Remanufactured Toner Cartridges

How To Extend The Life Of Your Ink And Toner Cartridges

Printer manufacturers are notorious for selling printers for a song, and then mercilessly gouging you on the price of ink and toner cartridges. Most people will spend many times more than the cost of the printer itself on its supplies.

And if that weren't bad enough, every printer seems to need its own proprietary cartridge, and there are literally hundreds of those, with no swapping allowed. So it pays to know how to handle your cartridges to make them last as long as possible and where to find the most economical replacements when they do run dry.

Is it Time for a New Printer? Printers have gotten more efficient at using ink over the years, so if your printer is more than about five years old, you might want to consider replacing it.

On the other hand, if you decide you don't need a new printer, but your printer's output has developed lines or missing dots, it may not be an empty cartridge. You need to clean the cartridge print heads by running a few test pages. With an inkjet printer, the rule is "use it or lose it, " because idle print heads will dry out and clog over time even if your cartridges are full.

Smart Printing Staples.com suggests that if you're producing a large document, print a few test pages to make sure it looks right and fix any glitches in the formatting before you print the whole thing.

Your printer itself can help you stretch ink and toner. Check your printer settings (in Microsoft office, click the properties button in the print window) to see if your printer has a "draft" option. Selecting it means that your printer will produce fewer dots per inch, which will result in slightly fainter, but still readable documents, which is all you need for routine items. When you must have dark, crisp print, you'll have to go back to the properties menu and reset the printer to normal or best quality.

Prevent Ink Dry-Out It's very frustrating when the print head of an ink cartridge dries out before the ink inside has been used up. Sometimes moistening the print heads with a damp paper towel will be the fix, but it doesn't always work and in that case, the cartridge is truly a goner.

If you have a partially used cartridge that you need to store for use late, put it in a zip-seal sandwich bag with a small towel or sponge that has been moistened with water, but not dripping. Store the cartridge upright with its print heads facing up (so it doesn't leak) in a cool, dark place, like the refrigerator. Let it return to room temperature before putting it back in the printer.

DIY Refills Refilling cartridges is a messy business with a lot of pitfalls, but if you have a steady hand and the patience for it, you can save a bundle.

A kit usually consists of bottles of ink and a syringe and costs less than a new cartridge. In addition, you'll need rubber gloves, a roll of paper towels to clean up spills and leaks, and transparent tape to cover the refill holes after you inject the ink.

Not all cartridges are refillable by amateurs. You may need a chip re-setter for your particular brand of cartridge if it contains a chip that tells the printer when the ink is running low so it can warn you. If that chip isn't reset, the printer won't recognize the newly-filled cartridge. Epson cartridges are one brand that need their chips reset.

Some printers read the ink level from a sensor inside the cartridge, so if you fill the cartridge improperly, the printer can't recognize it.

Cartridges can be refilled only a finite number of times (somewhere around 6 or 7 times) before they wear out and need to be tossed.

Unfortunately, you can't refill laser toner cartridges yourself because they have many internal parts that need to be tested and replaced if worn. I wouldn't even try opening it.

Buy Remanufactured National supply chains like Staples, Office Max, and Office Depot accept spent cartridges so they can be refilled and reused. They're disassembled, cleaned, refilled and sold at a discount. Worn parts are also replaced to make them like new. Most stores offer a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee, and contrary to what printer manufacturers would have you believe, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act ensures that they can't void your printer's warranty for using someone else's cartridges.

But keep in mind that the ink and toner used to refurbish the cartridges isn't always identical to the original, so printing results may vary.