Get more printing from your Brother Ink Cartridges
January 23, 2010 by
Filed under Brother Ink
A short description of a simple hack for Brother printer cartridges. It doesnt damage your printer and will make your cartridges last another hundred or so pages after the printer says ‘replace cartridge’ and won’t print anymore. In the back of the printer is a light sensor used to see how much ink is left in the cartridge. By blocking the window into the cartridge with tape, the printer is fooled into thinking there is a full cartridge instead of a nearly empty one. This saves you money as the printer keeps printing although it is running low on ink. The problem with brother printers prescription drugs are that once the sensor detects ‘no ink’ it stops you printing, when in reality you have approx 100 pages or more left.
Your great! I just bought my printer, only did like 10 pages on it and it “said” it was out. Thanks.
this worked like a charm on my MFC 295!…now i have 4 full cartridges!! thanks alot,
Now i will print until the pages come out blank..then refill!
This worked like a charm on my MFC 295…..now i have 4 full cartridges!!!
Thank You So Much!
@guy2kool have you left the printer without ink for a long time? sounds like your head is blocked or one of the lines are blocked. in my previous printers thats when they have met the bin.
@bobbydelderfield the capacity of these cartridges is low, some you buy have higher capacity than others.
The toner doesn’t last as long as you think; if you think it will print 2600 pages, as it says, you have to make sure that there are only about 170 words per page; 5% of the page.
This means that if using graphics or a full page print you won’t even get half of that.
@cutterschoicenotmine Thanks for your quick reply. However, I’ve done the cleaning about 15 times now. After about the 10th time, I do a quality print test, and now it only prints the Cyan, and stopped printing black, magenta, or yellow. Weird, I know. I replaced the black ink as well and it didn’t help. I’ve been trying to google this and can’t find a thing on this problem. You probably know more about printers than I do… so if anyone knows a solution, PLEASE HELP!!! Thanks again.
@guy2kool keep doing cleans until the ink comes through properly. in the menu it should say ‘replaced cyan?’ answer yes then it should do a clean. print head drying comes about when you have left the printer with no ink in for a time.
Hi, I now have a problem. My Brother Printer stopped printing Cyan altogether. I Googled it and found other people have this problem as well. I followed the vid 4 my printer, and it stopped printing Cyan later (which I don’t really know when). I took out the Cyan and removed the black tape, then checked if there’s any ounce of ink left, and there wasn’t. Would that be a cause for drying out the head? If so, how can I fix it? Please let me know if anyone finds a solution to this problem.THX!
I have a MFC-490CW and it’s cartridges are a bit different. Your video got me on the right track and cartridges are now showing up as full. Thank you.
thx!
BTW, there is a great software for ink saving 2!
it calls INKSAVER.
i made with my brother 130c, 1200 pages!
but the INKSAVER wont work on WIN7 so i am looking for alter software…. do you know 1?
@leonpaul2006 i have always used clone cartridges, so have my friends and colleagues and have never had any problems.
@chenrp no all you are doing is fooling the printer into thinking it has more ink than what is actually in the cartridge. print head drying comes from not running the printer for long periods of time or leaving it with no ink in.
what about the head? won’t it damage the head and dry it?
thank u..life saver
Excellent: This works great on MFC – 290c
Confirmed!
Great video, this was very helpful! I just wish i knew about this a few days ago when my midterm paper was due.
I have been using cheap generic brand cartridges for years on printers. Never had any problems.
If you do that your ink will leak causing damage to the ink sensor pcb to fix it will cost about €60 its not worth it.
they are alrite value just buy the cheap clone cartridges, i can suggest ebay possibly.
U just saved my cyan ink, thank a million!
Brother printer is definitely a rip off!
You’re a life saver. Thanks for this extremely helpful video.
Thanks a lot dude….great advice… Cheers..!!!