Whoah, great tip!

For powder ink users, sometimes it works just to take out the ink powder cartridge and thump it a few times to loosen powder from the inside walls of the cartridge. Note: Do Not Inhale.

Hey Man,

I want to thank you for your story on how to override the Brother Inkjet sensor. I hate the Brother “let me con you into buying color ink when you only print black and white” scheme.

You saved me a world of frustration.

Cheers,

Allan

We are having the same problem with our Brother printer, but the cartridges are different (LC51) and have only a tiny window where ink level can be seen. And the damned thing wouldn’t let me print a black only postage label even though my “yellow” was out, aargh. After printing one sheet with a new yellow cart, it decided black was empty, but I can clearly see it’s nearly 1/3 full.

I’ll try your trick and search for more ideas. Thanks for the heads’ up!

Holy smokes, it worked! I had my doubts, but worked great on the MFC 440CN.

On my Canon Pixma MP150 I can just ignore its lies of being out of ink, and I even found out how to turn off the nag screen (it’s in the interface somewhere).

They also put out misinformation about the print heads, claiming they will clog if allowed to go empty. What’s misinformation (aka BS) about it is that, while they may indeed clog if the ink runs out, the print heads are part of the cartridge! And you need a new cart if it’s empty anyway, so it doesn’t matter if the old one is clogged or not. But they make like it’ll cause massive destruction and don’t correct it if someone thinks the heads are part of the machine. What a racket huh!

Works with the DCP-340CW as well. Or is that the same printer? Anyway, thanks for the tip.

The picture you provided was a HUGE help after much searching on the internet to find a solution to this extremely frustrating problem!! It worked…thanks!!!

Thanks!!!! This was a huge help. The cartridge still has plenty of ink. I have tried shaking but that just made a mess. Thank you for the pictures.

Wow. Thank you. This gives this printer at least 2 more weeks of life until I take the baseball bat to it.

I’ve used this thing 20 times in 3 years and every fifth time I am putting new ink into it.

Absolutely insane.

Too bad I didn’t discover you and this thread BEFORE I left my Brother MFU out by the curb 2 nights ago for some other enterprising soul to scoop it and (ahem) try this trick themselves. Now they have a FREE MFU. And I have a new working Lexmark (having been conned yet again) and I am out 150 bucks.

Hi. the other trick for other Brother printers (Mine is a DCP-150C)is to get some plain old “twink” or white correction fluid. Use the white correction fluid to paint over the clear fluid level indicators. Does the same thing and fools the printer into thinking its full of ink.
Thanks

hi.. it worked for my coloured carts but not for the black one. why?!?

If you do not use the color carts at all, would it be safe and cheaper to use water and food coloring in there, along with the covered indicator trick.

using the different fluids will give the MFC something to clean with even though they are not used.

Is this a bad idea?

What a great idea!!!!!!

I have been fuming over my MFC for the last three years, and had a mild anurism every time I got the “out oif ink” message because there was still SO MUCH INK LEFT. It drove me insane toi have to buy more ink. BTW WalMart has the cheapest ink if you need it “right away”.

What I ended up doing is drilling a small hole in the flat area right above the sensor and using an ink refill kit to fill it with ink. Then I use a piece of electrical tape to cover the hole.
One observation: the color ink cartriges are interchangable (at least the LC41s). Before I figured out how to bypass BIG BROTHERS rip-off ways I would put any color available into the slot. Especially important for faxing on a Sunday night when it goes “out of Cyan”.

Two cautions though:

1) Make sure you use lots of newspaper the first few times, the ink can make a massive mess if it spills, and it does!

2) The color quality of the refills is not that accurate, but then again you are probably not printing photos on this piece of garbage.

Thank you so much! This idea saved me tons of money. I used it to fix my brother 115C printer.

hey i have a Brother MFC-465cn and my cyan ran out. i will try this today. ill first try the sharpie trick then the electrical tape. hopefully it works since i havent printed anything for about 3 months because i didnt want to buy the cyan.thanks for the help

so i just tried out the sharpie and it doesnt work. i tried putting electrical tape on the font but it did not work also. then i tried putting it on the front and warpping it around that piece cuz i noticed the sensors go on the sides of the plastic and then it finally worked. worked good.thanks

THANK YOU DRFAULKEN! Brother is really putting the screws to everyone who buys one of their printers. Your webpage is the first place I have seen any kind of “assistance” regarding the fleecing of customers who buy/own these printers & the debacle of color cartridges being empty when one wishes to print in only B&W! BRAVO my friend!

Oh this is so sweet!!! I tried it and it worked perfectly with my LC-51. As a test I used electrical tape on just the Cyan and Yellow – sure enough the message said the Magneta was low. I slapped some tape on it and- VIOLA! The stupid printer went right into clean mode and I got the printer back.

Thanks so much.

Awesome tip! My printer has been unusable for a few weeks because I didn’t want to buy new cartridges for nothing. I really appreciate the help!

P.S. I used this trick on a Brother MFC-465CN

Grab some black nail polish and put it on the the little skinny spine of the cartridge, wait til it dries then chuck it in. You can use electrical tape but it kept coming off for me.

you’re a god! i have had my brother printer (DCP 115c) lying around and useless ever since i run out of just a single ink! your tip just worked so praise to you! XD thank you so much!

Need help for the cartridges in my MFC-6490cw.

The yellow is: LC65HY-Y

any tips for a lexmark z1300 #29 ink cartridge?

Hey guys,

Thank you so much for the idea!!!

Unfortunately I had previously thrown out my colour cartridges (I don’t even want to print I just want to scan and fax).

I took your idea one step further – I filled the little sensor areas with electrical tape.

Now I can scan and fax – I’m not sure if that will quite let me print but problem solved for the time being.

Thank you so much for sharing your idea.

Dave

We just bought a Brother MFC-465cn fax/scanner/printer. Looks real nice, but we printed 1 colour picture and that was it for the colour cartridges. I covered the sensor part of the cartridges with duct tape and wella, it worked!!! THANKS so MUCH!!!

drfaulken, Thank You!! I had a 1940CN which I complained enough to Brother that they sent me this replacement MFC-640CW because I was so tired of the fact that every time I went to send a fax I got the ‘ol “Cyan is empty” (or yellow, etc.) when I hadn’t used the darn think since the last fax I sent. So, I pretty much use this machine for sending faxes or doing an occasional scan (neither which use ink) and I was always getting that very frustrating “replace ink” message. I just got off the phone with Brother because they GUARANTEED me that this unit would still function as a fax/scanner even if ink was out…and guess what…no such luck!! Their only bit of advice for me was to “go out and buy more ink”. So, I got out my electrical tape (per the original poster), covered up my cyan cartridge…and I’m scanning again like a champ. THANK YOU. BROTHER, if you’re monitoring these blogs…get a clue…you are a scam!!!

Oggi la mia stampante mi ha detto “Cyan esaurito”…non si poteva fare niente. Sono andato subito a un negozio e quel colore anche era esaurito….dopo aver letto questo consiglio sono riuscito a stampare!!! Bravo ! Bravo! Bravo!

Thanks!
Now I have one problem solved.
The other problem is when I forget to switch my DCP-115c off than it wakes me up at night with its cleaning noise.

I have a better solution. Simply use a dark colored sharpie and write over the transparent window for the light sensor or on cartridge wall where sensor looks, on all the cartridges even the black one. The benefit is two-fold. First of all it won’t mark the ink as empty when its only half empty (the window on my cartridges is on the halfway mark) and secondly it allows one to go on printing even when one or more cartridges are eventually empty. My all-in-one printer is the Brother MFC-465CN and I have it set to grayscale. My blue is empty and my yellow and magenta are low but my printer doesn’t know it. This will be the very last Brother I ever buy even if its the cheapest and best printer on the market. I have principles.

Brother inkjets mix coloured ink into the black ink when they are printing black.
(This as well as the frequent automatic “cleaning” and the ~11ml of each ink in the cartridges that are initially supplied with the printer are why you can easily be told you have run out of a colour ink without having done any colour printing.)

So putting food colour into the colour cartridges will feed food colouring through your printhead onto your paper. Maybe not good for PH.

If you are sure you do not want to print colour then you could experiment by putting generic BULK INK specifically made for your Brother printer into each colour cartridge. I am not sure how to get bulk ink into a Brother cartridge.

Gotta luv yer Brudda!
SNARL

Just wanted to offer my thanks as well.

A reminder to those with other printer models:

What’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander. It’s possible Brother has moved the sensor on newer printers or developed some other way to thwart this trick.

So you may want to search the comments to see if somebody else with your printer has had success.

If you do not have the same model printer, you can’t justifiably expect this trick to work, but the idea should be the same (tricking the printer into thinking the cartridges is full). So for example, someone in the comments above suggested wrapping the cart in black garbage bag material, then cutting a hole where the ink comes out. Sounds like that would work, but it might be safer to experiment with a sharpie coloring the exterior of the cart until you find the “sweet spot” where the sensor is looking.

Once again, thanks to the people who are spreading the word.

Thank you for this!

I love you all – thank you so much for this. I have just started a business from home and haven’t been able to print for weeks. This was my last ditch attempt before I slung the (brand new) Brother MFC 260C out of the window. I have had it a matter of weeks and the black cartridge ran out. I had a whole load of replacement ones (OEMs) so thought I was sorted – oh no, by the time I’d tried the third new replacement black cartridge I was in despair!

I tried the white marker trick on my cartridge as I didn’t have a black marker pen handy. My cartridge is slightly different to the pix above – just a tiny window of plastic showing. Painted the front of it – still didn’t work. Looked at where the sensor was (needed a torch) and realised it went right round the plastic column. Painted ALL THREE SIDES of the transparent window/column on the cartridge and it works!!!!

Yippee. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you for the excellent idea! To make this work with a Brother MFC-240C I had to cut a square of the colored cartridge label off and push this into the cutaway in the back.

The sensor on this model reads through from one side of the clear area to the other so you have to cover the sides. Sharpie marker did not work for this model either, it seemed to be able to sense the color. I was about to give up and throw this printer out until I read Betzalel’s post above suggesting using the colored label of the ink cartridge itself.

Works!! on MFC-465CN using LC51BK, LC51Y, C, M

I got Near Empty warning and shows about 10~20% remaining level on LCD. But when I check the inks, they looks like more than 30% left.

I just put a small paper tape, 1cm x 0.5cm size,
on the plastic window’s front and 2 sides all around together.

That’s it. for 4 inks, I put 4 paper tapes.
MFC asked if I changed Black ink, I pressed YES.

Now all ink levels are 100% left.
Later if I really can not print anything, then I’ll replace only LC51BK because I don’t print colors. Mostly I just want to use Fax and fax report. LC51BK compatible is about $5 which is good enough for this Fax machine.

And if you don’t use colors,
don’t forget to the printer properties setting to “Grayscale”. and “Pain Paper”.
otherwise, MFC still use color inks to produce even black print outs.

MFC 3240C with this one the black tape didn’t completely work it seemed to work and then got upset again so i thought fuck it i’ll just wrap a cut off piece of plastic bag around the cartridges and shove them back in, NOW it’s happy ha ha! love this trick!!!

Well, I’ve tried all your ideas and I still get “near empty cyan”. It’s even a Brother cart!! Any other ideas? It’s the DCP-115C.

Guys, my MFC-215C has the same optical ink level system. However, 2 of my sensors are dead. On this printer, if you remove the cartridge and check the levels with the menu option, it won’t show any reading (all the level boxes are clear). In the defective ink colors (black and yellow) the level is still indicated as Low (one black box in the first level). This indicates a defective sensor as it should not read anything at all. You do not have to reboot the printer, the readings happen in real time. You can exit and re-enter the cartridge ink level menu if it doesn’t refresh quick enough. So in my case, the bloody sensors are dead, always reading lowest level of ink. Luckily the printer still prints but keeps warning about low ink levels. Pretty cheap.

you are awesome!!! It worked on the brother MFC-685CW- save me some headaches!!!!!

Thank you all for your postings and help. The electrical tape worked like magic on my Brother MFC9420 printer.

Thank-you SO much. I had an important deadline to print documents and of course, beeping started indicating out of ink. Which actually of course I was not, still 1/3 full…anyway, THANK YOU. I like this printer but this issue is a serious design flaw.

xo

Hi, thanks for the sharpie tip, however with my Brother MFC 440CN I tried the sharpie but it didn’t work. So I will try the black tape and get back to you all. Thanks again, I’ve been trying to figure out this problem forever.

i may have posted this below but it doesn’t seem that way so I put it here as well

from brother website

If the unit were to continue printing, print jobs and cleaning cycles would suck air from the empty cartridge and damage the print head

TheTrekHippy wrote:
“…I don’t know if it’s truth or just an excuse.”

Calling it an excuse would be putting it too mild. A flat out lie is more like it.

My other printer can still print if one or more of the color carts are empty. I’ve done this for extended periods of time over the course of several years and have never had any problems with the heads being damaged.

The only sucking going on is Brother trying to suck the money out of our wallets.

Same problems and complaints as everyone else. I have the MFC-440CN, which I’ve always referred to as “the Mother Fucking Copier” due to it’s great user experience, with the ink in particular.

This technique worked for me with the MFC-440CN / LC-51 cartridges. The key thing was to make sure the tape covered the sides of the ink level window, not just the part that’s parallel to the back of the cartridge.

The technique is also outlined on the following page, which has photos of the LC-51 cartridges and illustrates why it’s key to cover the sides of the ink level window:
http://www.robotification.com/component/content/article/7-hardware/35-trick-mfc-440cn-printer-into-thinking-its-ink-cartridges-are-full.html

Thankyou so much for this…cyan was “empty” just as I needed to print something..of course it is Sundayand the shops are closed. So thanks again for sharing this.
By the way I used red electrical tape on the DCP-135C.
X

Hoorrayyy!!! the black electrical tape did the trick for my DCP-135C…
for the days this useless junk kept on nagging me to replace the magenta and cyan cartridges…
while still half-filled…. by the way my printer has been converted to continuous or bulk ink sytem… so now I have years ahead of me to use this printer without the worries of consuming expensive original inks from brother!!! thanks a lot guys you nailed it!!!

danm it worked thanks a bunch just sharpied mine and the danm thing worked

Thankyou so much wow i cant believe i am able to print now. I have a brother DCP-150C and putting white correction fluid really helped. This is a life saving moment lol

Awesome tip!! I have a completely differnt Brother and it still worked.

thanks a ton!

Thanks mate, a complete pain in the backside the MFC665CW has been since my brother purchased it… this will allow us to use it until we exhaust every scrap of value from its cartridges… small victory i know..

Cheers champ.

Awesome!!! Thanks for figuring this out. This was such a waste of cash and time

Works like a charm…thanks for the tip. I’ll never purchase another Brother printer as long as I live. They should be sued for not putting some type of disclaimer on their fucking box when you buy the damn thing.

Thank you SOOOO much! Cutting out the label and using it for the 240C worked WoNDERS! I was about to lose it! I was trying to print out papers for my doctorate when this thing started acting stupid! You guys saved me.

I have just successfully done this on my MFC-260C. The cartridge for this looks more similar to that described here http://www.robotification.com/component/content/article/7-hardware/35-trick-mfc-440cn-printer-into-thinking-its-ink-cartridges-are-full.html . First of all I tried a dark green vivid marker around the plastic bit which did not work. Secondly I used blue electrical tape (did not have black) which did not work either. But then a put another *layer* of blue electrical tape on (and making sure to cover even more plastic area) and it seemed to work fine! As for the sensors picking up the actual colour inside I somehow doubt they would do that?

The black tape trick also works on the Brother MFC-665CW cartridges. You don’t have to remove the cover to the cartridge: just apply slivers of black take to the small indented area (less than 1/2 inch wide) containing tne “spine” . Cover both the recessed parts and the spine.
The ink status indicator immediately shows the previously empty cartridges as full, and the printer immediately starts to print again.

This was a GODSEND. This works great on the MFC-240C also. I used the sticker from the label. Kudos to DRFAULKEN; my only complaint about this printer was the frequent need for new ink cartridges. Thank goodness I found this hint after only one set of new color cartridges.

I must say thank you!! for the wonderful and justifiable trick.

I have a MFC-465N, got it 6 months ago, never really prints anything, may be 5? Most work it does is CLEANING ITSELF everyday!

Until one day, i really need to print something, i got this msg “ink low, and will stop printing if JUST ONE of the inks runs out”!!

So I thought there is got to be a command to disable the self-cleaning feature–NO. And the next option is to search for cheap inks, but no matter how cheap it is, it still eats up the ink by self cleaning.

Luckily, I found this site and all the people providing these enhanced tips, I tried a couple of times, didnt really work for the first few times, I guess some people already repeat the tips, since there is no pic, i will try again:

1. Make sure your dark color sticker is big enough to cover the entire spine including the left and right sides of the transparent spine–not just the area of the spine

2. Need to clean it after you are done installing the cartridges

May be i am not smart enough, but it finally works.

Cant tell you how much I appreciate, especially in an economy like this… the way Brother sets this up is REALLY REALLY BAD

Wish everyone found this site.

IT WORKS!!! THANK YOU!! (By the way, green electricians tape works aswell!)

Well, i was in the same boat as the rest of you and was about to fuckin lose it on my MFC-240C printer. Well i did the trick with the cartridge label on the little window and now i can scan…WTF why would you need a full array of all the inks just to scan…

First and last time i buy a brother.

Thank so very much for the help!!!!!!

thank you.

thank you.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!

MFC-6490 all-in-one. electrical tape a success.
thanks.

Saved my ass on this my dad bought a new printer and gave this old 5440cn to us…found cartridges at ingrabber.com for 4.95 a piece They work great btw..we need for small home office…screw the color printing…THANK YOU!

Thankyou thankyou thankyou… dark blue elctrical tape onthe spine worked first go on the so called empty yellow ink cartridge in my MFC 215C… thanks heap man.. you rock! now i can fax and get a report…

awesome! tried it. worked! you just saved my life!!

I just tried this using only a permanent marker on my MFC-465CN. It isn’t working, so I’m about to dig around for some electrical tape.

Anyways, I’ve totally lost faith in the Brother name. What a freaking scam. I’m pissed to say the least.

I don’t know why printers have to be such frustrating things ):[
Just went through the process of having my DCP-150C tell me I’d run out of ink just as I started to print out a technical manual PDF.
It’s in Black and white, but my cyan had run out, so everything stopped.
Didn’t want to go all the way into town, just for a cartridge I’m not using, so did a search and found this site.
I initially tried to block out the window with a black ‘Felt Tip Pen’ (as we call them here in OZ), but that didn’t work until I had also painted over the window area with ‘Liquid Paper’ (another Ozzie colloquialism).
Having sorted that I went for lunch, but heard the printer stop.
I had run out of paper!
No problem, reload more paper and go finish my coffee.
Came back and the red light was on, run out of paper again, so I checked the page number last printed to get an idea of how much paper to put in, loaded up and went off again.
When I came back 10 minutes later, THE RED LIGHT WAS ON AGAIN!
NO PAPER!?
Now I know that every time I try to be clever with these damn printers, they screw up somehow.
I’m trying to print a 100 page document, and I’ve set it to print in reverse order all ODD pages in collated format, so all I have to do at the end of the run is turn the block over and print all EVEN pages running forward.
So what’s happened?
Everytime it stopped, either for ink or paper, the damn thing went back and started printing from the beginning!
I’ve now got THREE manuals!!!!!
And I’m probably going to run out of ink before it actually finishes!

hey “brothers”

this is one of the best solutions I ever found on the internet after thousand of searches. but even the cartridge itself provide you a piece of tape on the other side of it. try it, it is nearly loose. thanks thanks thanks

Thanks this worked for my MFC-490CW as well.

The ink cartridges are a little different, but you just have to slide a thin piece of electrical tape under the thin plastic strip.

I found that if you use a common cigarette lighter and held the extreme tip of the flame to the ink window, it causes a black residue from the combustion that blocks the light really well, make sure you don’t hold it too long or you might melt something (I didn’t have a problem with that tho in a Brother MFC240-C)

I found a small strip of aluminium foil is good enough to cover the eye of my Brother cartridge. No need to open the case, just insert teh strip with something roundish, a q-tip works fine.

I was ready to throw the whole machine in the trash. Numerous calls to Brother did not help. They don’t give a damn. Your suggestion did the trick. Thanks much.

it worked with a silver marker on the LC61 series cartridges! I just colored in the clear plastic spot…& now it shows it as full ink! Thanks a lot!

Great…Great…Great….

so frustrating…

but this worked great on MFC240C Brother

multi printer…

Thanks a lot…

hell to the yes,it worked!!!!!!!!!

Help! Where EXACTLY do I put the black tape on the mfc-490cw?

FUCK YOU BROTHER!

I’ve bought two replacements for each color already and have printed only like 5 pages altogether with some small graphs or colored text. The fucking cleaning scheme is a rip-off!!

Thanks to you man, I was just about to break something inside the printer to justify buying me a new one!

So MANY THANKS, once again!

FUCK YOU BROTHER! MWUAHAHAHAHA

My 465CN tells me that I have no black cart installed or that the ink door is not closed. Think that the blackout will fix this, too?

Thank you. works with black electrical tape on my dcp 135c

I have two (one home, one office) MFC-240c printers and the newer one for my office was giving me the “no cartridge” message in regards to my cyan cart. I took one of those stickers for labeling file folders, colored it black with a perm. marker then cut it to the width of the clear tab on the back of the printer cart and put it on and then darn thing worked like a charm!
For those with the MFC-240c – the spot you need to cover is on the back side of the cartridge, directly between the peg (top) and hole (bottom). It’s the inset part there, and you need to cover BOTH sides of the little tab inside the insert.

Thank you OP for this, I would have been running 45 minutes to the store without it!

Oh Joy!! you and black electrical tape are the greatest. It worked perfectly on the LC51 black that kept telling me there is no cartridge when I had just replaced a brand new one. As for the Brother website help, you can forget that.
Thanks so much.

DUDE!
this is an amazing trick!
tried it on the MFC 465-CN, it works great!
now i can scan and stuff without worrying about the ink being empty!
THANKS ALOT

Thanks!
Worked like a charm! Take that you conniving printer manufacturers!

THANK YOU! I have a Brother MFC-665CW. There is a small spot at the front of the cartridge where the clear plastic ink holder shows through for the sensor to monitor. I just cut a small piece of the label on the cartridge off and stuck it in that area around the little protrusion. Just finished making 5 black and white copies which was my whole objective and it worked.

I just did this on a MFC685CW and it worked perfectly. The cartridges I just spent $100 for at Staples are in my drawer until it really runs out. Thanks.

YOU ARE MY GOD
You just saved my day! :)
I’m surprised this tip isn’t posted everywhere

I know it’s been awhile since you originally posted this, but thanks any way. The electrical tape idea just saved me a major problem with paid postage labels that were stuck in my browser with no way to print them. Had to tape the magenta cartridge so I could print the labels with my new generic black ink cartridge. $6 for 3 black carts and that included shipping. Beats the heck out of the $25 for one cart price at OfficeMax…

I have this problem with my 5460CN and read about this taping thing. I just can’t figure out where the tape goes! Tried about everyplace I think. Anyone have a photo to show me where the tape goes?

AMAZING!it worked. hee hee feel so smug having got one over on the brothers. Thank you so much!

You are funny but smart. I was having these same problems. I have a intellifax 1840c all in one. i shut mine down one day to keep it from cleaning so much, which that didn’t help, it still would run the cleaning process. So when i turned it back on a few days later, it want do anything, it says unable to initilize, routine maintenance see chapter 1 or something like that. I had purchased so many ink cart. from ebay and had to return them all. I even took the machine half apart trying to get to the printer head, but couldn’t remove it to clean it. I purchased another printer, wonder how long that one is going to work, before it start acting up. can you tell me what could be the problem with the old printer? I wish i would have found this out years ago. thanks.

fucken awsome man – just did this to my DPC-560CN and works a charm.

Hey I have a 440cn mfc and the cart.s are flat like a deck of cards, however I have the same issue once a month it seems. I dont use color either but low and behold the colors seem to be the only cart.s that go bad, will this trick work with them cart.s anyone? If you can help I’d appreciate it I’m going broke filling this brother.

Holy $hit!!! You are da man. Same crap with MFC-684cw. And I don’t even print in B&W, and damn thing won’t let me fax anything. I’m going to try this trick tonight. I will also post about this on my clickglide dot com site :)

Thanks drfaulken!

Your post inspired me to check this solution in our brother 9840cdw. In that model the sensor beam goes through a part in the cartridge that has transparent plastic on top of it. You can spot it easily if you compare the colour cartridges next to each other. That spot will be yellow in the yellow cartridge, cyan in the cyan one and so on. Just cover it with something that will bounce the light beam back and presto! Things are rolling again.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank You!! I too have a Brother MFC-465cn (uses LC51 cartridges) that would NOT print if it was out of any color. But thank you to you tip and a tiny piece of electrical tape…I am good to go!! I was so frustrated, because I had broken one if my “empties” apart, and it most definately was NOT! Again Thanks!!!

Dude you ARE the man! Thanks so much, you saved my ***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Same prob with DCP-330C
Tape on the spine fixed it, thanks heaps for the great tip. :)

This worked well on my DCP-340CW. The catridge is a slightly different design but black paper stuck over the spine worked just the same. Saved me a lot of trouble.

Thanks for this genius trick. It worked as a charm on my DCP-110. Used Gaffa tape :-) Dont say Gaffa cant fix everything :-)

Thanks! :D

Soooo Happy… This procedure also worked perfectly on the MFC 240. Thanks so much for the post.. :)))

This is great!! I printed 30 more pages with an “empty” black cart!! bastards,… after the 30, the printing started to get lighter then (really) empty, blank page empty… put another taped “empty” in, (I have a pile of them) … had to force 2 cleaning cycles before the page wasn’t blank … havent bought new carts for months.. eat this Brother bastards.

Works fine with Brother DCP-750CW using prcel tape.

Great tip!!

This is an awesome tip! Thank you so much. I was in dire need of this tip.

With the LC61 ink, take the cart out, push it together to see the window, then use a silver sharpie to color both sides of the window, replace and print!!!

My Google search was “Brother printer fuck” and this was the only result!!

Hey – you ROCK
Ive been trying to fix my printer for weeks
Bro MFC 210c
covered my cayene with DUCT TAPE
because I did not have any black elect tape
it immediately told me to close cover
and it cleaned
and Im good to go
Thanks so much
you ROCK!!!!!

i’m so frustrated with my brother dcp 150-c. your tricks did not work, i’ve tried it all… why?

BRILLIANT!! The electrical tape worked on my Brother MFC 420CN. Thanks for the great tip!

Geez! There are SSSOOOO many posts on this page!!!

Why am I only seeing this a week after I spent $75 on MORE effing INK!!!

Just 2 days ago, I sent ALL of my old “empty” carts to my sons school where they turn them in for $$!!!

I am DEF posting this on my FB wall!!!!

Now to fix my prob of the dang 440cn not cleaning itself…have ALL NEW ink carts and the test pg comes out like crap….the black is faded and chopped up and the color looks ok to me, but the test page is missing lots of the little squares???? Hmm….what to do?

About a year ago when I needed to scan something I got this OUT OF CYAN error before and I knew the ink was new so I just assumed the printer had a broken ink sensor.

Then today I had to fax something and this damn thing wouldn’t let me. So right before I was going to throw it out the window, I decided to Google this issue and sure enough this website was the #1 listing.

Thanks.

Great tip! I got a bit upset for a moment when I noticed that I only had white electrician tape home. But that worked fine to.
We will save a lot of money!
Thanks again!

I have a MFC 620 and also have the same problem with ink not being empty but telling me I have to replace the cartridge. I have tried using the black electrical tape but have had no luck. I am pretty sure I am putting it in the right place as I have referred to your photo. Any suggestions please??

I have a MFC 440CN the ink is LC-51 I replaced the ink and throw out almost a new black all other colors replaced also. Colors print fine but the black still doesn’t work. I cleaned so many times with no success. I shows all are full and nothing happens with the black. There must be an easy way. It has been well over a month. Can you help me PLEASE.

no it is a full cartridge just put in

Oh, this post is about tricking your printer into thinking that the cartridge is full if it is really empty.

Contact Brother, they may have a better answer for you.

Oh joy…I called brothers and they took me through the steps of a mass cleaning process which is to: hit menu black menu in rapid succession then hit numbers 76, it should say cleaning all, then hit 3, it should read Power_P all then hit the color that you are having a problem with. Once this is complete it should work. IT DID NOT WORK AFTER SEVERAL TRIES. They told me that I would have to buy their ink which cost 2 legs. The ink I brought worked all this time it still works except black. They told me that I would have to buy their ink and then get my machine serviced by a company called Imaging Experts in Tampa Florida which will cost me more than what I want to pay is what the lady told me. Do anyone have suggestions before I start twittering my issue?

I will try it and see what happens

Thank you for sharing this tip. It was highly beneficial!

Thanks Brother! for trying to F*CK me during tax season. The Sharpie trick works great, thanks for posting it Dave!

I WILL NOT be buying another Brother printer or HP for that matter. But then again, who sells printers without trying to f*ck you on the ink? or who is print friendly (allows you to print in a grayscale only mode when you are out of color ink?

thankssss it worked on my DCP-120C

Brilliant! I just ran into this problem trying to scan and email info to a friend. I have a MFC-495CW. Brother has put a bar in front of the area where the sensor checks. I cut narrow strips of black tape and applied over. the tape has to be applied loosely so that it can be pushed in a bit or the cartridge will not go in completely and will not allow it to be locked in place.

Thanks for the quick fix!

Thanks!! Just sold something on ebay.. went to print the label.. only to find out “empty” u rock!

Thank you so much for this tip! I used electric tape over the ink sensor on my color cartridges since I only ever print black and white, and it worked like a charm! You’re the best!

@ Casey – Mine does this every effing time I replace a cart. I have to unplug for 5 seconds, and as long as the cart is properly in place, it recognizes it once it’s plugged back in. Piece of crap.

DUDE!! Thank you sooooo friggin much! I am so happy! I won’t have to buy that damn color ink anymore!!! :)

Thank you!

You saved my life, needed to print out for urgent visa application.

Thank you so much. You help me a lot. ^^

Many thanks, it saved my life ! ^^

Brother MFC 3360c fooled with the black tape! Just be sure to cram it into the slots and double check the levers that hold the carts in.

Thanks man. It’s height of summer, I’m stuck indoors with no open windows trying to fix this piece of shit for my mother in law. I am already covered in magenta ink and not happy. Great tip.

Brilliant, thank you.

We have the brother mfc-640cw.

Besides requiring four full ink cartridges, it has another wonderful feature:

According to brother customer service, once we begin printing a fax, and then discover, say, that it has been sent to us in error, or that we don’t need it, or that it is 500 pages long, whatever, there is no way to delete it.

The fax must be printed out in full before any further faxes can be printed.

Is there a hack for this also?

I’m definitely in the never-again category of brother customers.

I love you. Great tip, worked like a charm.

Oh my god thank you so much. Mine was doing the same thing with the yellow. I just needed to print black and white shipping labels. Your tips works great. It now say that the yellow is full and print black and white with no problem. Thanks :)

Add me to the list of successes with duct tape around the clear tube on the LC51* carts for the MFC-465CN. FYI, it seems that once I pulled one cart to “treat”, the Bro got confused, and insisted other carts that I had not touched were not even installed, so I just did them all ;-}

This trick does raise the question of whether there will be any easy way to see how low it is getting without yanking the tape, and re-doing it? I am thinking a piece of shrink wrap tubing (from Radio Shack) slit down the side would make that a lot easier. Will try that the next time…

JABK (Just another Brother keeper)

yippee skip! green lab tape worked on my MFC 885CW. Can cover the area, hope to get lucky that when the tape gets punctured when you shove it into the slot that it won’t puncture too much. Or use the Q tip to wrap around the clear window more carefully.

Thanks so much! I had been limping along, trying to figure how to get things done without printing.

This worked on the Brother MFC 420CN. The Sharpie didn’t work for me but the colored sticker from the front of the cartidge did. all color cartriges read completely full after applying the sticker aroung the back.

Thanks again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The ink cartridges for my MFC-240C look completely different from this, and I tried blocking out the only part where there is a transparent window to the liquid ink with a sharpie, but to no avail, it still says the ink is empty. At least that one lets me scan with the ink empty, but I don’t need fucking color to print a shipping label and that’s all I ever want it for, I never print in color, and frankly I don’t care if the color heads do get clogged, and the color cartridges run out way faster than the black ink does.

Hi Sara,

I haven’t experienced the “out of paper” problem you described, but I also just power my printer off by unplugging it. I think the printer attempts to do a few things at shut down that I don’t care about any more, like cleaning the color print heads.

a fuck’n GOD, DrFaulken you are a fuck’n GOD.

Thanks for this info; I have a Brother MFC 210C, and was just about at the end of my rope. I’ve been using the off market brands because like others mentioned, replacing all the carts with Brothers ink cost about half the price of a new printer! Several days ago, my printer started acting up with the “not in cartridge” message, and replace this and that. And of course visiting Brother’s website, was no help. After spending hours yesterday and today trying to figure it out, I came across this site, tried the electric tape, and it worked like a charm. I’ve wasted loads of ink over the years of owning this thing, Big Brother should be ashame of themselves.

thanks for posting. worked first try.

I thank you very much for this information.I have to scan and email a document to my home office every night.Friday night I got the dreaded yellow ink is empty message.The other 2 colors wee also low.Screwed around with the menu until it allowed me to scan. I was thinking I would have to go buy ink that I do not need in order to do a scan. Put the electrical tape over the windows and voila–full cartridges on my MFC-440CN.

Love you for this!

Thanks! Metalic electric tape worked great on my MFC-440CN! I also found out that if I took out my black ink cartridge before the “black empty” notice appeared, and replaced it with the same cartridge, the printer asked me if I put in a “new cartridge”? I pressed 1 for yes. Next thing I know my black cartridge reads “full”

Rock ON! I don’t need the color cartridges, I just need to scan, fax, copy, and print B&W.

My cartridges don’t look like yours, my machine is a MFC-490CW, and I don’t have any electrician’s tape, so I inserted a little square of a post-it note where it looked like the machine would read the ink level, and that tricked the stupid machine just fine.

Man, I hate it when machines think they are smarter than we are.