[senorjorge]

I refilled my Brother MFC 240 C printer ink cartridges. The magenta will not print now. I have tried cleaning multiple times and still have the same problem. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[donf]

Jorge,

You said you tried cleaning, by that do you mean using the printer's "Clean" process?

Remove the Magenta cartridge and with a dampened LINT FREE cloth, wipe the nozzle heads to remove any blockages. Then, with a lead pencil eraser clean the contacts on the cartridge.

If both of those tricks fail, buy another cartridge. Rarely if ever does refill ink match the exact chemical components of the original manufacturer's. Refill ink is made to meet a customer requirement for cheap ink. You get what you pay for.

[senorjorge]

Jorge,

You said you tried cleaning, by that do you mean using the printer's "Clean" process?

Remove the Magenta cartridge and with a dampened LINT FREE cloth, wipe the nozzle heads to remove any blockages. Then, with a lead pencil eraser clean the contacts on the cartridge.

If both of those tricks fail, buy another cartridge. Rarely if ever does refill ink match the exact chemical components of the original manufacturer's. Refill ink is made to meet a customer requirement for cheap ink. You get what you pay for.

Sorry that I used the wrong terminology - this printer uses an ink tank so your suggestions do not apply. And yes I tried cleaning with the printer internal process.
I had some very poor advise to buy a Brother printer and this is the result.
I actually purchased a second Brother printer before this problem arose and the same thing happened with the second printer as well when I refilled those tanks.
I have been using HP printers for years and have always refilled the cartridges very successfully.
I do not see any reason that economizing by refilling a cartridge / tank is illogical if the
Resulting print performance is a decent quality.

[donf]

Jorge,

Good morning. If the magenta ink is not releasing into the tank properly then it still may be the cartridge.

However, what you are describing, doesn't make sense. If all the inks are released into one tank, then printed on the page, you would lose all color control. Regardless of the vendor, you still are talking about a dot matrix printer. The difference is the way vendors build the color tables and place the ink on the page.

I'll take a look at the Brother's web site and see if I can figure out a better plan.

By the way, before I retired, I spent 25 years with IBM and the last 16 years with Lexmark. I was in technical support on the Laser side of the business. I had a great title and low pay (according to my family), but personally I was blessed. I got to be in on the resolution of many technical problems that resulted if field releases over the years. So I actually know some of the pitfalls of refilled cartridges.

Some customers get lucky for a while, however when an ink jet hits the repair station and the customer is notified that because they used refilled cartridges and they caused the problem so good-bye warranty. Buy a new printer or pay for the repairs. Usually the customer scraps the printer and buys a new one.

[senorjorge]

Jorge,

Good morning. If the magenta ink is not releasing into the tank properly then it still may be the cartridge.

However, what you are describing, doesn't make sense. If all the inks are released into one tank, then printed on the page, you would lose all color control. Regardless of the vendor, you still are talking about a dot matrix printer. The difference is the the way vendors build the color tables and place the ink on the page.

I'll take a look at the Brother's web site and see if I can figure out a better plan.

By the way, before I retired, I spent 25 years with IBM and the last 16 years with Lexmark. I was in technical support on the Laser side of the business. I had a great title and low pay (according to my family), but personally I was blessed. I got to be in on the resolution of many technical problems that resulted if field releases over the years. So I actually know some of the pitfalls of refilled cartridges.

Some customers get lucky for a while, however when an ink jet hits the repair station and the customer is notified that because they used refilled cartridges and they caused the problem so good-bye warranty. Buy a new printer or pay for the repairs. Usually the customer scraps the printer and buys a new one.

My original question was in regards to the magenta ink not printing.
I have been referring to that problem in my answers.
There are 4 Ink Tanks in the Brother MFC 240C printer ~ Black Yellow Cyan & Magenta ~ so the inks are in fact separated.

[donf]

Jorge,

Work with me here, don't fuss at me, please. I am not familiar with the way Brother implemented their spray and pray patterns. Trust me when I say that is not a cardinal sin.

CMYK - is a standard arrangement, for the matter so is RGB a standard.

In all of the printers that I've disceted, the ink is released from the cartridge directly to the paper. Dumping the ink into a reserve tank, would allow the ink time to harden or dry out. That right there will kill the printer's nozzles.

Let me get to the Brother's website and read what information I can find there. Do you happen to have the link to the Brother's site for your printer?

[donf]

Jorge,

Okay, I took a look at the manual for this printer and only two things looked like they could kill a cartridge on you. First, Air getting into the cartridge could dry the ink, blocking the nozzles off.

Second - Not removing the yellow cap from the cartridge. I've copied some of the notes for you to look at.

Also, as the acid test, replace the failing cartridge with a factory authorized new one and see if the failure goes away. If it does, take the failing cartridge back to the store that refilled it and see if you can get them to give you your money back on the refill and the cartridge you had to purchase to fix the problem the re-filled cartridge created.

Realize, that most companies that manufacture these type printers recoup R&D costs through the sale of supplies. They do this because the sales price has to be competitive with the rest of the world.

(c) Open the new ink cartridge bag for the color shown on the LCD, and then take out the ink cartridge.
(d) Remove the protective yellow cap (1).

************************************************** ************

G If you replaced an ink cartridge, the LCD may ask you to verify that it was a brand new one. (For example, Did You Change Black?) For each new cartridge you installed, press 1
(Yes) to automatically reset the ink dot counter for that color. If the ink cartridge
You installed is not a brand new one, be sure to press 2 (No).

If you wait until the LCD shows Near Empty and Ink Empty, the machine will automatically reset the ink dot counter. 1

Brother strongly recommends that you do not refill the ink cartridges provided with your machine. We also strongly recommend that you continue to use only Genuine Brother Brand replacement ink cartridges. Use or attempted use of potentially incompatible ink and/or cartridges in the Brother machine may cause damage to the machine and/or may result in unsatisfactory print quality. Our warranty coverage does not apply to any problem that is caused by the use of unauthorized third party ink and/or cartridges. To protect your investment and obtain premium performance from the Brother machine, we strongly recommend the use of Genuine Brother Supplies.

[donf]

Jorge,

I respect your option to rate my responses. Even to disagree with me, I have no problem with that. But to claim that I don't understand what's going on is nonsense.

You re-filled the Magenta cartridge. Now its not working and you think the printer is in error. Common sense says start with the last thing you did and test that.

You however seem to think that I just want you to test a new cartridge.

So here I go again, The re-filled cartridge is the proximate cause of your failure. Get a factory authorized replacement cartridge and see if that works.

That's the best test I can give you other that telling you to take the printer in for service. Oops, I forgot, you may have tossed any possible warranty claim into the trash by using non qualified ink!

Obviously, I'm the dummy here so please accept my apology.

[ScottGem]

Jorge,

If Don isn't understanding your problem then he is not alone. As far as I can tell he understands it correctly. You refilled the cartridgtes and now the magenta doesn't print. There are no "tanks", there are replaceable cartridges containing the inks. If you refilled the cartridges rather than replace them, you risk damage to the cartridge and possibly the printer.

From my experience there is about a 50% success rate in refilling cartridges. About half the people have no problems and the other half ruin their printers.

But there is a simple way to test whether the problem is the printer or the cartridge. Purchase a OEM cartridge and try it. If it works, then the refilled cartridge is bad. If it doesn't work, then the problem is most likely with the printhead. And you would need to contact Brothert about replacing that.

[senorjorge]

Jorge,

If Don isn't understanding your problem then he is not alone. As far as I can tell he understands it correctly. You refilled the cartridgtes and now the magenta doesn't print. There are no "tanks", there are replaceable cartridges containing the inks. If you refilled the cartridges rather than replace them, you risk damage to the cartridge and possibly the printer.

From my experience there is about a 50% success rate in refilling cartridges. About half the people have no problems and the other half ruin their printers.

But there is a simple way to test whether the problem is the printer or the cartridge. Purchase a OEM cartridge and try it. If it works, then the refilled cartridge is bad. If it doesn't work, then the problem is most likely with the printhead. And you would need to contact Brothert about replacing that.

Scott Gem
I had not used this website before so decided to try with my printer problem.
I have tried all of the suggestions presented here before I posted the problem.
I am including website addresses below for your info - I have done a Google search today to locate this info. And yes there are ink tanks for printers that have the printhead installed in the printer separately from the tank. And no the ink does not dry out in these types of printers.
As I previously stated I have used refilling of cartridges for many years with no problems.
From the website on the Brother printer problems it would appear that Brother has specifically designed their printers to block refilling as much as possible.

Brother MFC-420CN - Amidst a tangled web

File:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documents/Brother%20MFC-420CN%20-%20Amidst%20a%20tangled%20web.htm

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/prodde...gon=&langid=EN

[ScottGem]

I checked out a simialr Brother at a store today. Whether you want to call them cartridges or tanks it's the same thing. You don't have both cartridges AND tanks.

Again, a simple test would be to try an OEM cartridge. Have yoU done that? I looked through the site you linked to and don't know what you are trying to demonstrate by that.

[donf]

Jorge,

You are mixing terms with respect to the term "Tank."

The design of your printer is similar to the old Cannon Bubble Jet design. In this process, the ink from the cartridge is drawn into the print head, where it is heated creating a small bubble. Because ink jet paper is made to absorb the ink, the paper wicks the ink from the bubble into the paper.

As to the steps taken by Brother, they are not alone. IBM, Lexmark and Dell are being designed to do the same thing.

First: A company has the right to protect itself from warranty or service claims caused by non qualified ink. That's just good business practice. I would be greatly surprised if Canon and HP don't do the same thing.

Second: Companies recoup the costs associated with Research and Development from the sale of consumable supplies. They have to because the Sales price alone is not enough to cover these costs.

[donf]

Jorge,

"I have tried all of the suggestions presented here before I posted the problem."

How could you have tried all of the items suggested here, if you have not tested with a new factory approved cartridge?

And no, there are no ink jet printers in this printers competitive field that supply a cartridge and an ink resivor or tank. It would cost too much to build and design the printhead.

This print head can only extract the ink from the cartridge and heat it so the paper can wick it onto the paper.

Much more highly developed printers yes, possible. Heck, some even use CMYK arrangements of wax. Do you want an under $200 inkjet or a $4000 professional printer?

[ydiek]

Was about to buy another printer when I sayed to myself, What the FU…CK! This .. HOLES in Brother are not going to win me with this one.

So if you are a Tecno Geek, you can dismantle the printer, get to the U shaped optical sensors green board (The ones that measures the Ink Level) and simply pull out the plug on that board and WALAAA!! After that forget about Low Level Ink message for ever. SCORED!! Brother=0 Me=1

This solution does not solve “NO CARTRIDGE� message. Only solves “NO INK� “REPLACE INK� and “LOW LEVEL INK�

If you are not a Tecno Geek, take the printer to anyone who can and get the job done for less than 20mins, be sure he do not charge more than $30. Give a try, if you are afraid you ruin the printer, what's the worry? Anyway the printer is useless, garbage! Not even the Scanner or Fax works…

GOOD LUCK have a nice day!

Yusef D.
HONDURAS

[ydiek]

OK OK OK OK #23 is very GOOD!! Worked for me for 1 year, now NOTHING seems to work, tried masking tape, electrical tape, liquid paper, black marker, and screen keep displaying INK EMPTY, REPLACE INK. Tried #149 also.

Was about to buy another printer when I sayed to myself, What the FU…CK! This.. HOLES in Brother are not going to win me with this one.

So if you are a Tecno Geek, you can dismantle the printer, get to the U shaped optical sensors green board (The ones that measures the Ink Level) and simply pull out the plug on that board and WALAAA!! After that forget about Low Level Ink message for ever. SCORED!! Brother=0 Me=1

This solution does not solve “NO CARTRIDGE” message. Only solves “NO INK” “REPLACE INK” and “LOW LEVEL INK”

If you are not a Tecno Geek, take the printer to anyone who can and get the job done for less than 20mins, be sure he do not charge more than $30. Give a try, if you are afraid you ruin the printer, what’s the worry? Anyway the printer is useless, garbage! Not even the Scanner or Fax works…

GOOD LUCK have a nice day! :cool:

Yusef D.
HONDURAS

[ydiek]

Never mind the OK OK OK Paragraph I just copy paste this solution I posted earlier in another fourum ;)