TIL my old printer gave me exactly 12,000 pages before dying - and that is WAY over its rating

I always thought those page yield numbers on printers were a joke. My HP LaserJet 1020 from 2008 finally gave out last week after hitting 12,000 pages. That's triple the 4,000 page rating it came with. I kept it alive with nothing but duct tape on the paper tray and a random gear I pulled from a broken VCR. Has anyone else had a workhorse like that outlast its specs by this much?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_williams1mo ago

My old Brother laser printer from 2006 finally died last year. It was rated for 1,500 pages per toner cartridge but I got 3,000 out of each one by just shaking the cartridge when it said empty. I'd pull it out, bang it on the desk, put it back in. Got another 500 pages easy. Thing went through two moves, a coffee spill, and one time I dropped it down a flight of stairs. Still printed fine. The only reason I got rid of it was because the power button broke off and I had to plug it into a smart outlet to turn it on and off. That was ridiculous but it worked for another two years.

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corap211mo ago

DUDE same thing with my HL-2270DW. I bought it refurbished in 2012 for like $60 and it's STILL running. I abused the heck out of that toner shaking trick, got at least double the pages out of every cartridge. Mine survived a basement flood somehow, just dried it out for a week and it fired right back up. The plastic on the paper tray cracked years ago but I just tape it back together. These things are absolute TANKS, I don't think I'll ever buy a different brand.

kim.nina1mo ago

Wait did you have to mess with the drum at all or just the toner? I always heard Brother drums were supposed to be the weak point but mine just kept going too.