16h ago

Is it worth trying to fix a home printer?

I got a canon pixma tr4520 from a technologically challenged relative, who told me they couldn't get it to print and it was mine to try and fix. I worked out that it didn't have an ink cartridge in it (not even an empty), bought a replacement, and got it printing. But now it has vertical alignment issues and paper jams. I can't afford a new printer right now, and I would love to fix this one. My fear is that I'll sink half the cost of a new one into it between the ink I already bought and replacement parts, just for it to come out not working anyway. Is it worth my time to try and fix or should I cut my losses and start saving for a new unit?

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It's rarely worth fixing an inkjet. There's a host of issues that could be in play, but if shit is out of register and paper isn't feeding in an environment of reasonable humidity, this is going to be more expensive than just getting a new one. Sadly, this is the state of our economy.
What I will suggest, whether you go laser or inkjet, is Brother. They've not yet, to my knowledge, instituted chip limitations and other such lock-in crap. Granted, this was before the pandemic, but I was able to get five-packs (CMYKK) of third-party ink for $10, and toner for the laser good for 3,000 pages at 5% coverage for $30.
- I just replaced the Magenta in one of mine and it would NOT take it. I’m leaning towards an issue with this one cartridge, but while debugging I saw some people mentioning the override menu was recently disabled in an update.
  So I scraped the chip off the old one and stuck it on the new one and it worked just fine 🤷
  
  There's reset chips you can buy online. They're about 6 euros and reusable. Hold it against the toner chip for a bit and poof
  
  Is this a Brother or Canon?
  
  Brother
  
  Shit. So enshittification has hit them as well.

10 comments