On Tuesday 21 October 2008 11:04, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Duaine & Laura Hechler [10-21-08 13:36]:

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I have noticed that HPLIP (HP Device Manager) does not show the status of the ink levels if the cartridges have been refilled.

Is this normal ?

Yes, No. HP cartridges have a chip which monitors/reports ink level.

I know you're talking about ink-jet printers (a bad idea if ever there was one), but HP laser printers have some of the same characteristics. It seems they're pretty "conservative" in their reporting of remaining toner. A couple of months ago my LaserJet 2015 lit its "toner low" light on the front panel. I ordered a new cartridge at the time, but I've since printed hundreds of pages and there's no sign (on the printed pages) that it's actually running out of toner. And as soon as the light came on I tried the "shake the cartridge" tactic, but the light never went out. I should have noted the page count at the time the light came on to see by how much it underestimates the remaining toner, but it's more than a little.

That chip must be reset when the cartridge is refilled or it will not report correctly. There are utilities that will do this if the service that refilled the cartridge did not.

HP laser printers will print their own status page, which includes a "Supplies" status page that shows how much of the toner remains. Mine says 1% and "zero pages remaining."

But you will have to search the web (google?) as I no longer use HP printers.

Out of curiosity, have you been dissatisfied with them? 'Cause I love this LaserJet 2015. Duplex printing, fast, great font rendering, Energy Star, (but not quiet when printing), flexible paper-handling options, full PostScript level III, USB and Ethernet interface, expandable RAM (with easy-access notebook-format DIMM socket).

-- Patrick Shanahan

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday, 2008-10-21 at 11:22 -0700, Randall R Schulz wrote:

It seems they're pretty "conservative" in their reporting of remaining toner. A couple of months ago my LaserJet 2015 lit its "toner low" light on the front panel. I ordered a new cartridge at the time, but I've since printed hundreds of pages and there's no sign (on the printed pages) that it's actually running out of toner. And as soon as the light came on I tried the "shake the cartridge" tactic, but the light never went out.

Mine has a setting to either stop when the toner is estimated to be too low, or to ignore it. In this case the manual warns to watch the output to see when printing starts to fail. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkj+KdgACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UtLgCcDAKJjOakOtVPwmz/n3CzfbdB 2gsAnjvsyPvD/itGpX95CKckzcdZiQai =f+Ms -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 21 October 2008 14:55, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Randall R Schulz [10-21-08 14:24]:

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Out of curiosity, have you been dissatisfied with them?

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My wife prints a lot of genealogy paper and is looking for something with cheap output. She has been eyeballing a kodak se3(?) and I have seen a Okidata lazer ($100 range), but don't know about the cost per sheet output.

Others' experience will certainly differ, but both at home and in many offices over the years, I've found HP printers to be excellent products. When it comes to color laser printers my experience is very limited (all in various office environments), but the devices have been good, though quite expensive.

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Seems presently most of the manufacturers want to push gadgetry and unneeded function on you to sell at bargan price and lock you into expensive ink flow. Are the lazer printer cheaper over all to utilize?

Price per page is much better for laser printing. You can find both manufacturer official quotes on these numbers as well as end-user experiences on various on-line consumer ratings sites, including Amazon.com. If you need color, it's probably a different story, but that's not something I know about, since B&W is fine for all my needs. I have an old HP ink-jet printer someone gave me as a hand-me-down. I used it for a while and hated every minute (or page) of it.

ps: I saw an Okidata color lazer at sams club for ~$179 last week.

-- Patrick Shanahan

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 21 October 2008 17:15, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On Tuesday, 2008-10-21 at 16:40 -0700, Randall R Schulz wrote:

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Price per page is much better for laser printing. You can find both manufacturer official quotes on these numbers as well as end-user experiences on various on-line consumer ratings sites, including Amazon.com.

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I bought one recently, a cp1515n. I thought that the estimate was about 1000 pages per toner cartridge, and it uses four (BW 64€, the 3 colours 59€ each; the printer was 234€ (all without taxes), so the toner is as expensive as a new printer).

But when I looked at the HP supplies page, it now says "2000 pages", so I'm confused. I don't know if they have changed the numbers, or the cartridges that came with the printer are half-loaded (complimentary).

Note that for many HP printers there are two toner cartridges available, one with considerably higher capacity. For my LaserJet P2015, the toner cartridge model numbers are Q7553A and Q7553X (I think the A/X distinction is typical for the low/high capacity variants). My printer's current status page says I have printed 3251 pages with the current toner cartridge (with 1% toner remaining), which is the one that came with the printer, so I cannot assign a price to it, as such. A quick check on the Internet shows prices for this part from $33 to $102 (!). Amazon.com sells them for $75. The Q7553X I bought from them as a replacement cost $129. It'll be quite a while before I know how many pages that one yields. At the current Amazon price, the 3300 pages (estimated total) I got from the Q7553A yields a per-page price of 2.25¢ (U.S.).

So, at 1000 pages, each page would cost 0.241€, and half that at 2000 pages.

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Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 22 October 2008 02:42, Carlos E. R. wrote:

Content-ID: On Tuesday, 2008-10-21 at 17:34 -0700, Randall R Schulz wrote:

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For my LaserJet P2015, the toner cartridge model numbers are Q7553A and Q7553X (I think the A/X distinction is typical for the low/high capacity variants).

I just did a google search for CB540X and didn't find any. Maybe in this case there is only the 'A'.

Nor did I. Perhaps having four toner cartridges makes it impractical to design a unit of that size for dual-capacity cartridges.

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So, at 1000 pages, each page would cost 0.241€, and half that at 2000 pages.

That's much lower than what I get, but I assume yours is B/W only.

Yes. It's a black-and-white printer.

I have seen a lower price for my toners, at 195€ the four, which would then be 0.195€ or 0.0975€ depending on the yield. I'm not sure if I did my numbers right, seems expensive...

I was surprised to see the range of prices for toner cartridges. Perhaps the cheap ones are after-market (I didn't pay close attention).

Even so, the colour cartridge for my printer was about 60€ and did not yield 100 pages. At that price, the toner is cheaper.

I'd be quite surprised to find a case where ink-jet cost-per-page was less than that of a laser printer, for a reasonable comparison (color vs. color, e.g.).

Ha! I'll write this on a postit. Next time I print a page, I'll look at it before sending... >:-}

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org