Archive for the ‘toner cartridges’ Category

Now despite what my children and spouse may think I am not a cheapskate. But please tell me if I’m the only one who think the cost of toner cartridges for the Samsung CLP-600 is somewhat extreme. Who can honestly blame me if I look around for alternatives to find out if the Samsung CLP600 Toner can be refilled for example.

Samsung CLP600 - a Nice inexpensive printer

I mean when you buy a printer and it runs out of ink, you don’t expect to pay 2-3 times the cost to replace the CLP600 toner cartridges do you ? Well I don’t, but that is the rather sad truth, in UK money pay £180 for this printer then expect the bill to be over £400 to replace all the toner cartridges. The printer won’t be the only thing spluttering, so can it be refilled ?

Samsung CLP600 Toner Refill or not ?

Yes you can thanks goodness, or I for one would give the printer away! However thanks to the those lovely people at Samsung it’s made a little bit more difficult by them putting these little computer chips on the bottom of the clp600 cartridge.

So you need to buy the chips to replace as well, however they are not too expensive if you don’t mind replacing them. Here’s one deal I found which seems pretty reasonable – Samsung CLP600 Refill – when I looked £149 for a full set with instructions, not too bad and about 33% of the cost of a new cartridge set!!!

It’s much better for the environment as well, all that waste of a perfectly good cartridge that just needs some more ink. It does take a little work though but it’s not too difficult at all, refilling all the toner cartridges in your CLP600 doesn’t take long. In my opinion it’s well worth doing but not everyone will be comfortable with the procedure of refilling the Samsung CLP600 Toner Refill.

Some asked me if it was possible to refill the Samsung CLP315 Toner Cartridge. Unfortunately it is not possible currently purely because Samsung want you to buy or refurbish their own cartridges.

So those proud owners of the very good Samsung printer the CLP 315 will have to buy new cartridges each time they are out of ink.

The reason the Samsung CLP315 cannot be easily refilled with new toner, is quite simple. The cartridge is perfect usable, it’s internal mechanisms are fine, in fact they are fine for many thousands of more prints with a little ink. All the blades, rollers will be working correctly, there is only one thing besides the lack of ink that is stopping this nice little Samsung CLP printer being refilled – that’s because Samsung have made it so.

Samsung CLP315 Refilled or not ?

Nope, not currently, you see Samsung have put a little computer chip on the side of their toner cartridges. This little chip stops the cartridge functioning, yep in these days of eco awareness, companies are actually putting in self destruct mechanisms to stop it working. Imagine how you’d feel if your perfectly good Television set shut itself down after watching 2000 hours of television – well that’s what is happening with these cartridges.

Forget about the recycling schemes, forget about the packages with green trees all over them to send your cartridge back. The Samsung CLP315 and similar printers in their range have an encrypted chip on the side of them so you can’t refill or reuse them. The printers used to have an ordinary computer chip but recycling companies produced copies meaning you could reuse the cartridges and refill them.

Pretty bad huh – but they are not alone, printer firms are all adding these killer chips to stop you taking the green option (or should I say the less profitable option). So sorry no you can’t refill the Samsung CLP315 toner cartridge.

Shame on you Samsung !!! (even if you did make my wonderful laptop)

Even at the beginning of the decade when the sales of new laser printers were fairly static, sales of new printer cartridges have continued to rise sharply. It may have something to do with increased print volumes (whatever happened to the paperless office huh !) but probably also due to what we actually print.

More pages with graphics, more printing of photographs and similar pictures that use much more toner will obviously increase the amount of cartridges we use. We are also printing much more often in colour which also needs much more toner. This all leads to a huge rise in the amount of toner we use, and the amount of toner cartridges that we consume.

Any reuse, remanufacture or refilling of toner cartridges is significantly better for the environment that producing a brand new cartridge with the old one ending up in landfill. Unfortunately the obvious environmental benefits are sometimes overlooked in the pursuit of profit.

The printer companies aggressively price their printers, simply because they make the vast majority of their profits in the toner cartridges. Environmentally without doubt the best option is to refill the existing toner cartridge until it’s worn out, when the unit can be recycled. Unfortunately this is not the best profit option for the companies involved.

The big printer companies hate this and are increasingly seeking to reinforce their lucrative toner markets by various schemes and technologies. Many toner cartridges have computer chips on them now so that they cease to function after so many prints. It’s the equivilant to putting a chip on a car to stop it working after 50,000 miles !!

It’s scandalous in my opinion, fortunately the chips have been copied and can be easily replaced but it’s producing extra manufacturing and the chips are actively designed to prevent the environmentally friendly option.

If you can recyle or better still refill your cartridges, save some completely unecessary production and save yourself some serious cash.