Laser toner refill kits on ebay.com -- Are they for real?

[Nocturnal]

Do they really work or is it all a gimmick? Has anyone successfully used one of these refill kits? Do they work just as good as an OEM replacement?

 

[brtspears2]

I tried to use one, I just ended up making a big mess and not getting as many pages as getting a new/rebuilt cartridge.

 

[T2T III]

I just received the refill kit for my Brother 1440 printer. For $33.00, I was able to get two cartridge refills sent to me. The price included postage. The process of filling the toner cartridge was quite easy. Go for it.

 

[gogeeta13]

its noting hard. punch a hole in the toner resovoir. pour in some toner. seal the hole. bam, you are done.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: gogeeta13
its noting hard. punch a hole in the toner resovoir. pour in some toner. seal the hole. bam, you are done.

Can you do this more than once, or is that not a good idea? My HP LJ toner cart. 92298A seema to have a plug, although it's in a funny place and a little hard to get toner in there, seems to me. Those carts are getting harder to find and they're not real cheap.

 

[Viper GTS]

Yes, they probably work.

However, I cringe at the thought of it.

At least with a rebuilt cartridge you get a new imaging drum along with the toner - PLUS, the waste toner reservoir will be emptied whereas if you're just adding toner you're going to fill it up.

99% of the toner cartridge issues I see at work (I do printer support for $1000+ office laser printers/color lasers) are caused by 3rd party toner.

Not to mention the damage that can be caused to the printer itself from shoddy rebuilds.

It's cheaper, but the risks (to me anyway) aren't worth it.

Viper GTS

 

[StageLeft]

I use one I got from walmart (as seen on tv). I'm now on my second refill of the original cartridge. I found that adding new toner was fairly easy. The print quality is poor, let me make that very clear. I wouldn't recommend using these kits on a decent printer in case it causes some funky damage down the line. Mine was a $45 epson I bought last year and didn't want to pay $20/pop for cartridges. Apparently you can refill a few times per cartridge.

If I don't put the quality on high I get splotches on the page where the thing has apparently mis-fired and I've tried cleaning heads and all that. It helped for the most part but it is not professional quality material anymore. For the printing I do it's fine, but I wouldn't use it for anything super important. I'm not sure if putting in an original cartridge at this point would fix the problem or the printer is permanently screwed like that. I would guess a new cartridge would fix it.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I use one I got from walmart (as seen on tv). I'm now on my second refill of the original cartridge. I found that adding new toner was fairly easy. The print quality is poor, let me make that very clear. I wouldn't recommend using these kits on a decent printer in case it causes some funky damage down the line. Mine was a $45 epson I bought last year and didn't want to pay $20/pop for cartridges. Apparently you can refill a few times per cartridge.

If I don't put the quality on high I get splotches on the page where the thing has apparently mis-fired and I've tried cleaning heads and all that. It helped for the most part but it is not professional quality material anymore. For the printing I do it's fine, but I wouldn't use it for anything super important. I'm not sure if putting in an original cartridge at this point would fix the problem or the printer is permanently screwed like that. I would guess a new cartridge would fix it.

You would not BELIEVE some of the calls I get, people with $2500+ color laser printers that insist on using third party toner. Poor print quality is by far the most common complaint (defects mainly), but occasionally we get much worse.

We have one customer in particular who we have to watch for. They insist on using a brand of re-man that uses brass clips to close the cartridge. Those clips fall off & tear the guts out of the toner carousel. Then they call us & try to get us to replace the carousel (a $500+ in parts + 3+ hours of labor).

Viper GTS

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
Yes, they probably work.

However, I cringe at the thought of it.

At least with a rebuilt cartridge you get a new imaging drum along with the toner - PLUS, the waste toner reservoir will be emptied whereas if you're just adding toner you're going to fill it up.

99% of the toner cartridge issues I see at work (I do printer support for $1000+ office laser printers/color lasers) are caused by 3rd party toner.

Not to mention the damage that can be caused to the printer itself from shoddy rebuilds.

It's cheaper, but the risks (to me anyway) aren't worth it.

Viper GTS

I got my HP4M, almost new in 1994 or so. The guy I bought it from told me it had 10 prints on it and I checked out the internal counter and it was basically true. It looked brand new and has always printed perfectly. I've gone through probably about 4, maybe 5 cartridges and all of them have been brand new, no refurbs. I guess I'm safer to stick with new, huh? It looks like the difference is only a few bucks if I hunt down the bargains. I've been wondering if I won't be able to find new ones some day but I guess by that time I can just get another printer. I always recycle my empty cartridges. I suppose they wind up as refurbs.

 

[Pepsei]

from my experience,

inkjet refill kits are nice, you can refill 2-3 times before you need to replace the cartridge.


laser toner refill kits, only refill once before you can see degradation. YMMV with different printers.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
Yes, they probably work.

However, I cringe at the thought of it.

At least with a rebuilt cartridge you get a new imaging drum along with the toner - PLUS, the waste toner reservoir will be emptied whereas if you're just adding toner you're going to fill it up.

99% of the toner cartridge issues I see at work (I do printer support for $1000+ office laser printers/color lasers) are caused by 3rd party toner.

Not to mention the damage that can be caused to the printer itself from shoddy rebuilds.

It's cheaper, but the risks (to me anyway) aren't worth it.

Viper GTS

I got my HP4M, almost new in 1994 or so. The guy I bought it from told me it had 10 prints on it and I checked out the internal counter and it was basically true. It looked brand new and has always printed perfectly. I've gone through probably about 4, maybe 5 cartridges and all of them have been brand new, no refurbs. I guess I'm safer to stick with new, huh? It looks like the difference is only a few bucks if I hunt down the bargains. I've been wondering if I won't be able to find new ones some day but I guess by that time I can just get another printer. I always recycle my empty cartridges. I suppose they wind up as refurbs.

If you send them back to HP, they do not end up as refurbs. The materials are recycled, but any cartridges you buy that are HP are new cartridges.

I wouldn't worry too much about finding cartridges for a 4, IIRC HP still sells cartridges for the original laserjet.

Viper GTS