is it worth to DIY refill a Brother toner cartridge?

[tracerit]

I used to buy those generic toner cartridges but after a while they started spilling all over the place. I went back to the genuine Brother toner and although it's working perfectly, i'm killing myself spending $80 each time. I looked up how to refill and it seems easy but is it worth it or will I run into the same issues with the generic ones?

 

[Compman55]

Yes it is very worth it if you do it YOURSELF!!!

The problem is many toners have the waste hopper as part of the toner cartridge. This oftern requires you to take it apart quite a bit to dump out. So these cheap toners on ebay often are just refilled without being taken apart.

Secondly there are rollers and wiper blades called doctor blades that wipe fresh toner at a specific amount off the rollers. These blades can go bad and cause leakage. So my rule of thumb is exhaust the factory toner, dump and refill just once more then discard. Do not try to squeeze 2-3 extra refill cycles.

 

[rudder]

You also have to make sure you buy the correct toner... each printer might have a slightly different mixture. Using the wrong one can gunk things up.

I have a samsung laser that (thanks to some Russion dude fixing my firmware) I will buy a generic cartridge, refill it a couple of times, repeat. My wife is a teacher and her school only allocates about 1/1000th of the copies she needs through out the year. This is my contribution to the public school system where she works.... so it helps to keep it cheap.

 

[mfenn]

With the low end brother HL's, I've noticed that the low toner sensor is essentially a light that shines through the cartridge and a sensor on the other end. When the sensor can see the light shining through, it declares the toner cartridge empty.

What I've done is to put a piece of opaque tape over the clear parts on either side of the toner cartridge, thus fooling the sensor into thinking that the toner is full. I usually get about double the lifetime out of my toner cartridges before print quality degrades noticeably. At that point, it's no big deal for me to replace the cartridge with a genuine one.

 

[Soundmanred]

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[NightWolfy]

i know it's a little late but it's never too late... i used to buy cartridges too till i moved on to refill them. check out this useful article that explains how to do so: http://www.benshardwareblog.com/pc-hardware/refilling-a-laser-printer-toner-for-brother-hl2240d

 

[silicon]

I used to buy those generic toner cartridges but after a while they started spilling all over the place. I went back to the genuine Brother toner and although it's working perfectly, i'm killing myself spending $80 each time. I looked up how to refill and it seems easy but is it worth it or will I run into the same issues with the generic ones?

its worth it to refill and if the cartridge works properly after you have saved a bundle of money. As other have suggested the quality of the toner material makes the difference. cheap toner will gum up the works and render the cartridge unusable.

 

[corkyg]

There is another factor in dtermining "worth" of user refill. That is, usage. My laser's (old HP 4000) main use is printing rnvelopes for mailing. A toner cart lasts almost 2 years. With mfenn's nifty tip, maybe three! So, in my situation, it would NOT be worth it to to spend time and effort doing a refill.

 

[mfenn]

Necro thread closed

mfenn
General Hardware Moderator