Re: seeking shopping advice for laser cartridges -- PCTECH

Wow, thanks for the thorough response, Craig!

I don't think I have any "drilling" to do, because there's already a feeder
port with a plastic cap seal. Perhaps this was an already recycled
cartridge? Or it's so old that it preceded the time when there were refill
kits for these?

Interestingly, 123refills explicitly says they don't have anything for my
ActionLaser 1600, but they have a refill kit for the 1500, 1400, 1100, etc.,
that also works for about 100 other printers from various manufacturers.
Don't know what's up with that, but I'm checking with their tech support.
I've seen similar behavior from other websites as well.

Prices *do* seem to vary, although I understand that you have to watch out
for inferior products in this category.
Thanks again!
- Dan

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 5:17 AM, Craig Pelkie <craig@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've been refilling HP cartridges for several years, it is well worth while
to pursue this. I tend to print a lot of PDF manuals, I read from paper
better than from screens.

I buy toner from http://www.123refills.net. Pricing for most refilling
supplies seems to be about the same on the various sites. What you get is a
plastic bottle of toner (black dust) and a nozzle that attaches to the
bottle.

The first time you order, you need to get a "hole making tool", which is
basically a soldering iron with a circular tip. You plug that in,
preferrably in your garage or outdoors, let it warm up for about 5 minutes,
then carefully locate the location on the cartridge to "drill" the hole
(you
will get instructions with your refill kit that show you where on the
cartridge the hole needs to be drilled). I say "drill" because what you are
really doing is melting through the plastic shell of the cartridge. It only
takes about 2 seconds to make the hole, which is about the size of a dime.
You immediately withdraw the hole making tool, and hope that the plug of
melted plastic comes out with it, otherwise, you need to fish the plug out
of the cartridge. The reason why you need to melt the hole rather than
drill
it with a drill is so that you won't get plastic shavings into the toner
mix. The process sounds frightening, but you can practice first before you
plug in the hole making tool. The worst part of the process is the melting
plastic smell, which is why I do it outside.

After you have the hole in the cartridge, you put the toner bottle with the
nozzle into the hole and tap some toner into the cartridge. You do not
squeeze the bottle, that would result in a big puff of a black cloud of
toner, which makes an awful mess. Toner is not particularly hazardous to
inhale or get on your hands, it is just very messy. Again, with practice,
you can get to where you don't spill any.

After you fill the cartridge with a good shot of toner, you insert a little
plastic plug that is shipped with the supplies kit into the cartridge. You
can then shake it around a little bit and put it into the printer.

I am usually getting 2 - 3 refills per original cartridge, so a cartridge
that is "rated" by HP for 5000 pages usually lasts for 10-12K pages (I
print
a lot of handouts for classes that I teach).

The quality does deterioriate after the 2nd or 3rd refill. For the longest
time, I couldn't figure out why, as the inner parts of the cartridge (the
drum) seemed to be in good shape. The HP manual explains that on their
cartridges, there is a resevoir that excess toner accumulates into. That
is,
as the drum spins, it picks up some extra toner that is not needed on the
page, and that excess is shunted into the resevoir (it is not reused).
After
several refills, the resevoir starts to back up, kind of like a septic
tank...you get the idea. So when I start getting streaks and blotches on
the
pages after the 2nd or 3rd refill, I stop refilling that cartridge and send
it off for recycling. At that point, I buy a new cartridge.

Craig Pelkie

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan" <dan27649@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users" <pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 7:15 PM
Subject: [PCTECH] seeking shopping advice for laser cartridges

I picked up an old Epson ActionLaser 1600 a few months ago that was
destined
for the trash. I've gotten at least 50 pages out of it so far, but the
cartridge is nearing empty. I've pulled it out and tipped it

side-to-side

to distribute the toner, and this works for awhile, but the end is near.

I've never personally been responsible for a laser printer before. So,

it

was with shock & awe that I went shopping for replacement cartridges. I
thought the first one I saw for $135 was high, but then I saw two other
websites selling it for more than that, one was over $200!
So, asking for advice from my esteemed colleagues here. Are refill kits
worth the time? Found one that does a full refill of the cartridge for
under $24. I'm leaning towards this, since the printer is old anyway,

and

really good deals can be found on personal laser printers if you're
patient. I'm certainly not going to spend $100 or more for a cartridge

on

this old printer.

Interesting side note: The site from which I quoted the $24 refill ket
warned that "Toner cartridges can refilled an average of 2 times before
the
print quality begins to deteriorate." Why is that?

Does anyone have a favorite site they like to use for laser
cartridge/toner
supplies?

TIA,
Dan
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