[SirAlec]

Couple of months ago on my recommendation somebody bought a Samsung ML1640. at Rs.4200/- it seemed a steal at that time. The first choice was ML2010 expensive but was refillable even at home, hence cheaper to run. Strange thing was that it was nowhere to be found. Samsung might have found out about that easy refill thingy and hence released this one, cheap to buy. After two and a half months or so my friend regretted and put the whole blame game on me. As the refill toner when loaded still had the red Led on (not ready) and printer was practically frozen. As it was an emergency we bought a second toner anyway. But I decided to teach samsung a lesson for that extra 3000 bucks we had to shed for that extra toner.

With of little bit of research here and there I found out they have put a double lock page counter, one on the toner and a other on the logic board itself (FM93C66 4 bit eeprom made by fairchild).

Always keen on poking into things, on this weekend, i borrowed his printer and decided to go ahead with this hack with an escrow cheque of Rs.4k to my friend.

What follows is my three hours ordeal with the ML1640, as always, well most of the time all went well.

The Bakra Samsung ML1640


The second toner, check the chip, startup toner does not have this. Hence its a double hack, that i will explain later.





Hats off to Samsung for this opening up is so easy (Err! for cleaning I meant), unlike HP this has just two philips screws at the back.



Ahh Ha! locate Mr. Fairchild.


A nifty invention. A jumper soldered to pin 1 and 4 of Mr. Fairchild


After the above stunt the refilled starter cartridge worked like a charm, but my problem was just beginning to start. The 3000 bucks that we spend on a replacement toner was rejected by the printer. Shite!!

With a little bit of more reading here and there, three cups of tea plus a jumbo pack of Lays later, following solution was done.


Located the culprit connector CN5 and CN9


A nifty invention, a make shift jumper made with slicing the original connector cable.


CN9 shorted with the above made jumper. Mr Samsung, we don't even need the CN5, which goes directly to read the toner chip. How cool is that.


CAUTION! Rated PG
This hack is kinda extreme, hence faint hearted please keep out. Or procede at your own risk. You should be aware that you are voiding your printers warranty.
Soldering skill is a must, as its a double layer pcb, you may render the printer useless.
If you bought a ML1640 recently you may also need to reflash the rom with an older one. Ours already had the older version hence it worked.

Fairchild Semiconductor data sheet
fairchild datasheet.pdf

[ashwinsid]

Simply fantastic

[SirAlec]

thanks!! Will update on how to refill the toner.