Melt & pour
Melting (or cutting) are just ways of making a hole. Once you have a hole, pour the toner in and seal with tape. Melting is easier than cutting, but you need access to a naked flame.As shown on this HP 5L/6L cartridge, just heat the tool supplied and melt your hole. This cartridge is also used in the Canon LBP 460/465/660. In a random soak test, we refilled it six times on the trot with no print problems of any kind.
Other "melt & pour" cartridges include the Color LaserJet 4500/4550, HP4/HP5, HP4L/4P, HP5P/6P, HP5Si, HP1100, HP1200, HP2100, HP4000, HP5000 and Canon E30. Wherever you can melt you can also cut, but because melting is easier, we use "melt & pour" to name the method in the price list. The melting tool is supplied with the starter kit, but if you want to cut, you’ll need your own craft knife.
Fox the "Pros"
Why are we so keen on a crude method like "Melt & Pour"? Because it doesn’t disturb the inner workings of your cartridge, that’s why. It’s completely superficial and just has the effect of putting some more gas in the tank. It’s ironic, but you actually have an advantage over the "professionals" – professional re-manufacturers, that is. Why? The "professionals" have to empty the waste to be able to transport the re-cycled cartridge: you don’t. Can the professionals hand the customer a cartridge that has obviously been hacked up in a garage and stuck back together with tape? Right degree of mystique? No, they have to disassemble and disturb. You, on the other hand, just "melt & pour".
1 screw & unplug
QMS Magicolor 2200 cartridges have a single screw standing between you and a removable toner plug. Unscrew the screw, the panel comes off and there she is. A lot of cartridges can be refilled using this same basic method, but the "remove a screw" theme can get more technical. By that we mean that some cartridges have, not one, but two screws to remove. Some have three and some, wait for it, have four. We've said in the price list just how many screws are in your way: i.e. "3 screw, unplug & pour".Unplug, er, that’s it
If you're lucky enough to own a QMS Magicolor 2 or Magicolor 6100 (now renamed Minolta-QMS), then your refilling future is bright indeed. As you can see, the manufacturers have thoughtfully put a toner plug right there on the outside of the cartridge. Just unplug and pour the toner in. Good night and God bless.For reasons which should be solidifying in our minds by now, cartridges with a friendly plug on the outside are in the minority, but they include the Epson EPL 5500, Sharp JX9200, Tektronix Phaser 540/550/560/740/750, Xerox XE60/62/80/82/88 and many other laser printers and copiers.
The Brother HL-1030/1240/1250/1270 (TN6600 cartridge), although it does have a plug on the outside, has to have its residual toner emptied out through that plug before pouring the fresh toner in. As such, in 2002 it spawned a new type of cartridge - the "unplug, empty & pour".
Open, unplug & pour
These are the same as "unplug, that’s it" except that at first – and probably not by any accident – you can’t get to the plug. A bit of taking apart is what’s needed, and folks, this isn’t rocket science. For the HP2/3/SX cartridge, you pull out 4 plastic "casing pins" with a threaded tool. It’s like uncorking a bottle of wine. The toner plug is then at your mercy. Unfortunately for those that like the occasional tipple, the similarity to wine tasting ends at the uncorking bit.How many times can I refill?
With one or two exceptions as explained below, we hereby put our corporate neck on the chopping block and say the rule of thumb is THREE STRAIGHT REFILLS - AND MAYBE THEN SOME.To be exact, it depends which cartridge you've got and many will tolerate more than three refills. If applicable, you can think about emptying the waste or changing the drum to get more out of your cartridge. But bearing in mind that "straight" means doing nothing more than pouring more toner in, almost all are covered by "three straight - and maybe then some".
A random soak test on the Hewlett Packard LaserJet 5L/6L cartridge printed perfectly until half way through the seventh. With the Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4 cartridge, though, we think three straight refills are about the limit before you'll have to think about emptying the waste if you want to carry on.
For some cartridges, drum life and waste collection don't interfere with your refilling aspirations because they've been designed without these things. Customers have refilled these in excess of eight times in some cases.
We find that, like electric light bulbs, some cartridges give up the ghost early while others live to be grand-daddies.
Exceptions to 3 refill rule
Some users have said that waste overflow happens half way through the second refill for the Canon E30 copier cartridge. (Waste overflow is explained below the in the "waste not, want not" section, for now we're just interested in the fact that it creates an exception to our rule of thumb for some cartridges.) In the case of the Epson Action 1500, it's been said that the waste can fill up towards the end of the first refill.You can empty the waste to eliminate these problems. That leaves the Canon PC10-25, CX and Minolta SP101 cartridges as the only true dark horses. You can't empty the waste on these ones and we think you'll be lucky to get three refills.
The instructions that arrive with your starter kit go into more detail about waste overflow, especially if it's a real threat for your particular cartridge.
Will the quality be as good?
Could you pass the salt? Usually, when a company cries "QUALITY!" and lets loose the hounds of blurb, you need a pinch or two.We're prepared drink our own quality cocktail. We do all the company’s printing on Hewlett Packard LaserJet 5Si cartridges refilled with our own "melt & pour" method. That includes our mail order catalogue which is sent to all customers and prospective customers.
Will I get the same number of prints?
Other things being equal, the number of prints is determined by the weight of toner powder. The weight of toner supplied in our bottles follows accepted industry practices for each cartridge. The Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4000/4050 cartridge is supplied by the manufacturer in two different flavours with different page yields. That means different weights of toner. In an effort to cut down on the brain-ache for everyone, we made a one-bottle-fits-all product. The high-yield weight won't all fit into the low-yield cartridge, so for HP4000/4050, the yield from our products is 6K, regardless of whether you refill a high or low yield cartridge. There are a few other machines with a similar carry on. If you've got one of these, it's all explained in the starter kit.Are all toners the same?
This is a bit like asking, "Are all fuels the same?". At the conceptual level, they all do more or less the same job in more or less the same way. That's to say, they produce heat energy which is harnessed in some way. But what's marvellous in your steam train - coal - won't get your private jet airborne. If you tank up your Ferrari with paraffin you can forget burning rubber at the next traffic lights. The same kinds of things apply to toners and printing.
Starter Kits get you going
With our starter kits, you’ll hit the ground running. They have full instructions, a bottle of toner, the melting tool (if applicable) and any bits and pieces special to your cartridge (if applicable). Once you know how to do your cartridge you don’t need another starter kit. Just keep refilling with bottles of toner.Wot? No downside?
So DIY refilling is all lightness and joy then? Er, well few things this side of the mortal coil are perfect, so in the interests of a balanced view, here are some of the issues which our ads don’t mention (ahem, purely for lack of space you understand).Drums eventually take a beating
The OPC drum is a rotating cylinder where the toner image is formed before it’s forced to jump across onto your piece of paper. No drum is everlasting, but it can be surprising how long they’ll go on. In that now legendary soak test with an AX cartridge (HP 5L/6L), the OPC was still going strong after eleven refills (something else had already gone wrong during refill number 7, but the OPC was still going strong after 11). For some cartridges, as shown in the price list, replacement drums are available. There are other machines where the drum unit is replaced independently of the toner cartridge and so drum life isn’t a factor in refilling. Examples of these are the QMS Magicolor 2, QMS Magicolor 6100, QMS Magicolor 2200, Brother TN6600 type machines and the Xerox XD100 series of multifunction machines.Waste not, want not?
Most cartridges (but to be precise, not all of them) collect their own waste toner as they print. If you just keep on refilling and refilling, then eventually the waste will fill up. When the waste gets jam-packed, the cartridge can’t clean the OPC drum anymore and so grey "skid marks" start appearing on your prints.Waste overflow is more likely in some cartridges than in others. It depends on the size of the waste compartment – no surprises there then. The only cartridges we know of where our "three straight refills" are under threat are the E30, PC, SP101 and Epson Action Laser 1500. In all of these except the PC, waste overflow can be dealt with by emptying the waste. You simply melt a hole in the waste compartment and tip it out.
In contrast to the E30, we refilled our first HP5L/6L cartridge eleven times with no sign of waste overflow – that’s not a misprint, we did say ELEVEN TIMES. In fact for many cartridges, it’s more likely that drum wear will bring down the cartridge before waste overflow gets a chance.
Wasteless cartridges have also begun to appear. The Samsung ML-1210/1220/1221/1250 has 100% transfer of toner onto your paper. There's no waste to overflow. The label on our bottle boldly states "YOU CAN REFILL REPEATEDLY UNTIL DRUM WEAR AFFECTS PRINT - THEN RETIRE THE CARTRIDGE".
Burning issue
For those cartridges that can be done this way, melt & pour is by far the easiest way to go. As with the combustion of any organic substance (such as petrol or tobacco), a cocktail of gases can be produced, some of which are harmful or at least irritant. We ourselves have no hesitation in researching and refilling with melt & pour in a well-ventilated room. If we didn’t have a well-ventilated room handy, we’d have no hesitation in doing it all outside. If you're worried about this issue, why not cut instead of melting?Breathe more easily
Toner is regarded by America's OSHA only as a particulate. In other words, the only possible hazard is considered to stem from the fact it's a powder, rather than what's in it. A few of the people that phone have surprised us by saying they've heard toner is a cancer risk. As far as we're aware, there's no evidence to support this. On the contrary, a two year long bioassay using a typical toner clearly showed no carcinogenicity. Carbon black, an ingredient of many black toners, was re-evaluated as group 2B by the IARC following, in our opinion, unrealistic and abusive experiments on some luckless rats breathing immense amounts of free carbon black, not toner. As the two year bioassay shows, the classification isn't realistic for toner. Let's face it, how many copiers and laser printers have been merrily churning away in offices around the world for the last 30 years? We think if toner were a genuine cancer risk, we'd know more about it by now. Add on the fact that everything from traffic fumes through cheese to hot drinks have been at least aired as cancer risks, then decide about toner. But wear a nuisance dust mask when dealing with all powders - including DIY toner powder.We think refilling toner cartridges in the ways we talk about is safe for the average adult exercising due care. But we might be wrong. You have to decide for yourself. Whatever you decide, there’s no come back on us. The next bit says that the way lawyers do and we haven’t used smaller print:
All information offered is believed to be true and is offered for consideration in good faith. However, U Refill Toner Ltd gives no warranties, neither explicit nor implicit as to the completeness or accuracy of any information offered nor the ultimate safety of refilling toner cartridges in any manner described or suggested nor the ultimate safety or hazardousness of products supplied by U Refill Toner Ltd. The onus is on the purchaser to evaluate all possible risk, including the possible incompleteness or inaccuracy of currently available information, and by proceeding to use the refill product or products, the purchaser thereby assumes all risk of peril or injury howsoever arising. If you decide not to use the product, just return it and we’ll cheerfully refund your money.
OK, you don’t believe it works
Actually, neither would we, even after reading such a (ahem, ahem) skilfully written sales blurb. So order up a starter kit!
Try it!
Yes, pour some more fuel into that otherwise worthless cartridge!
THE SAME WAY WE DO IN ORDER TO GET THE MAJORITY OF THE COMPANY'S PRINTING DONE
WITHOUT GOING BANKRUPT.
Come on, join the army of "guerrilla re-cyclers", save yourself a small fortune, help our home planet and
have some fun while you're at it. What have you got to lose?