HP doesn't make much selling printers, the money is in the ink. Since the days of dot matrix printers and ribbons I have always done my own re-inking. For the past twenty or so years that meant buying bulk ink off the web. The prices were always a small fraction of what HP charged. You simply needed to keep your empty cartridges and follow a simple procedure to cleanse the jets and refill the cartridges. While it could occasionally be a bit messy it always saved serious outlay of cash. That is until HP populated each new cartridge with a remotely programmable chip. I now have a very capable HP 6978 Office Jet Pro sitting on the floor, disconnected and unusable. This is thanks to HP being able to interrogate the cartridges remotely and disable your printer if the cartridge does not report that it is a new authentic HP cartridge. My old HP 3510 is back in service since it uses type 61 cartridges which, if they are old enough, did not have the chip when they were manufactured. Of course the 3510 does not do automatic double sided printing, fax and several other functions that the 6978 would handle.

I'm tempted to say I'll never buy another HP product but I'm not certain that HP's competitors aren't using the same tactics. Anyway, HP's tactics are well known and a quick web search will provide more than enough evidence of what they are doing. Kym's (KQ4ZOA) statement that HP can turn your printer into a "brick" is absolutely true. There ought to be a law!!!

73 - WA3CTZ

Cal

On Sun, Mar 2, 2025 at 3:47 PM Kym via TVARC <tvarc@mailman.qth.net> wrote:

Just a note.

Be aware of the implications of subscribing to HP printer carterage system.

Besides having to figure out how many pages you print per month, HP literally will turn your printer into a brick if something happens in the payment.

We had this happen when we forgot to update credit card with new credit card. Spent hours trying to figure out problem. Only after calling HP, and running through lengthy diagnostics did they finally say "hey your credit card is expired".

We no longer use their services because of this and prefer to get our own carterages.

But still in the back of our mind, we wonder if HP will do this again at some point or another for another reason.

Kym Lenkus KQ4ZOA
Email: kintbus@protonmail.com

Sent from Proton Mail Android

-------- Original Message --------
On 3/2/25 3:28 PM, Robert Averitt wrote:

Our old HP 4360 color printer died (12 years old) so ...
I had to shoot it (just kidding) and order up the replacement - an HP 7955 color printer but ...
It does NOT use the same inkjet cartridges (of course not) so .....
Does anyone want an HP 61XL Tri-color ink jet cartridge for their printer?
Call me if interested and you can pick it up.
Bob Averitt - WA3EWK
302-932-9322
1362 Resthaven Way - Gilchrist

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