Samsung CLP-680 and compatible toners

[DavR]

Hi all,

 

So I'm very cross with the above printers at the moment.

 

We have four of these around the school, ageing, but they're on an extended warranty. One of them failed, the engineer couldn't fix it, so they just sent us out a new one. Bonus, thinks I. Wrong. I've just come to change the toners from the freebie starters it came with to our high yield budget compatible ones, and it won't have it! Complains the toners are not compatible.

 

It seems Samsung have slipped some verification in their firmware to only accept genuine toners, which we can't afford. This is galling as I have other printers exactly the same that will accept the cheap toners.

 

There is an option to up/downgrade the firmware on these devices, but of the two I've found, one downgrade does nothing, and the other won't load, must be too many steps back.

 

Anyone got any ideas or experience with these? Tips and tricks to bypass the verification, or achieve the necessary firmware downgrade.

 

Thanks!

[DavR]

Just in case anyone was watching this question, or someone runs into the same problem... fixed this today.

 

Never did get the firmware downgrades working in the end, it seems you can't roll back beyond a certain point, I suppose to stop you removing the 'original toner only' check they instigated. So I got drastic.

 

I still had the carcass of the old Samsung CLP-680 lying around for parts, so if I couldn't downgrade the firmware, could I just swap the newer ROM it lives on with an older one? Answer, yes, and it's not as difficult as you may think. Take off the side panel, and just swap the mainboard (newer firmware) with an older mainboard (older, more open, firmware). Quite a few push plugs, but only four screws.

 

Warranty probably invalidated, and printer registering incorrect serial number and page count, but it's halved the printing costs for this device