Any experience with compatible toner cartridges?

[watercooled]

Does anyone have any experience with compatible toner cartridges? The laser printer I'm currently using was bought a fair while back for £50 IIRC but the replacement cartridges cost about that. I don't feel like shelling out for a new printer just yet as I don't use it all that often but I'm starting to get patchy prints and since this printer has no low-toner warning I think it's just because the toner is running out. I've found a compatible cartridge on ebay for about £12 but I'm not convinced it will work too well because it's the sort that includes the drum i.e. more to go wrong than a simple toner container.

[Pob255]

They tend to stink on quality, we've had bad marks on prints and leaks

Re-manufactured are much better if you can get them, they tend to be a little more expensive but around half the cost of originals.
Re-manufactured are basically recycled original toners, refilled, rollers and such replaced with original parts.
the ones we get at work are from Vitesse although they mainly do hp re-manufactured toners, not many other brands. http://www.vitesse.plc.uk/index.htm

[GoNz0]

i fix laser printers and get pissed off telling customers that the £150+vat they had to pay to get me out would have been better spent buying proper toner that doesn't leak all over the printer.

they are also pissed off as it works out at £900 an hour considering i am gone 10 minutes later

[watercooled]

Thanks for the input. The one I was looking at is a recycled one when I've checked again. I'm not really bothered if it leaks or whatever, as I said the printer was only £50 when I bought it a few years ago. I'd just rather not completely not waste my money.

Edit: Here's the one I'm looking at if you're interested: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CANON-EP22-BLA...item3cabb26796

[this_is_gav]

As you said, if the printer only cost £50 (or more importantly if the replacement you would buy if this one broke would cost £50) then it's probably worth the punt on the compatible cartridges.

If you need to print anything presentable, without smudges of random toner or marks where there shouldn't be marks, then stick with originals, but if not, then for the sake of a £50 printer, save your monies.

Our experience is as follows:

We started using compatibles on one decade old printer OKI laser (as it's not worth using original carts at their price given the life of the printer), and we get a nice strip of pale yellow down one side of every sheet.

Our Xerox printer was also deemed to fall in the same category, so we started using compatibles on that. Other than one magenta cartridge not printing at all, I don't think we've had any complaints, other than the colours being rubbish (even by laser standards).

Neither of those printers work at all well with the sensors on the cartridges, so we don't ever know how much ink is left.

Our other printer, a cheap QMS-Minolta, seems OK with the compatible cartridges. I think the only complaint is that one wouldn't fit until I attacked it with various tools, but that's not the sort of problem you'd expect even of compatibles, and it's the only instance of it I've seen.

We've several other printers either too valuable or too new to use compatibles in, so we only use original cartridges in them. Towards the end of their expected lives, we'll undoubtedly start using compatibles in them too.

[Pob255]

yep those are the exact sort of issue I mean, we had a leaky toner in a compatible, thing was it's in a colour printer where all 4 toners are in a vertical stack, the black on top leaked, all over the toners below it, you can just imagine the great print quality we got from that set of toners.
Had a black&white printer where the printing came out lumpy and rough to the touch.

That's when we stopped using the very cheap compatible and stuck with re-manufactured, had no issue with them so far and with the amount HP has stuck their original toners up we're sticking with them until we have major issues.

At £50 that's probably cheaper than most original toners are now.

[[GSV]Trig]

Use original cartidges, end of chat.

Here at work they use compatibles "because it saves money", problem is they dont put the money saved into a pot to use when the printers go tits up..
People have since stopped going thru the proper channels at work to get cartridges and come to me because they know they will get proper ones...

[Raf]

I can only talk about 3rd Party inks for inkjets , but from own experience though.
I had a look inside dampers of printer that was using them and they were all filled with undisolved Bits of pigment. Maybe it can also happen with oems, i'm not sure. To me it would an issue of colour acuracy, but happily will use them at home to print every day StuffIt

[wil]

Using remanufactured cartridges can also help reduce your carbon footprint, as the casing and some parts of the used cartridges are recyled.
We've been using a company called sprint-ink.co.uk for over 5 years now, orders always arrive on time, next day, they are well package and offer a full replacement service if there are any problems.
We use their Samsung CLT-P4072C Cartridge Multipack nd have never had a problem.

[sha-1]

Why would you want a remanufactured/compatible toner, aren't toners supposed to very cheap per page? 50GBP may be a good price (or not), depending on how long does the toner last.

[GoNz0]

try telling someone to part with £200 in one hit against the local dodgy printer suppliers word that the crap they sell is as good (they dont mention the huge profit pargin)

[watercooled]

Thread is fairly old and I no longer have that printer, but as I said in the OP, the replacement toner was about the same cost I paid for the printer. I was also having to use a VM to print as Canon never released 64 bit drivers, so I wasn't keen on spending that much on it when I could get a new one for that, which I ended up doing; an auto-duplex, networked Canon office printer which was in that area after a fairly big rebate.

[jaff90110]

Some of them are bad some them are good. But I really like an OEM toner pretty much more than a REM one, I can't affrod the OEM everytime when I need to print though. They are too expenceive,

[izmirtoner]

hi friends,

i think toner refill is the best way , the original ones are so expensive.




why refill?

because it is cheap
if the firm is quality specifications, their products also quality

[cheesepiece]

I've just got a big DELL network laser printer that apparently does 7000 pages per cartridge. Not looking forward to the day it runs dry.

[LeetyMcLeet]

I've been using Jet Tec toners for my old HP Laserjet 1018 for ~ 4 years (we go through 2 per year) without a single issue. Each Toner is £25-£30 quid cheaper too!

My rule of thumb is if the printer is still in warranty, use the OEM cartridges/toners. When it's out of warranty, trial an alternative.