Brother LC406 refill

blue_lazer

Getting Fingers Dirty
Joined
Dec 29, 2022
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Printer Model
Brother HL-L3290CDW
I am considering buying the Brother MFC-J5855DW as it can print 11 x 17, uses pigment ink, and the price is comparable to Epson's wide format printers. I was looking into how to refill the cartridges to save money. I don't see any refillable cartridges or resetters for sale online.

Someone told me that the DRM on most Brother printers works by the printer remembering the serial number of the chips that were just used, but once you replace the cartridges it no longer remembers the previous cartridges used. So it only prevents you from removing depleted cartridges and putting them back in, but I will need 2 sets of cartridges. I can't find an online guide or video mentioning or confirming this though.

I found this thread from r/printers on Reddit where someone mentioned that the trick is to refill the cartridges when they are about half full.
Now my first question is, if I use the latter technique, how does that work? I know the printer works by transferring ink from the cartridges into internal tanks. Does the printer not track how much ink is in the cartridges, but rather use a sensor to detect whether it is empty or not? Or does it work another way?

For those who have a printer that uses LC406 cartridges, what technique do you use for refilling?
 
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