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olePigeon · Jan 30, 2010, 07:38 PM

I was wondering if anyone knows of any helpful and useful tricks to getting the most prints out of your toner cartridge. I miss the old days of laser printers simply telling you the toner is low or even out, but it wouldn't stop it from printing. Most people know about shaking the cartridge. This can give you a few extra hundred prints.

However, more and more printer manufacturers are forcing consumers to replace the toner regardless of toner level. Apparently Brother is one of the worst offending companies, with as much as 30% of the toner still left. Brother's excuse is that it's because printing quality degrades once the cartridge is below 50%.

For B&W consumer printer, that's really not a big deal.

From my experience, HP printers vary from model to model on whether or not it allows you to print even with low toner levels.

In any event, I stumbled upon an awesome trick for most Brother printers. If you take the toner out and separate it from the drum, there are two sensors, one on each side. If you just cover the sensors up with some electrical tape, it fools the sensor into thinking it's still full. I've been using my modified cartridge for a few months and it's still printing just fine. Easily a few hundred extra prints out of this thing. My next step is to try out one of those refill kits that are super cheap.

macforray · Jan 30, 2010, 10:13 PM

I find the best way is to just buy the very cheap toner refill kits on eBay. I have a Samsung ML-1740 that I bought new on eBay a number of years ago. It still has the original toner cartridge in it, but I have refilled it with the kits. I buy from the same seller (whose name I don't have at the moment, but is in my files). I buy the two refill kit typically so I don't have a lot of toner sitting around. The kit comes with very good cleaning and refill instructions. I think a refill costs me less that $10. That is cheap.

olePigeon · Jan 30, 2010, 10:33 PM

That's what I want to do. How many times have you reused the same cartridge with refill kits? I was looking into it for our LaserJet 3600s at work. The ink is expensive. With some sort of modified soldering iron, I'm supposed to punch a hole into the cartridge, refill it, then plug the hole. Kinda looks like fun.

amazing · Jan 31, 2010, 12:18 AM

for brother laser cartridges, you just have to google and you'll find how to put a piece of tape or paper over the appropriate sensor on the cartridge. Just started doing that with 2 Brother printers, an MFC 8860dn and an HL 4070 cdw color printer (have only tried the black cartridge so far in the color laser.)

Both gave incredibly longer totally normal usage.

I'm presuming the same can be done on other mfg's printers, but I've only had personal experience with Brothers.

olePigeon · Jan 31, 2010, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by amazing

for brother laser cartridges, you just have to google and you'll find how to put a piece of tape or paper over the appropriate sensor on the cartridge. Just started doing that with 2 Brother printers, an MFC 8860dn and an HL 4070 cdw color printer (have only tried the black cartridge so far in the color laser.)

Both gave incredibly longer totally normal usage.

That's the trick I mentioned above. Electrical tape works great because it'll stick to the plastic really well and you don't have to worry about it coming off and maybe jamming one of the plastic gears on the toner.

But, yeah, it's the best thing I ever discovered. I'm practically doubling the life of my toners. It's crazy.

Originally Posted by amazing

I'm presuming the same can be done on other mfg's printers, but I've only had personal experience with Brothers.

The trick won't work with HP cartridges because they have a little chip on the cartridge. Depending on the printer, you can tell it to go into diagnostic mode and it'll ignore toner level. Unfortunately it's not always a viable option (you can do it on the 3600, but it makes an obnoxious sound while it's in diagnostic mode.)

If you buy a refill kit for an HP, it comes with a new chip.

olePigeon · Jan 31, 2010, 02:18 PM

Holy cow, I just Googled really quick and found this: HP Chip Resetter Tool

It's a 3rd party chip for HP toner cartridges that can be manually reset. You just use their little flashy thimgamajig and it resets their chip so you can continue using a cartridge. Man, I'm going to have to seriously look into this.

amazing · Jan 31, 2010, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Holy cow, I just Googled really quick and found this: HP Chip Resetter Tool

It's a 3rd party chip for HP toner cartridges that can be manually reset. You just use their little flashy thimgamajig and it resets their chip so you can continue using a cartridge. Man, I'm going to have to seriously look into this.

Hey! If you try it, be sure and report back! Sounds like it'll pay for quite a few coffee breaks!
Unfortunately, claims not to work with original HP cartridges...

olePigeon · Jan 31, 2010, 09:19 PM

Originally Posted by amazing

Hey! If you try it, be sure and report back! Sounds like it'll pay for quite a few coffee breaks!
Unfortunately, claims not to work with original HP cartridges...

It won't work on the original HP cartridge chip, you have to use their special chip. Also, I just noticed it's for use with inkjet cartridges.

I wonder if there's one for toner.

shifuimam · Feb 1, 2010, 12:05 AM

I have an HP LaserJet 2100tn - it's old, but it's one of their business models. Toner lasts ages, and I don't think there's a chip in it to force you to change it out before necessary.

Generally you can redistribute the toner inside the cartridge by shaking horizontally a few times - this is necessary when you start getting fading when printing.

As far as I know, you can't easily refill laser cartridges. It's not ink; it's a dry powdery substance. Your best bet is to buy a replacement cartridge and send the old one back to HP, where it will be refilled, refurbished, and resold. I think you can get some cash back for doing that, but I'm not sure. I've only had to buy one cartridge for my 2100 in the four+ years I've had it.

Big Mac · Feb 1, 2010, 10:37 AM

You must not do much printing! But I agree. I don't think it's worth the hassle of trying to refill the cartridges.

olePigeon · Feb 1, 2010, 12:55 PM

All you do is empty the old toner out, fill in the new toner, cover the hole (if you have to), and put a new chip in. Pretty simple, and it saves you $60 on every other cartridge. (x4 if you have a color laserjet.)

macforray · Feb 5, 2010, 10:48 PM

Refilling the toner is so easy a caveman can do it. I'm not kidding. It takes less than ten minutes, at least with my Samsung. The cleaning takes longer than refilling. The refill kit comes with a funnel cap for the toner bottle, which fits perfectly into the refill port. I have refilled the original cartridge six times. Why anyone would want to pay $60 for a new cartridge every time is beyond me. Remember, it's not how much money you make, it's how much you keep.