In message , Dave writes
The general rule seems to be the cheaper the printer the less ink it comes with, it could hardly make sense for a £39 printer to come with £80 worth of cartridges, nobody would buy replacements.
What is there to fill?
MBQ
Not all machines have combined drum and toner carts, especially cheap colour ones. The toner arrives in a tub and it has to fill the works in the machine that spread it out before it gets to the transfer bit.
I''ve been re-filling "non-refillable" toner cartridges for many years now. I usually get 2 additional full fills from a cartridge before the scraper compartment of the cartridge gets too full and feeds back onto the drum giving dark streaks on the print.
I based my recent laser purchase on it's refillable value and went for a
Pete
-- http//
refilling an empty cartridge and using some of the toner that's in the cartridge to "fill the machine" are not the same thing.
(though thanks for the links, I've been looking for someone who will refill my toner cheaply)
tim
You must be lucky
I went into my local one (which isn't actually that local) and they wanted to charge more to refill my empty cartridge than I can buy a new branded item by mail order and only a couple of quid less (so far) than the cheapest over the counter place. I tried explaining this to them and they told me I was talking out of my arse (metaphorically).
They won't be getting any of my custom, their refilled prices are far too high.
tim
In message , tim.... writes
What's happened to Nightjar, isn't replacement cartridges one of his latest money making schemes ?
He could do a bit of subtle self advertising here
Thanks, that looked like the issue. Bought a new one (£22 Amazon) and no streaks now.
And yes, I had refilled the old one a couple of times. And no, I hadn't dismantled it to clear out the waste toner. Not sure how dismantle-able the cartridge is but I bet it's a messy job. And probably unhealthy given the minute size of the toner particles.
There are various kits that can, for example burn holes that can then be plugged, for emptying and filling, without having to dismantle. I also found in the case of our HP3330, that the two parts of the cartridge were hinged together with 2 small steel pins, which could be pushed out , from the inside, if small holes were made behind them with a hot nail, so as to get at the back of them with a needle.
The screws holding the 'used' reservoir cover could then be got at.
Refills generally don't tell you about the 'used' toner - but, unless you have been printing lots of block black, 'used' means nearly all of the toner - so you soon run out of space if you don't empty the reservoir (some have been noted to put the toner back... Actually I used to have a copier that continuously returned the 'used' toner back to a filler hopper. Those were the days...)
Often the used toner reservoir gets full on one side only, so you can sometimes get rid of lines just by shaking from side to side to redistribute. On the other hand, I have found that the drums and the various sealing strips do not long outlive the original batch of toner: this is especially true of cheap ones, which often seem to have very little coating on the drum at all. Once these have started to deteriorate you can get lines however carefully you clean everything. (The other classic way of getting a line is if someone puts used paper back, with the staples still in. They can be very expensive staples!)
Mind you, once you've sorted out the toner nicely, the next thing to go is the fuser unit. And they 'really' don't want you to be able to replace them. HP wouldn't even admit that it could be done until I read them the instructions out of their own service manual! Mind you, I still haven't got around to actually buying the replacement... Ah, tis the throw away society...
S
Doesn't apply to all HP printers. On the HP Laserjet 4/4M/4+/4M+/5, it's trivial. Open the plastic flap at the back, remove two screws, take it out. Reverse the process to replace.
Hmmn, the Samsung cart has some inviting Philips-head screws and a neat line looking as if it joins and upper and lower casing. A job for lots of paper towel and fresh mind and patience tho' - not this evening!
Big sheets of newspaper; various sizes of artists-type brushes to move the toner about - can be fiddly around the magnetic bits; an assortment of 'funnels' - made from top parts of various plastic bottles; various nails that you can heat up on the cooker rings to make holes - poss even a piece of copper plumbing pipe you can heat up to make a bung hole; I also find a set of 'dentists picks' - from Maplins - comes in handy, though they are rather more bendy than the genuine ones I am sure! Watch where you are putting small parts as they can easily get buried in toner; and make sure you look carefully at how any springs and cogs are attached. No 1 thing: don't scratch the drum! Try not to touch the coating at all.
There is also a magazine called Recharger, where I have found info about recycling various of these things before. (They have been sending me invites to some european 'expo' on the subject lately...)
Try not to get too dirty!
S
Dismantling the fuser is another matter...but then you're not meant to (I have, to replace the lamp).
An old table in the middle of a large field is better. Whatever you do - do not use a vacuum cleaner.
Some moons ago I had a very large photocopier/printer from Agfa which ran off 2kg tubes of toner which were added periodically. One day when refilling it one of the tubes was dropped spilling 2kg of toner onto the carpet. A vacuum cleaner was pulled out of the cupboard and the toner mountain attacked. A few seconds later it was apparent night had fallen early as everything got very dark. Shortly afterwards the vacuum cleaner expired in a very impressive cloud of flame and sparks. The toner comfortably passed through the bag and filters on the cleaner, fused to the hot bits of the motor and killed it. However, not before blasting about a kg of toner into the air and turning a sort of beige room into a very dark gray one.
---8
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Peter Parry saying something like:
Shee-it. I wonder how close it was to a dust explosion.
As the toner is plastic and probably exothermic I would imagine it was never going to explode. It sounds a good one to try out though. ;-)
Sorry endothermic.
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