I've taken your advice and ordered a used printer from eBay--$99.99 with free shipping. But I'd still like to understand what's going on with this one. Does the presence of high voltage inhibit release of toner from the cartridges? Or does it take the presence of some sort of signal to do it? Clearly it's something that affects all cartridges. I haven't gotten deeply into this thing so I don't really know what's inside but I wonder if it's possible that the vibration it's been exposed to could have shaken an internal connector loose.
Thanks very much for your input, and it would be neat if you can educate me further about how these things work.
