Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook Talking technology, computers, and the Internet… for the average computer user

Excuse me while I take just a moment to dance around for joy!

Last week, I lamented my problem I’d suddenly had with my Canon MP530 All-in-One printer. I just LOVE the printer and it’s so easy to use. But I was suddenly getting an “Error U150,” saying that there was something wrong with the printer ink cartridge. It wasn’t being “recognized” by the printer. The cartridge was only half empty, and I wasn’t about to spend another $50 on a new cartridge. I’d spend that money and get a different printer if it came to that! This little bitty cartridge was shutting the entire printer down– I was unable to scan, copy, send/receive faxes, everything. All because of a stinking ink cartridge error. That’s evil. folks.

So I did some searching around and found out that this is an all too common and frustrating problem with Canon printers. I thought Canon was a high-quality brand, but apparently not. I had always gone with HP in the past, but my HP printers were doing strange things (like saying the ink cardtridge was empty, etc). I dumped my HPs thinking Canon was better. Looks like a whole lot of printer manufacturers are scheisters! They make cheap printers and then force consumers to purchase gallons of ink– even wasting the ink– and making their money that way. Um, Mr. Printer Manufacturer, that makes people angry. Why would you do such a thing and make people angry and hate your product?? Why would we want to throw away another perfectly good printer into another landfill because you can’t fix an ink cartridge problem??

ANYWAY, I’d also read that there existed an amazing little gadget called a “chip resetter.” This tiny device is used on ink cartridges that have microchips. Microchips on ink cartridges are the things that always cause the problems– they tell your computer that there is something wrong with an ink cartridge and you need to shell out more dough to get another one! Even when you have plenty of ink in that cartridge yet!

The chip resetter will reprogram the microchip. It tells the microchip to start over– a reboot, in a way. It reprograms to microchip to original manufacturer’s data. So now the computer thinks there is a brand-new cartridge in there. PERFECT!

The chip resetters are NOT cheap. This little piece of plastic cost me $30.00. But if it reprogrammed just one ink cartridge, I’d have immediately recouped my ink investment, plus $20.

IT WORKS! My Canon printer is back in business. So now I can receive faxes, send faxes, scan, copy, and print once again. But I will never chang emy mind that what these printer manufacturers are doing is EVIL and it should be outlawed. It’s corporate theft!