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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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