fairly straightforward on most routers with a little bit of time spent looking up the basics.
Exactly what I meant with
LAN != internet
Most routers allow you to set child safety settings for devices to block them from accessing the internet in specific timeframes or completely. You can still access the local network from the affected device or access that device from your local network
Et tu, frater?
I think its time we deprecate most forms of printing. Clearly corporations cannot be trusted to operate these kinds of companies.
They deny it was the firmware update. But not that something else has happened
I’ve had issues with colour but not B&W
Fuck I just got rid of my 2008 BW laser brother and bought a new one that hasn’t arrived. Thanks for the warning, at least I will be able to set my firewall before I even connect it to my network
I’m actually looking for a good multifunctional printer. Our Samsung is dying. It was an LED printer and we only changed toner 1 time in 15 years.
My brother did what!?!?
If it’s not already under the umbrella of right to repair, do we now need right to refill?
It’s like every company that wasn’t complete shit just suddenly decided to…go to complete shit.
If regulators don’t stop them from doing it, the CEO’s of publicly traded companies will get the boot from the board for not doing it. They have a fiduciary duty to be as shitty as humanly possible.
We need laws to stop this, but the politicians are all bribed not to.
They have a fiduciary duty to be as shitty as humanly possible.
They don’t – that’s a cargo-cult misunderstanding of Dodge v. Ford Motor Co – but it’s so widely believed I guess it might as well be true.
If the people sitting on the Supreme Court believe it, and I believe the majority of those shitbags do, then that is unfortunately the law as it stands.
But when the law is unethical, I don’t see why we should be lawful.
Dude, Brother is not even an US company - like most big printer companies it’s Japanese and traded at the Tokyo stock exchange.
So… You’re arguments are invalid and only show your americentric world view.
Well, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, such as the way Costco mostly operates. Being the good guys has a lot of brand value. With a little nurturing of the vast propaganda machine known as advertising, that could be improved.
That’s what happens when the government allows it openly.
deleted by creator
With the current US government, there’s far more roadblocks to running a company ethically than turning it to absolute shit
Brother is a Japanese company.
The government has mostly turned a blind eye to dark pattern business for years, and now the president is openly saying that he encourages it and wants companies to step up their game. Of course things are going to get worse, especially now where everyone will have forgotten this by the next election, so it’ll get to stay as “the norm”
It’s like every company that was
n’t completeplaying the social good will game and didn’t appear at a casual glance to be shit just suddenly decided to…goto complete shit.masks off, because they saw it might finally be acceptable to be ghouls again.Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure I FTFY. Wish it weren’t so, but that’s definitely what it looks like…
The mask of humanity fall[s] from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone – everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed.
- The Deserter, Disco Elysium
They are just taking the mask off since they don’t have to wear it right now.
Game is such a fucking gem. I gotta do a replay soon.
They are just taking the mask off since they don’t have to wear it right now.
Cuts into profit margins pretending to not be a threat to the continued existence of the species and ecosystem as a whole. Gotta buy that 15th mega-yacht.
Something something, I’ll bring the BBQ sauce.
Unrestrained Capitalism. Without those pesky regulations, companies can charge us all unlimited amounts and not have to consider our rights or health/safety.
I’m only letting my latest Brother printer connect to my computer through the USB cable. No Internet connection at all.
Careful with that you though. I thought the same thing but someone pointed out in another thread that depending on your system, it may update the firmware over USB when you do system updates.
RPi as a printer server, with the printer connected to its USB port. Use FreeBSD on RPi just to make sure…
