Printers

I have a Pantech laser printer that surprisingly works well for my purposes. Cartridges are page-limited to 1,600.

That’d be all well and good if I was printing A4 or letter, but my journal/calendar/binder is A5 for ease of carrying.

Half-pages == full pages as far as the cartridge is concerned.

Anyone aware of new chips and/or workarounds for these cartridges to make them appear usable to the printer?

Most printing is for my own reference anyway, so even if the last few pages are imperfect, nothing wrong with that.

Had a 300 page PDF that I wanted a paper version of to dog-ear, highlight, and study at length, but that’s a good 1/5 of the cartridge.

I'm looking for a new laser printer for a small office but I don't know what to get

I don't know what to trust around online reviews but am looking for something that will be as reliable and durable as possible for a small office that will print a couple dozen pages on most days, and less so on the others

I'd rather spend above average just to have it be reliable and durable, as stated above. If it could be on the smaller size it would be preferable since space is a concern

So I thought about asking here for recommendations. Thank you

cross-posted from: https://derp.foo/post/291129

This is a (quite long, LOL :D) tutorial I wrote on the subject and I believe it covers most user scenarios, so it uses safe methods (known to work in generic scenarios, when the printer's manufacturer and model are unknown). I also tried to write it as plain (simple) as I possibly could, so that even regular users (users that are not tech wizards, but can find their way around a computer and can probably install a distro like Ubuntu on a PC) can configure the Linux print server and add the shared printer on a Windows install.

You can download the tutorial in PDF and DOC from here or here. Also, here are the plain (unarchived) PDF and DOC files.

I hope this tutorial helps users that have given up using their old (but working) printers, just because they don't have x64 (64-bit) Windows drivers :).

Unfortunately, this printer doesn't have support for x64/64-bit Windows OSes (only x86/32-bit Windows drivers), but the Xerox Phaser 3117 does, so you can use the 3117's drivers on any x64 Windows OS :) (Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11). You can download the drivers from the following links: Download, Mirror.

I've also included a PDF/DOC that explains in detail how to install the drivers, so that the printer works. Follow them exactly as they are written and the printer should work ;).

I did this fix a few weeks ago and thought I'd share it :). There are sites from where you can download the appropriate files and dumps, but here is everything in one place.

This tutorial requires you to be handy with a screwdriver and a soldering iron (the patch is in hardware), so it's not for literally everyone. If you're somewhat tech savvy and know your way with a soldering iron, you can try this tutorial :).

The beauty of this hardware patch is that it works with any version of the firmware on the Xerox Phaser 3100MFP, regardless of the input/output ports as well. But, just in case, I've also included the patched versions of the firmwares in the archive (2.07t and 3.01). You can upgrade the firmware via FTP or with the Xerox Companion Suite. My version of the printer didn't have an Ethernet port, so I had to use the Xerox Companion Suite, which didn't work on Windows 10... maybe I should've tried on Windows Vista or 7 (the suite is intended to be used on Vista), but thought of this later on, when I already did the hardware patch, LOL :D.

I've also included videos in the archive that cover soldering/desoldering SMD components with a regular soldering iron, as well as a video on how to disassemble the Xerox Phaser 3100MFP.

The archive with everything included can be downloaded from here. Also, here are the plain (unarchived) PDF and DOC files (they included more mirrors for the archive at the end of the documents).