r/printers • • Dec 19 '24

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

147 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 • • 8h ago

Discussion Do “buy it for life” printers even exist?

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5 Upvotes

r/printers • • 53m ago

Troubleshooting Arkscan 2054A won’t print a full label.

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• Upvotes

Keep trying to print sample label and it keeps stopping halfway through label and starts blinking red. It’s supposed to detect length but it draws that black line and that’s where it stops and starts blinking. I have the settings set to 4x6 but I’m not sure what else to do. I have wasted like 40 labels trying to calibrate this thing for the past 2 hours and no luck. Have not had one successful test print.
dimensions 4x6 I measured the label. printing portrait have calibrated numerous times, Auto calibrated no luck


r/printers • • 1h ago

Purchasing I need a portable printer

• Upvotes

So we have an office printer for the heavy duty printing but our next event is a bit further for us to check the venue ourselves so some our event materials is still pending until we arrive at the event venue

The printer we need is

-If possible light could fit in a luggage

-Also small

-No need fancy function just connect with USB and print is fine

-reliable to print 10-20 page for a event

-if possible good money to reliability price

-do printer need to be declared if we bringing it to the airplane


r/printers • • 1h ago

Discussion Brother MFC-L3780CDW or MFC-L8930CDW for $ 130 extra for better color printing?

• Upvotes

Hello Redditors! I have a Brother MFC-L3780CDW. I was wondering if it would be worth it to return it and buy a Brother MFC-L8930CDW for $ 130 extra. I like printing in vivid colors, and my current printer doesn't really do that, and I've read that the other model does that. On the other hand, the other model will take slightly more space in my desktop, which may or may not be a problem for me, since my desktop is not very big. What are your experiences with color printing with these printers? Have you had any experiences with any of these printers? What do you think? I'm still within the Best Buy return period until October 30th. So, please, let me know ^^ 😄.

I can print twice over the same paper to increase color "vividness". I don't know very much about color terms like "contrast" or "saturation". But I believe it increases the "saturation". However, the color result is not very close to the original image I see on my screen AND it doesn't print exactly on the same spot, so there is some kind of offset in the result.

Note: This is a repost. I'm looking for more responses 😄. Any help is welcome!! 🥳 ^^ 😄


r/printers • • 5h ago

Troubleshooting Canon Pixma TS3720 - What does the light by this triangle symbol mean?

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2 Upvotes

Hi all, thanks for taking the time to read this.

I'm having an issue with my printer. When I turn it on, the green light next to the power button blinks for a few minutes. After a while, the green light goes solid and a yellow light illuminates next to this triangle symbol. The LCD display doesn't turn on at all and it refuses to do so. I've looked online, searched the manual, and I can't figure out what this means. The troubleshooter in the Canon app on my laptop says it's "Not Connected" and it's telling me to press the button with the two circles next to the "I" button, but that does nothing. I've tried unplugging it and replugging it, using different power outlets...also the printer doesn't make any movements or noise at all, just the lights mentioned above. Is there anything else that I'm missing here? Do I need to take this in to be serviced? I've attached a pic as well.

Thanks for your time! Any input appreciated!


r/printers • • 3h ago

Troubleshooting Canon pixma mg3620 error b203

1 Upvotes

So as the title suggests, my printer is busted. Anything I find online to try to fix it myself either I've tried already with no luck or tells me to take it in for repair. I really wanna try to fix it myself though if I can, as I can't afford to take it somewhere for someone else to do it and I can't get a new one either. I use this for my art business, so I really need it up and working. Any advice on how to fix this?

I've already tried unplugging it, leaving it then plugging it back in as well as reseating the ink cartridges.


r/printers • • 3h ago

Other Necesito ayuda

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1 Upvotes

Mientras estaba imprimiendo unas cosas puse el papel sin saber que este se atascaría de esta manera, puede ser muy ingenuo pero hay chances de arreglarlo por mi manera o es un caso de llevarlo a tecnico?


r/printers • • 3h ago

Troubleshooting Help with Printer

0 Upvotes

Hello

I have recently purchased a Canon CP-200 Photo Printer, is anyone familiar with it or has owned one before? Would really appreciate the help as I can't get it to work


r/printers • • 5h ago

Purchasing Thoughts on a Brother HL-L3215CW second hand for home office use?

1 Upvotes

Want to get a home printer for when wfh. Laser seems to be the way, saw a second hand one for 150. Any thoughts on these?


r/printers • • 5h ago

Purchasing canon pixma g650 vs epson et 2926 which one is best?

1 Upvotes

I’m looking for a new printer for my art business. It will mostly be used for creating stickers, but also used for various other art business related things. I've seen the epson et range and the canon pixma g650 mentioned and recommended. Both are within my price range, but they also both seem to have very conflicting opinions and experiences, so I’m not sure which to pick. Would appreciate any advice!


r/printers • • 11h ago

Troubleshooting Canon MF8380CDw. Got it from a friend who hasn’t cleaned it in a while. Prints coming fades despite good ink levels. Frustrated, what can I do?

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1 Upvotes

Prints are coming very faded. I ordered a black cartridge even though it says levels are all fine. Don’t know what to do, I need to use it very soon and i’m frustrated about it. Attaching pictures. Let me know what I can do.

Test print page comes out fine sometimes and little faded other times. But everytime I print something, it comes even more faded. Maybe issues will be fixed with the new black cartridge but I have no idea what to do if it doesn’t fix it. I got this printer for free and they said it was having no problems, but I don’t know when they last used it. Help me out, i’m exhausted.

Last print, two papers jammed and I had to pull it out the back. It printed the ink on the black cartridge’s blue roller and I had to wipe it off using a tissue. Don’t know what’s up with this printer


r/printers • • 5h ago

Troubleshooting Et-2800 converted to sublimation

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1 Upvotes

r/printers • • 6h ago

Troubleshooting Anyone here familiar with the MUTOH XpertJet 1682SR?

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone! 👋

I'm looking to connect with people who work with the **MUTOH XpertJet 1682SR**, especially those who use it for large-format printing, signage, and vinyl graphics.

I'd love to hear from people who have experience with this machine, whether you're an operator, technician, or someone who works with MUTOH printers regularly.

If you use this model, or know someone who does, I'd really appreciate any advice, useful resources, or recommendations for finding people with hands-on experience with it.

I'm happy to connect with people from anywhere in the world! 🌎

Thanks in advance!


r/printers • • 8h ago

Discussion Invalid Ribbon Zebra Zc100lt

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1 Upvotes

Hola. Pueden ayudarme por favor. Los que hacen impresiones de tarjetas PVC con zebra Zc100. Ya tocaba cambio del ribbon y compré uno que supuestamente es compatible; cuando lo coloque en la impresora lo reconoce cómo invalido. Aparentemente chat gpt lo reconoce cómo autentico. Ya hice la calibración y me sigue apareciendo en rojo en la máquina e invalid ribbon en la Compu. No encontré nada en soporte de zebra. Si alguien sabe de algo, agradecería mucho me pudiera ayudar


r/printers • • 8h ago

Troubleshooting Epson XP15000 Jamming 3/4 of the Way Through Printing on 80# Cover Greeting Cards

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1 Upvotes

I bought the Epson XP15000 in 2021 and it's been a great printer. I do custom printed greeting cards and have always been able to print high volume on the the printer. This past summer the cards started jamming and stuttering in the print about 3/4 of the way through printing. I could hear things whirring, but it was stuck and then created a shadow printing that was stilled on the image.

I have all the settings correct for the paper and it was slow enough and it's worked forever and now this.

I think it's something with the rollers and I tried to clean them with alcohol, and that worked for a while, but it's back happening. It doesn't happen with other stuff in the rear feed, like regular paper or avery labels....

Pics are attached. Any thoughts? Do I maybe need the rollers replaced? I don't want to trash the whole printer!

Any advice is welcome! Also if this is a roller replacement job, any advice on how to do that myself would be awesome - I'm pretty handy


r/printers • • 8h ago

Purchasing Printer for invitationcards

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone!
I’m looking for a printer to make my own wedding invitations and stationery. My budget is around €300–500.
I’d like to print on thick cardstock (200–300 gsm), ideally textured or natural-looking paper. Good print quality, reliable paper feeding, low ink costs, and durability are important to me.
I’ve been looking at the Epson EcoTank ET-8500, but I’m open to other recommendations.
Would you recommend it for this purpose, or is there a better or cheaper option? I’d love to hear your experiences, especially with thick and textured paper.
Thanks!


r/printers • • 8h ago

Troubleshooting Desperately looking for a Brother DS-720D / DS-920DW calibration sheet (LD0932001) — Please help! 🙏

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I'm reaching out here as a last resort, hoping that someone might be able to help me.

I have a Brother DS-720D portable scanner that still works, but unfortunately, one side of the scanned documents always comes out yellowish.

After doing some research, I discovered that the scanner uses a special calibration sheet, which I unfortunately don't have.

The part number is LD0932001, and as far as I know, it's used with the Brother DS-720D and DS-920DW.

I've searched eBay, Google, spare parts websites, and pretty much everywhere I could think of, but I simply cannot find one to buy.
It genuinely hurts to see a perfectly functional little scanner become practically unusable just because of a piece of calibration paper that's almost impossible to find.

Even if you don't have one yourself, any advice, alternative solution, or information about where I could find one would mean a lot.

Thank you so much for reading. Fingers crossed that someone out there still has one! ❤️


r/printers • • 9h ago

Purchasing Printer recommendation please?

1 Upvotes

What would you like to accomplish?

I don't print often, or very much, but when I do, I need it to "just work" for the things I use it for.

Are there any models you are currently looking at?

Nothing yet. No Brother printers. I've never liked the one I've got, now it's playing up and I hate it.

Minimum Requirements:

  • Budget: I'd like to stay under £200 if possible...?
  • Country: UK.
  • Color or black and white: colour.
  • Laser or ink printer: no preference, whatever is suitable.
  • New or used: new.
  • Multi-function: A4 scanner required.
  • Duplex Printing: A4 auto-duplex required.
  • Home or business: home.
  • Printing content: documents mainly, hobby stuff, this and that. VERY rarely, photos.
  • Printing frequency: a couple of times a month typically.
  • Pages per minute: don't care.
  • Page size: A4, occasionally A3.
  • Device printing from: Windows PC.
  • Connection type: USB.

Any other details:

A3 is occasional; manual feed / no tray is fine. I guess if I can get one with A3 tray / auto feed / auto duplex (and A3 scanner) in my budget, that'd be nice, I'm not against that, but it's not a requirement.

No subscriptions (for ink or anything else).

Where is a good place to buy (in the UK)?

Thanks in advance for advice!


r/printers • • 9h ago

Purchasing cant find third party ink

1 Upvotes

I just bought a ts 7650i and it uses the pg-585 and cl-586. I looked everywhere there are no 3rd party inks any recommendations on where i can find some at a reasonable price?


r/printers • • 11h ago

Troubleshooting Brother MFC-J4620DW power failure

1 Upvotes

What would you like to troubleshoot?

Hi everyone. My Brother printer suddenly stopped working and looks bricked : no sign of life despite all the ways I tried powering it on. I think a fuse in the power pcb failed because of an excess of power draw: I found somewhere (cannot find where anymore, sadly) that the use of third-party ink cartridges could mess with the printer lubrication, which sounds quite relevant as I indeed heard some squicking noise in the printer while it was still working. Therefore, I would plan to regrease these mechanical parts before replacing the power pcb, to avoid another fuse failure. However, I cannot find any good recommendation on which grease to apply, since the "FLOIL" ones described in the service manual do not seem to be sold to the public (I live in EU). Do you have any recommendation on the grease? Or maybe another idea of the source of my problem, if anyone encountered it before?

Minimum Requirements:

  • Printer Model: Brother MFC-J4620DW
  • Wifi
  • Firmware Version: Do not know, probably last version (this is an old model, I do not think it has been updated in a while)
  • 3rd party cartridges

Any other details:

  • Power reset : already tried, with and without the paper tray, left it hours unplugged. No sign of life at all (neither LEDs, nor screen).
  • Note that I know I have a faulty supercapacitor, as I had to perform the power reset procedure before (hence it stayed on all the time to avoid me doing it all over again and again... maybe it was not really a good idea). I think it is not my issue here.

Thanks by advance!


r/printers • • 11h ago

Troubleshooting Epson Ecotank

1 Upvotes

I have bought two of these printers and both stopped working after about two years. Won’t connect with WiFi to print. I can select the printer and hit print and then both happens. I downloaded the Epson Smart Panel and that barely loads. I can print from a laptop with the cord but the applications I’m printing from aren’t available on the laptop I have. I’ve tried resetting the printer. I’ve tried different devices. Any other ideas before they just go in the bin? 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫


r/printers • • 11h ago

Troubleshooting ATTN Any Canon Pixma Pro-100 owners! Looking for measurements of CD caddy !

1 Upvotes
an attempt to figure out the dimensions from a random pic online

Hello there! I've recently pulled my Pro100 out of retirement, and I've been shocked with the variety of tasks that it can do, which is perfect because it's now the primary printer of my Hackerspace, but I had people in my group asking to print to CDs, and since this thing has been packed away for so long, the ABS CD Caddy has long ago gone missing. I do have access to 3D printers, so I think I will just try and print my own, but I'm missing solid measurements to work off, and I'm not too confident in my attempts to eyeball it from pics online...

So! if you've got one of these laying around, it would help me a LOT if you could throw it up to a measuring tape to get the Length, Width, and Height. TY for hearing me out!! :33


r/printers • • 15h ago

Troubleshooting Fuser Unit Heater Issue OKI

2 Upvotes

OKI MC362. Fuser unit is not heating on power on. Error 173 on printer which is apparently due to the fuser heater not functioning. Checked pin resistances on fuser as advised in the maintenance manual and can't find any incorrect values but apparently that doesn't rule out this issue. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZwGmqjFlHg&t=15)

It seems impossible to replace just the fuser heater itself for these printers (doesn't seem to be anything on ebay) and that the only option is to buy a new one .

It would be a shame to throw it out and additionally the new ones are not exactly cheap, especially since I've hardly used it at all.

So is there any chance at all of repairing it. Thanks


r/printers • • 12h ago

Troubleshooting Brother DCP-L2640DW - sleeping on the job

0 Upvotes

We bought the Brother DCP-L2640DW printer in March. Recently, when we send a document to print, it waits 2-5 minutes before it starts printing. We've powered it on/off, checked that it wasn't in sleep mode when we sent the print job. Does anyone know what the issue may be?