State of printer ink
This is about a hypothetical story, in which I wanted to print some music sheets to play for trombone. Of course, what always happens when you need somthing urgently:
The printer shows that it is out of ink.
I have a bunch of printer cartridges and replace the empty ones.
The replaced ones do not work and are not recognized as correct cartridges.
Sure, it makes sense that the printer has a chip to see that the correct ink color is inserted in the cartridge.
But I bought this printer - a Canon TS8050 - after the old one a Canon Pixma MG 5750 was given to someone else. I still had cartridges though and assumed they were compatible. They are not - but not for technical reasons. The TS8050 requires the 57x cartridge series, while the old one needed 55x numbers.
The cartridges
Cartridge security chip and how to get around it
The difference is the chip at the bottom of the cartridge, by which the printer identifies the new parts. However, one could possibly take the chip from the legit empty one which is to be replaced - and attach it to the unusable other series.
This eventually works very well, so that I do have quite some routine in it, but I hate doing it every time, because the whole reason of this was, that we had leftovers which are unusable for the average person and Canon (as well as all other printer suppliers) just tries to create the worst product to increase cashflow (just like Epson, HP and so on).
I am using a small screwdriver to remove the chip, cut off the plastic top from the chip of the full cartridge and replace the old one. Of course, I always need to have a matching old one at hand. This can be very hard, as some cartridges do have a very tiny one glued to the cartridge, which breaks when removed. So one should keep the old working chips from the empty ones as well..
The relevant chip of a Canon cartridge
Printing
Finally, I replaced 3 cartridges and can print my stuff now. After 2 pages, the printer stops again.
NO PAPER!
Well okay - I hate printers, they always need something and never just work.
Of course, the above is just a story about a dystopia we are obviously living in and nothing of the above was done by myself or is recommended for others.