r/printers • • Dec 19 '24

Discussion The truth about printer subscription programs and many misconceptions about them

150 Upvotes

Dear all,

I work in the printer industry. For a very well-known consumer products manufacturer that gets discussed on this sub a lot.  I will not disclose which manufacturer I work for, nor will I disclose any manufacturer I do not work for (since the industry is relatively small eliminating 1 or 2 will make it generally too obvious as to which I do work for) as I am not officially speaking on behalf of the company. But, I want to set the record straight on subscription programs because some of you are drastically misinformed and it is very frustrating to see as someone who understands these programs as well as basic logic.

There are two types of subscription programs. Each of the major consumer manufacturers offers at least 1 of these programs, some offer both.

The first type of program is an auto-reordering program. The printer can tell (via various ways depending on each manufacturer) when the ink / toner is low and when it hits a certain point that will trigger an order of the ink/toner that device uses. Most manufactures that offer this will first send you an email letting you know that an order has been triggered and it will allow you to skip the delivery of the consumable and thus not get charged. If you allow the order to go through you are purchasing that consumable. That consumable is yours, you own it, just as if you walked into a Staples, Office Depot, Best Buy, or bought it on Amazon… You can cancel the “subscription” the next day and continue to use that consumable until it is empty.

The second type of program is a true subscription program. **THIS** is what many of you are vastly misinformed and / or are irrational about. In this program *you are not purchasing a consumable* at all. You are paying the manufacturer for X number of pages per month. The manufacturer will send you a consumable to use because the printer needs ink / toner to work but, that is not what you are paying for. You are paying the manufacturer $Y per month to print up to X pages per month.. that’s it. Of course you can print over that X number and pay an overage (just like years ago with cell phones).. and of course, you can print under that X number and some pages will roll-over to future months (just like years ago with cell phones). The owner of the consumable is the manufacturer. You never bought it, you never owned it. Therefore, it is not yours to use after you end the subscription! The only reason most manufactures do not ask for it back is because they don’t want to pay for shipping it back to them. But, they still own it… not you.  You can think of this like renting an apartment. You are paying a landlord $X per month to live in their building. The landlord is providing the building for you to live in while you are paying rent. You do not own the building. and when you stop paying rent you are no longer allowed to continue living in the building. Just like your Netflix subscription, Apple TV subscription and Disney+ subscription.. when you stop paying for the subscription, you stop getting to use the service. Just because while you were paying you had access to the content does not mean you at any time owned that content and get to continue watching it once you stop paying the subscription.

I truly hope this helps clarify somethings for some of you. Others I understand are lost causes but, I will do my best to answer any questions I can.


r/printers • • 1h ago

Discussion I picked up a refillable tank printer. Are there any restrictions on ink I need to know about?

• Upvotes

Sorry if it's a dumb question but I figured it's best to ask first. Do I have to be careful what ink I buy for it? Is there a chance that I will buy some that is too thick or may react with the ink it came with in a way that will ruin it?


r/printers • • 2h ago

Troubleshooting Need help

1 Upvotes

Got a Pixma e460 for cheap but it has ink pad full error how to fix it ??


r/printers • • 6h ago

Troubleshooting Epson LX 310 Dot Matrix only print symbols or gibberish

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2 Upvotes

So my office printer lx 310 suddenly printing symbol / gibberish

This printer was connected to a "main" pc with cables then shared to others.

I don't know the cause, but I've tried connecting it to a different pc with cables not shared. Every pc in office print the same.

I've tried bring it to printer service guy and like magic it prints the way it supposed to. After i bring them to office and once again it print symbol / gibberish. I say to the guy it still print symbols and he said he didn't know the cause either.

Can someone help me with this ?

Thankyou

Pics is showing when i tried to print "TEST"


r/printers • • 5h ago

Troubleshooting Help me.

1 Upvotes

Hello, the Samsung 3820 nd printer has a problem with duplex printing. It prints on one side of the paper and then pulls the paper in again to print on the other side of the paper, but the paper gets stuck at the top and is not guided in. What is the problem?

Please guide me, thank you. 🙏🏻


r/printers • • 5h ago

Discussion What kind of printer is good?

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1 Upvotes

r/printers • • 5h ago

Purchasing Need help choosing a laser printer for heavy cardstock

1 Upvotes

I want to make 250-350gsm bookmarks with toner activated foil designs. My issue is finding a laser printer that can print on the heavy cardstock I am wanting to use. The highest I’ve found that a laser printer accepts is 220gsm. Does anyone have any advice on how to bypass this issue?


r/printers • • 6h ago

Troubleshooting AirPrint Quality – Brother MFC-L3765CDW

1 Upvotes

I have my Brother MFC-L3765CDW printer’s print quality set to Fine in the printer’s settings menu. However, AirPrint doesn’t seem to offer a print quality setting.

Does AirPrint default to Normal quality when printing, or does it use the printer’s internal quality setting (Fine, in my case)?


r/printers • • 11h ago

Purchasing Is this a good deal?

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2 Upvotes

Is this worth rushing to get for 170 on marketplace , never used apparently. And bought in 2015 not sure if there are any past issues with those made in that batch. in nyc too


r/printers • • 8h ago

Discussion PIXMA G620 Grainy Prints very flat contrast

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1 Upvotes

getting very grainy and very flat prints is this expected results on this Canon Printer


r/printers • • 16h ago

Purchasing Purchase advice for PhD students home office

3 Upvotes

What would you like to accomplish?

I need an ink printer for my PhD home office. I do duplex-scans and copies out of books with up to 50 pages, print out documents (1-20 pages, sometimes more) and coloured pictures (on regular paper) for vision boards / journal.

Are there any models you are currently looking at?

No, I'm at the beginning of my research and am kind of overwhelmed to be honest. So any information and recommondation would be much appreciated :-)

Minimum Requirements:

  • Budget: up to 350 €
  • Country: Germany
  • Color or black and white: Colour
  • Laser or ink printer: Ink
  • New or used: New
  • Multi-function: Not sure what this means, but I do need a scanner (fax would be nice)
  • Duplex Printing: YES, that's important
  • Home or business: Home office
  • Printing content: text and images/photos on regular paper
  • Printing frequency: multiple pages per week, some weeks 5, some 100 pages (with an occasional break)
  • Pages per minute: basic printing speed would be plenty, fast scanning would be appreciated
  • Page size: A4
  • Device printing from: Laptop, Mac and Windows
  • Connection type: USB A and C and preferably wireless/WiFi

Any other details:

I had a few negative experiences with laser printer so I now want to try out an ink printer. I also don't know if I should look for an cartridge or tank ink printer.


r/printers • • 14h ago

Troubleshooting Brother DCP-T530DW black dots

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2 Upvotes

Do you know what may be causing this?? The paper I’m using is 300gm and I’m feeding it manually, it was printing without any issues but then after a couple prints these random black ink dots started showing what can I don to fix this?? This problem doesn’t seem to happen on bond papel or thin papel


r/printers • • 10h ago

Purchasing Printer recs under $200 for an apartment? Mostly documents, some color

1 Upvotes

Looking for a printer for my apartment, budget under $200. I mostly print documents (lots of them), plus a decent amount of color, though that's not the main use. Duplex printing is important to me. Scanning is a nice-to-have.


r/printers • • 14h ago

Troubleshooting Troubleshoot: Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE DX C5860i on GNU/Linux-Libre

2 Upvotes

What's going on?

Strap yourselves in. This is a doozy.

The lease on the printer in our office was up (and the machine was starting to act screwy, like it knew we were going to replace it so it tried to cause as much chaos as it could), so we renewed our lease with a newer machine, the Canon iR-ADV DX c5860i with a Booklet Finisher-A1.

Three other people in the office are connected to the printer: 2 Windows users, 1 Mac user, and myself, a GNU/Linux user. Each of us has encountered squirrely problems, but mostly figured them out.

Except for me.

This printer seems to hate my machine.

  1. From LibreOffice, I can print a booklet of 8.5"x5.5" pages on Letter size paper folded in half, saddle-stitched, no problem. Works great. Except if I try to print more than one. Then it tries to print all of the separate booklets as one booklet and saddle-stitch the whole collection together.
  2. When printing a test page from the printer settings, or a full page Letter PDF from Scribus, the result is off center and scaled down (see documents linked below).
  3. If, however, I print a full page Letter or Legal PDF with Iceweasel/Firefox, it comes out looking almost completely fine, except the margins are a bit too wide, like the printer is adding an extra margin even when explicitly told not to.
  4. Like the last printer we had, I can't print a booklet of 8.5"x7" pages on Legal size paper folded in half and saddle-stitched. The printer doesn't even recognize this is a possibility. It works on the Windows machines, though.
  5. I crawled through the printer options on the machine itself and couldn't find anything that looked out of place. I did notice, however, that IPP Everywhere is not enabled. This is relevant below.

I'm fairly certain this is a case of the printer drivers being completely and utterly screwy, and I'm not hopeful I can find a solution. Part of the problem may be, if there are multiple drivers available, I'm not always sure exactly which one is being called upon (Canon download, foomatic, gutenprint).

Questions Answers
Printer model: Canon iR-ADV DX c5680i
Print Frequency: A few days a week.
Firmware version: ANSWER HERE
Connection: Ethernet/Wireless
Current OS: Parabola GNU/Linux-Libre x86_64
# Machines Tried: 1
# of Users Tried: 1
Applications Tried: LibreOffice, Evince/Xreader, Scribus, Iceweasel (Firefox)
Error Messages: None
Cartridges Used: Refills

What steps you have already tried?

  • Reinstalling the current, official UFR II/UFRII LT Printer Driver for Linux V6.40.
  • Downgrading the official driver to versions 6.30 and 6.20, the only versions I could still find official downloads for.
  • Since CUPS, the open printing system for GNU/Linux, is deprecating PPD-based printer drivers, I tried switching to the CUPS driverless option. This allowed me to print basic documents with what appeared to be the right margins, but printing booklets with automatic fold and saddle-stitch was impossible.
  • I tried with foomatic-db, foomatic-db-ppds, foomatic-db-engine, or foomatic-db-gutenprint-ppds installed, and without. I didn't notice a difference.
  • I did not try downloading a driver from the OpenPrinting Foomatic Database.

Pictures:

0004_001

0005_001


r/printers • • 10h ago

Troubleshooting Pixma ix6820 won’t connect to network

1 Upvotes

I’ve had my printer for a few months and everything’s been fine. Connected to my phone on set up no problem. I recently changed internet providers recently; however, and can not get them reconnected.

It keeps telling me to connect the phone to the printer when I’m trying to do wireless setup. I can’t connect the phone to the printer anyway because it only has USB-B ports. I’ve spent HOURS messing with this and it just runs me in the same circles trying to do it.


r/printers • • 11h ago

Troubleshooting HP Printer will not Print Yellow (UPDATE)

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1 Upvotes

I am beyond shocked at HP. I reached out to tech support to get assistance, and after about 45 minutes of troubleshooting they determined I would just have to get a new printer (which they would send me for free) and I would just have to send the old one back. The agent I spoke with assured me everything would be good to go after that, and I have 15 days to return it. This was the same day that I made my previous post.

I live in a larger city so shipping was pretty quick, they said it would arrive in roughly 4-5 buissness days.

I then proceeded to recieve three textmessages through whatsapp from DHL telling me my order had been processed and that they would ship it to me so on and so on. I figured it must've been a mistake, but nope!

Yesterday I recieved a shipment with yellow ink in it. Maybe the guy had sent an extra one? Okay great. I then recieved another yellow ink today. Okay weird, maybe theres another one. Now, at almost 5 at night, I recieved another package, WITH YELLOW INK. Now everytime I try to connect to the chat with an agent, It says "Agent Connected" and nothing. I have been trying for over two hours.

I am beside myself in how strange this is. The agent clearly said replacement printer. The email I got also expressely said I have a replacement printer.

Second Update: As I was about to post this, I just got 2 new whatsapp messages with different new order numbers telling me that they are preparing to ship my package. If this is more yellow ink I'm going to have enough to shower in.


r/printers • • 12h ago

Troubleshooting Stuck trying to download Epson driver for Windows 11

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1 Upvotes

I get to this point and it does not go past.


r/printers • • 20h ago

Troubleshooting Hi can anyone help me?

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5 Upvotes

r/printers • • 13h ago

Purchasing Purchase advice for printing paper name tags

1 Upvotes

We are pretty unfamiliar with what's possible for printers and are trying to find something for event check in.

Ideally we generate a pdf with the graphic and name information ahead of time that we can print adhoc on roll paper as part of the check in process. These badges would go into a name tag holder that's 3x4.

Is that possible? We wanted to save a bit of paper because not everyone who registers will show up.


r/printers • • 17h ago

Troubleshooting Canon G3410 Printhead Problem

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2 Upvotes

hi, I'm having the problem shown in the picture, and I'm really frustrated with it. I've been using this printer for three years without any issues, but now this has happened...

My printer is a Canon G3410. I know the problem is related to the printhead nozzles, but I don't know how to fix it.

Should I buy a new printhead, or should I try cleaning the existing one? If cleaning is the better option, how exactly should I do it?

I'd really appreciate any help or advice because I need this printer for my work. Thank you!


r/printers • • 14h ago

Troubleshooting HP 8600 Plus: The printhead appears to be missing...(And resisting all fixes)

1 Upvotes

Printer Model:HP 8600 Plus Error Message:The printhead appears to be missing,not detected, or incorrectly installed Ethernet Cable, WiFi or USB: WiFi Driver name and version: HP Officejet Pro 8600 4.0 Firmware Version: CLP1CN2011AR OS: Tahoe 26.6.2 of machines impacted: 4 of users impacted:4 Original or 3rd party cartridges: Original

Well...The pre-2018 8600 Plus greeted us yesterday with the printhead error. I have:

--jiggled the printhead-->no change

--removed and reinstalled printhead-->no change

--done the help/back/home boot, other key pressing boot suggestions--> printer does not recognize them, remains locked at error

--removed printhead, cleaned gold contacts on inner side of circuit board, reinstalled printhead-->no change

Is there anything else to try before I make a post asking for printer suggestions? I'm leery of going third party AND still having to buy a printer; $300 for a hp part is new printer territory.


r/printers • • 14h ago

Troubleshooting Brother ink or 3rd party

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1 Upvotes

Was wondering if these are 3rd party ink ?


r/printers • • 14h ago

Troubleshooting Printer Help😅🥲

1 Upvotes

Does anybody run an Epson SureColor T3170X and know why my files are being cropped..?

My files were made with the idea to be print ready and were created well under what my roll is capable of.. (19”x15” file size.) (roll size 24”x100’)

Every time I go to print from photoshop, I would receive a message telling me the image was being cropped and it would print out to a different size than what was originally made.

I’ve also tried taking the image and saving a PDF to my own files from photoshop. When I go to print from my saved files, I see in print preview that my image was still reduced in size and not the same dimensions as I originally created it.

I tried calling Adobe and spent an over an hour on the phone. They eventually got into a remote session and this is where they began to somehow make things worse…(we started to run print tests with a number of different settings. After trying 3 times to print an image, only to have film shooting out without any ink being laid down. They eventually gave up and told me “it was a problem with my printer settings and they were unable to assist me.”

I then tried calling Epson. Spent an hour on the phone with them until they tried claiming that it was an issue on Adobes end and it needed to be resolved there as that’s the software I made my file..

If anyone has any advice, guidance or experience with these things, I could use the help direly… this has been bothering me to there point where I can’t sleep. And I have no idea, direction or understanding of how to fix this issue.

SOS TO THE SMART PEOPLE OF THE INTERNET AND THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ANYONE WHO STEPS IN.🙏🏻❤️


r/printers • • 16h ago

Other Automatic nozzle purge for Inktank/Inkjet printers

1 Upvotes

https://github.com/CarlosWCX/Automatic-email-printer-purge.git
I just vibecoded a google script that sends an email to your printer and prints a purge sheet every week at 9 am. You can change the purge sheet with anotherone if you think the current one uses too much ink by replacing the drive image id.

I think this is pretty useful since it gets rid of the esporadical printers out there who leave the printer without using for a long period of time and will save a lot of printers from clogging.

Also this only works on printers with email printing so check if your printer has this feature.

If there's anything that can be improved please let me know


r/printers • • 16h ago

Troubleshooting Uh. Help please.

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0 Upvotes

Epson Ecotank ET-2400 for sublimation printing user here. Printer started doing this a few pages ago and now won't stop. I've done nozzle cleanings, I can't see the page to do head alignments (as pictured above), I've done power cleanings, and I've done purge pages. Any ideas? I'm at my wit's end. I have a flea market I need this printer for as sublimation is my job.