WeInk_TechSupport said:If your lucky may get through the first refill without damaging your
fuser.
These cartridges need to be dissasembled to empty the waste
toner and inspect the internal parts for cleaning and damage.
WeInk_TechSupport said:Drill and fill method, if your lucky can be used for one refill safely.
After that you are taking chances as you are bypassing waste removal
(almost all cartridges still produce waste toner, only a very few are
considered waste free, but even they have a drum cleaning roller which
must be removed and cleaned). There are also PCR's , drums and other
components which must be replaced at some point for optimum quality.
For the cartridges with waste bins the waste toner can overflow
spilling toner on the paper which not only causes bad prints, but also
adds excessive wear to all the rollers (including the fusers) in the
paper pathway. It dirties up tranfer coronas and PCR's.
refilltoner.com is using a method which is best kept to fill once then
throw away, basically very low volume users who replace a cartridge
once, maybe twice, a year.
How much do they want for the melting
device?
You could probably use the cost of the device towards
additional toner or keep it in your pocket if you simply disaasemble
the cartridge (most of which take about 5 minutes to do).
WeInk_TechSupport said:If your lucky may get through the first refill without damaging your
fuser. These cartridges need to be dissasembled to empty the waste
toner and inspect the internal parts for cleaning and damage. But if
your absolutely determined to destroy the cartridge try here:
http://www.refilltoner.com/
gary said:So if I refill my cartridges on my HP 3500 then I will ruin my printer?
And
if I refill will it even work if the chip is not replaced or reset?
gary said:Does that mean a new chip each time you buy a cart or are the aftermarket
chips resettable?
WeInk_TechSupport said:For Mr. Beardmore:
The type of prints you make have a lot to do with waste build-up in the
LaserJet 4/5 model cartridges. There is no spreader auger in the waste
to distribute waste evenly so if waste is formed unevenly by the
prints, build up can occur towards one end or the other of the waste
bin and eventually cause failure, Additionally the toner is being
constatly heated by the fuser assembly (next which it is located when
the cartridge is installed) and the heat will cause blocking of the
toner (formation of large chunks) molding it into position in the waste
bin.
Your model has a larger waste bin than most cartridges, and of all the
HP models could probably survive the longest in a drill and fill
situation. The 4L, 4P, and 5L on the other hand will fail almost
immediately on the second refill as the first two uses (the original
and first refills) will literally pack the waste hoppers with toner.
Models like the 3si, 4si, 5si, II, IID, IIID have spreader augers which
were powered by the OPC drum rotation so re-using the cartridge without
cleaning the waste bin was known to cause the cartridge to lock-up,
stripping gears in the cartridge and the printer, This was why drill
and fill was frowned upon early on, design changes in newer cartridges
(removing the auger from the waste bin reduced manufacturing costs)
make "drill and fill" less damaging, but does not eliminate all the
draw backs to "drill & fill".
Frankly the 4/5 cartridge is easy to separate into two halves (two
screws removed releases the holding pins) and the bin is easy to open
and clean, I can however understand why you would want to melt a hole
in the toner hopper, since the original fill hole is not accessible
without splitting the toner hopper and the only other way to fill it is
by removing the developer roller and pouring the toner into that
opening.
However, another advantage to disassembling the LaserJet 4/5 cartridge
is that you can clean the doctor blade, removing small paper particles
that collect on the surface (picked up from paper dust in the printer)
and create fine lines where toner is missing on the developer roller.
This is not a large issue with text only printing, but cleaning the
blade prevents early degradation of line art, large fonts, and graphics
which require a higher density of toner for optimum fill, detail and/or
contrast.
"Drill & Fill" is not a good method for all cartridges, and in my
opinion should not be used at all, and any company that encourages such
for everything is doing a disservice.
In message <[email protected]>,
OK, thanks. I'll try splitting one.
Hmmm... Any company that reduces my printing costs by a factor of three
isn't doing so badly.
D&F may not be ideal, but nothing short of design to optimise running
cost ever will be.
Granted the situation we have now is technical nonsense, but it largely
seems to stem from commercial objectives to make excessive profits from
consumables.
budgie said:That certainly is my view of inkjets ("give them the rajor\\\\\printer, cell
them the blades\\\\\cartridges") but IMHO refillinmg lasers can get rather
variable results, and with that will invariably follow reputation.
If I were a laser printer manufacturer I wouldn't make carts which facilitated
user refilling, but I suspect I'd also not be aiming quite as high with the
profit factor either. There is a significant - and growing - sector of the
market that looks at total cost of owning/operating a piece of equipment, and
over a say five year SOHO life the cart cost starts to dominate even at modest
usage.