Compatible Toner Quality

16th March

If you’ve ever investigated the possibility of refilling your toner cartridges, you’ll probably have come across information warning against compatible toner quality.   In some cases they’re absolutely correct, occasionally you’ll find a company that just sells low grade toner refills just to make a quick buck.    But I can assure you that they are more the exception than the rule, after all it doesn’t make much sense as a business model.   The firms who sell printer toner refills, have in a way the same vested interest as the printer manufacturers.

Compatible Toner Quality Problems
Imagine you’ve set up your business to supply people and companies with compatible toner for them to refill their cartridges over and over. Customer will save so much money each time they do it that they’re bound to keep coming back for more. The costs will have to be significantly lower than the brand refills obviously but if the toner is of the same quality, there are no real issues.

Why try and make a few pennies by sending out inferior toner, you’ll get angry customers, no repeat business and lots of stress. The vast majority of companies in this line are very green minded and want to provide a good eco friendly service.

Take the Risk

Seriously have a look around, try and find some recommendations, ask a few questions of the supplier. The cost and environmental savings are so large it’s worth taking a risk. Even if you are really unlucky and get poor quality toner refills it won’t have cost very much. You can even put the cartridge away for when you need to do a big print run when quality is not that important.

Seriously in most situations where I have used toner refills in many, many printers the results have been indistinguishable from the brand toner refills. The average savings of about 80% make it a real boon in these days of rising prices.

I generally only use the one firm when I am buying compatible toner refills, of course if you’re in teh US it’s probably not worth using them – but use their checker tool to see if your printer can be refillled easily – you can find it here

You can then try and find a company nearer home, if anyone has any real experience of such companies outside the UK then I’d be really interested to hear about them.

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How many times can I refill a toner cartridge?

8th January

It’s a perfectly good question, on this blog I urge you to investigate the few firms who can help you refill your toner cartridge with ease. Every time you do refill the cartridge you’re saving about 60-80% of the cost of a new cartridge, and there is virtually no environmental impact. But how many times can you keep refilling a laser toner cartridge.

Well it’s actually quite a difficult question, it’s a bit like asking how long your car will last or how many years before my TV needs replacing. There is no specific correct answer as it tends to vary from cartridge to cartridge but for the vast majority of cartridges two or three is easily achievable. Many people keep refilling them until the printouts start being affected.

There are a couple of main reasons why you can’t keep refilling the toner cartridges indefinitely –

OPC Drum – inside your Toner cartridge, where the image is created before being copied onto the page. This will eventually wear our, however it will often keep going for many refills – it depends on the make. There are some printers where this drum can be replaced separately though, so that no longer becomes an issue.

Toner Waste – Toner cartridges all collect their own waste, the unused ink from a printout usually gets collected in a waste section of the cartridge. Eventually this will overflow and cause marks to appear on the printed page. You can empty this manually to extend the life, in much the same way as you make a little hole to refill. In most cartridges you can make a hole in the waste compartment to empty it. Personally I never bother with this step as normally I can get two or three refills without emptying this section.

Emptying the waste compartment can make your toner go on into double figures for some printers though which would save literally hundreds of dollars. Use any reliable refill firm and ask them their advice, they’ll know the average number of refills for your particular cartridge. Just remember even refilling once is going to save you a lot of money and more than half your printing costs.

Of course it depends on what your printing and what for. I generally refill twice then the third time only put a little ink in and watch the quality. If the print out perhaps starts getting smudges or a reduction in quality tehn I’ll replace the cartridge with a new one and start again.

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Compatible Toner Cartridges

7th October

Toners4less offer an extensive range of Toner Cartridges stocking well known brands such as HP, Lexmark, Brother, and Canon printers amongst others.  We offer the best quality products at prices hard to beat whilst offering you excellent service sure to help you find the product you need.   Here at Toners4less you are sure to find toner compatible with your printer whatever the brand.  

Here you need only spend approximately 25% on what you would pay if you bought branded toner cartridges.  That means you could buy up to 4 toner cartridges for the same price as you would only buy one genuine toner cartridge! We only sell products that we believe to be good enough for the most demanding of print jobs.   

Establishments of all sizes from your home to schools, colleges and government offices, all buy from us and trust our products.  Toners4less can offer you quality, performance and value for money that is not guaranteed by other toner sellers on the market. Our toner cartridges are manufactured by RE-GEN who we trust to give you the printing quality you need time after time.   

Our reliable toner cartridges are sure to work their magic every time whether you’re in the home or in the office.  They can give your documents that professional excellence and your photos razor-sharp colour definition that will hold the test of time even when we don’t!  Toners4less offer you the chance to realize superior results in printing output at an enviable price.  

All toners4less toner cartridges are brand new and have never been opened so you know the product you receive has never been tampered with.  We do not sell remanufactured or refilled toner cartridges.  We can assure you that the toner cartridges you buy will do the job you need them to without fail.

Toners4less are confident that their toner will work with your printer.  So much so that we offer a no-quibble guarantee if you’re not happy with your toner.  We also offer and fast and efficient delivery service direct to your door so you won’t have to wait for that all important toner cartridge. So order your replacement toners from toners4less today!

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Compatible Versus Genuine Toner Cartridges

21st September

Compatible means that the toner cartridge can be used in your specific equipment and also that it is not the Genuine Brand. Refilling toner cartridges is big business in the US and the world. Many companies choose to purchase the compatible version instead of the Original Equipment Manufacturer, OEM. Compatible can also mean completely brand new but generic.

In the beginning of refill cartridges there were not many options. Toner and internal replacement parts were not readily available, so the quality was not as high as one would like. In the recent years all that has changed. One of the most important components that should be replaced is the drum and the drum blade. These were designed to only last the life of the toner being used from the cartridge. If you were to reuse the original drum it would cause many print defects such as light print, marks and several other image defects. The drum blade would also create streaking and line type image defects. Think of the drum blade as a windshield wiper. When it wears out certain areas are not being cleaned and it makes it hard to see through the window! In the same way certain areas are not being wiped off and you then have lines on the printed pages. We now have access to not only drums and blades but many other components that wear out and need to be replaced inside the toner cartridge. When selecting a company that refills or sells compatible toner cartridges, I would make sure that they do in fact replace the drum and drum blade, or it will not last and you will have wasted your time and money on something that was supposed to save you money in the first place.

False assumptions: OEMs never fail

Having been in this business for over twenty years it seems that most people believe that if it is the original (OEM) toner cartridge that it will never fail. This is just not true. I have seen many OEM cartridges fail. Some from defect and some from customer induced causes. Here is a list of causes induced by customer neglect or error. Staples paper clips, paper dust, stickyback labels and placing the cartridge down on an unsafe position causing damage to drum.

False Assumptions: Refills always leak

Here again we have an assumption that is just not true. In my experience, the number one cause for a leaking cartridge is paper or labels stuck up inside the drum area. This is caused by using inferior labels or dog-eared paper. There are some refilled cartridges that have not been refurbished in a correct manner. Inside the cartridge is a part that is called a recovery blade. It is a thin Mylar that does exactly what it is named for. It recovers the excess toner and keeps it in the waste toner tank. If the recovery blade is old and warped, toner will fall down into the paper path and some how end up on your brand new shirt. Ever since then you swore to never use these darn refills any more!

If you run across a toner cartridge and the price is unbelievably low it may be because the company that refilled it didn’t replace all of the components that we mentioned earlier. Try and stay away from these kind of deals if you can help it. In this industry there are standards. One question to ask is if they are an ISO 9001 facility. An ISO 9001 facility has the highest standards and you can trust that they install all major components and are put together the right way. This is important, next time you are purchasing toner cartridges just ask them if they are. If they look at you kind of strange or if there is a long pause and they don’t know what you are talking about, stay away from buying from them. There may be some good rechargers out there that are not ISO 9001 but for the most part this will help weed out the bad ones.

Pros and Cons of Compatible and Genuine Toner Cartridges

Compatible Pros: Cost, the average savings can be 50% to 70% from OEM retail prices. If you make several thousand prints, this can really add up. Recycling benefits our world because it reduces the amount that we put in our landfills.

Compatible Cons: You will have to make sure you buy quality compatibles or you may get a bad cartridge.

OEM Pros: Consistency, toner yields, new parts, knowing were it came from and that it was created by the OEM.

OEM Cons: Cost, toner cartridges can be much more expensive.

Bill Tucker has been in the office equipment and supply industry for over 20 years and has several published industry related articles that help the end-user as well as the technician.

Click here for more industry related articles and high quality OEM and compatible toner cartridges –TonerOvernight.com

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