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Zatore ,

fuck your printer and the horse it rode in on

printers need to die already

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

Dear sir or madam:

Some crackpot has written me an abusive message, and it seems they used your account to send it. I'm replying to you as a courtesy in case you wish to take action against this lunatic.

Cheers,

-Admiral Pat

terminhell ,

I got a small xerox laser. It's fantastic. Works on everything I'm the house, including phones, tablets, windows and Linux. It's a bit more eh feature rich than I was expecting, but after tinkering in the settings I've not had to touch it in years.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

You know, I've never considered a Xerox (despite them being kind of OG in that department lol).

I guess I just assumed they only made the big MFP's for offices.

Will keep them in mind. Thanks.

Zorsith ,
@Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

My experience working with the MFP xeroxs has been "change a single setting? Guess what? Reboot!"...

terminhell ,

It's a xerox B230 if you're interested. It's small, and as survived cats, a 4yr old and several water spills lol.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

and as survived cats, a 4yr old and several water spills lol.

Now that's an endorsement!

terminhell ,

I will say, despite some of the reviews, and as an IT guy - set it up on wired lan. And add it as a network IP printer. Apparently the software (USB I'm assuming from reviews) is a sore spot for some. I see it up out of the box on my network and have never had any (non self inflicted) issues.

Edit: no software needed with IP, from any of my devices.

Zuberi ,

Mine just broke and I was so upset :(

Brother kinda let me down recently, how can I trust any printer brands?

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do when this workhorse finally calls it quits.

Probably will stick with Brother but may have to see how much has changed with them in the last decade. AFAIK, they're still the least worst printer manufacturer.

lseif ,

can you recommend a good printer ?

Get a brother laser. 👨

can you tell me how to kill a High Ganzonian ?

Get a laser, brother. 👽

kinther ,
@kinther@lemmy.world avatar

Looked down at my printer and realized it was a Brother. Didn't have to do anything special, it just worked.

LordCrom ,

I would take any laser printer with a scanner/copier that doesn't have a subscription model that has Linux drivers for all features .

Brother is the only one I've found to check all the boxes

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

My only gripe with it was the scan drivers were not easy to configure to enable network scanning.

Once I figured that out, I made a SANE scan server that has the drivers, and I just point all my devices to that (SANE to SANE) and don't even need to install the actual scanner drivers. It's damn amazing.

Dultas ,

Maybe it depends on the model? I just set it up on one a laptop a couple weeks ago and it only took like 10 minutes.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

I guess it was easy, just not well documented (at the time, anyway).

droans ,

Oh, the software is actually called SANE. I thought you were just making clear how bad Brother's drivers were.

ptz OP , (edited )
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

Oh, yeah. lol. It's the Linux scanner framework. It has a network protocol that will talk to other SANE services and allow scanners to be shared.

My scan programs all go through SANE, so you don't need the Brother drivers on each PC you want to scan from (just the machine that is interfacing with the scanner; in my case, it's a Docker container on my server).

Learning I could do that was pretty life changing. lol

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Once I figured that out, I made a SANE scan server that has the drivers, and I just point all my devices to that (SANE to SANE) and don’t even need to install the actual scanner drivers. It’s damn amazing.

Could you point me towards instructions on how to do that?

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

Pretty sure I just followed this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SaneDaemonTutorial

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Thank you!

Opisek ,

Did the same thing for mine. I've got one with ADF scanning, but it's only one-sided. So I simply wrote some script on my scan server that merges the current scan with the last scan if they have the same amount of pages and now I can easily scan stacks of paper with both sides. After that it goes through some compression and off to my NAS. Ah, love my pipeline, so glad how simple the printer's Linux drivers made it.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

That's awesome! I'd love to expand mine to do more like that, but the model I have doesn't have the ADF so it's kind of pointless.

pip1 ,

I don't know, my Brother printed definitely has DRM/lock-in toner cartridges. And if only one of them gets too low the whole thing stops working. Still can't get double sided to work reliably

So I call bs on their fandom

OsaErisXero ,

It stops working until you walk over to it and reset the toner state to full, then it works fine.

At least, that's how mine manufactured 2 years ago works.

pip1 ,

No luck for me, what is your model out of interest?

Only success I've had with using non Brother toner is swapping the small chip at the end of the 'fake' cartridge with an old 'genuine' one

OsaErisXero , (edited )

MFC-L3770CDW

If you're using 3rd party toner, yeah, you gotta swap the little chip, but you can run the toner well past when the printer thinks it's empty by following the reset process: https://www.tonerparts.com/blogs/brother-1/how-to-reset-the-toner-cartridge-for-your-brother-mfc-l3710-3730-3750-and-3770 . It is very fiddly getting to that menu the first few times, but once you've got the hang of it it's pretty straight forward and lets you just keep rerunning the same toner (or 'toner' if you're swapping the chip) indefinitely. For what it's worth, given the longevity of the drums, I've found it easiest to just buy the Brother toner (it's only like 2-3 dollars more expensive than the 3rd party where I am, and is available in stores locally vs having to order from Amazon) and just run them until they're dry by resetting them 2-3 times before replacement.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention: print quality does start to degrade significantly after the reset about 1/3rd through the second 'tank' each drum provides. We use the printer primarily to print off sewing patterns, so this doesn't matter until it's illegible for us, but depending on what you're using it for that may be worth keeping in mind when you're resetting them instead of getting new ones.

pip1 ,

Hey that's really helpful, thanks for sharing! Brother toner is about 3x more expensive for me.

I have HL- version of same model. Doesn't have exactly the same toner options as in the link, but I've spotted a 'Reset' button hidden up the 'Toner->Calibrate' menu. Strongly suspect that'll do the job!

The chip transfer thing has caused me issues in the past though, with the printer refusing to accept the toner even after switching them.

Eeyore_Syndrome ,
@Eeyore_Syndrome@sh.itjust.works avatar

I do love my Brother:https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/f5d405b0-dda2-41a5-8b0e-a629e93444a3.png

And miss the ~2020 pricing!
(But it should last a long time)

R.I.P. to my real brother though. Forever 29 because heroin.

As of this post, still happily using the initial starter toner ✅

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

RIP to your brother as well, I have a forever 36 brother due to meth.

Glad we can bond over these printers though!

ThirdWorldOrder ,
@ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee avatar

I have a forever 29 brother due to someone lacing shit with fentanyl. My brother printer will probably live longer

SexualPolytope , (edited )
@SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Brother printers are great. Probably the only decent printer brand for home usage. My university has free printing, and those are Canon printers. They seem to work fine, so I guess the commercial market is a little different.

Weirdly, my parents have this Samsung M2020W printer, and I gotta say, it's pretty neat. Takes any off-brand toner cartridge. They only need a cartridge every year or so. It's been 3+ years, but no problem so far. That might be an exceptional case, though.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Not all are created equal

XTL ,

I used to have a Samsung laser for quite a few years. Went through maybe three toner cartridges. Eventually it started slipping and I didn't bother finding out if there's a repair available and bought a brother laser instead. Worked pretty great otherwise.

Haven't tried toner transfer on this, but regular printouts are fine and it's much faster.

ChunkMcHorkle ,
@ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world avatar

Eventually it started slipping

If you still have the printer (you may not but I'm going to put this out there for others too) that sounds like a simple roller replacement, and rollers/pickup pads are usually considered "consumables" instead of "parts" because they all wear out over time. This is true for most if not all consumer printers, ink and laser alike.

Replacements should be pretty easy to find for even old printers, and the installation is usually pretty straightforward. Last year I was still able to buy a roller replacement set for a 19 year old HP, and it took me ten minutes and one Phillips head screwdriver to replace them all.

You can also just take out and clean the hell out of anything rubber with isopropyl alcohol, letting it dry thoroughly and then putting it back in, or if possible rotate the rubber on it to present an unused side, I've done all that a few times too.

For pretty much any model printer, search on the printer model number and "maintenance kit" to find available roller/pickup pad replacements for sale, and printer model number plus "service manual" to get replacement instructions if you need them.

qupada ,

Sharp also make great commerical-grade printers that are 100% Linux compatible, we're using these at work: http://global.sharp/products/copier/products/bp_70c65/index.html

They don't really make anything small enough to be a "home" model, this looks like their smallest printer: https://global.sharp/products/copier/products/mx_c358f/index.html (and that's around $1000, if you could even find someone to sell you one).

jg1i ,

I mean, I'm pretty happy with mine! 10/10 would recommend!

pgetsos ,
@pgetsos@kbin.social avatar

Probably I'm the only Linux user that can't connect to my office printer over the net I guess... But I can't connect to our HP one either, so there's that

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Why? Linux has the best printer support by far

pgetsos ,
@pgetsos@kbin.social avatar

No idea, I have tried a ton of solution, the HP doesn't ever work, the Brother works for a day and then stops...

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

You didn't install anything did you? Most printers these days support driverless printing which should work out of the box over the network

pgetsos ,
@pgetsos@kbin.social avatar

Nope, nothing

DarkThoughts ,

Brother printers have been a recommendation under Windows users for a long time too already. Not that they're perfect either but pretty much everyone's fed up with the bullshit of the likes of HP.

Bluefruit ,

Brother laser printers are good for everyone, not just Linux users.

Helped my gfs mom troubleshoot her HP printer (I know, ew. She bought it before we met) and finally figured out from the stupid app that it was out of one color.

The app doesnt indicate this in words though, Oh no.
Just a stupid infographic that doesnt say ANYTHING. Just shows a nondescript bar at the top.

Only reason I downloaded it was i thought it would be a bit more user friendly.

Long story short I recommended a brother laser printer because the last time I replaced a cartridge in it was a couple years back and that was after printing things for god knows how long. And mine is old af.

Dagamant ,

I finally convinced my wife to get a brother laser printer after she went through like 5 HP printers. We have had the thing for almost 10 years and just had to change the toner. I can print from every computer, tablet, and phone in the house with no issues.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

It's bliss, isn't it?

I rarely need to print, but when I do, it's always something important - typically something I have to physically print, sign, and send back. I just click "print" and never worry about it. Haven't been let down in the 11 years I've had this one (except that one time it was out of paper lol).

andrew_bidlaw ,
@andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works avatar

Maybe a regional market quality thing, but mine fucked up it's cartridge pretty soon and has a long procedure of changing them, not plug and print like in older models. Sometimes it happens. Jusging by youtube videos it seems some models are just rare unlucky picks.

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