Compatible Printer Cartridges.

[ExSp33db1rd]

We all know about the rip-off of printer inks and cartridges.

I think I ruined a Canon Ink Jet by refilling with my own ink, and an Epson by using a local retailer who supplied so called 'professionally' refilled ink cassettes.

I now have a Brother Laser printer - HL 2O4O - that needs a new Brother TN 2050 Toner/Cartridge.

Brother originals sell at over $100 dollars through Internet mail-order suppliers and yet one such supplier offers a 'compatible' one at $40, and reckons that out of an estimated 10,000 sold, only 2 have given problems.

This is more than just refilled ink, or toner, the device is more or less the bones of the whole printer, and includes moving parts that doubtless wear, but then if the cartridge fails it isn't necessarily going to damage the rest of the printer, as happened previously with an ink jet, and a new cartridge would restore to normal again ?

I'm still a little sceptical.

[mike-wsm]

I am suddenly filled with pangs of notalgia. The good old dot matrix printer used to zizz along so reliably and only needed a new ribbon. And the very first Canon printer I had was such a neat little machine, not much bigger than an A4 sheet of paper and only an inch thich. Whatever happened? Why are printers now such large pieces of furniture? I haven't owned one for at least five years. Who needs hard copy, anyway?

[ExSp33db1rd]

Who needs hard copy, anyway?

Bit difficult boarding an aeroplane showing the booking clerk only your laptop ( if the battery is behaving ) confirmation of possessing an e-ticket - which is something some airlines will only issue now. Theoretically it should work, and indeed some airports have computer terminals for passengers to use to check themselves in with nothing but a boarding reference number to start the process, during which a copy is printed - but I wouldn't want to chance it everywhere !

I realise your remark was tongue in cheek, and I wish I could agree, but sadly Life ain't like that - yet.

A million years ago we ( my crew and I ) were unexpectedly sent home as passengers from New York. No tickets, but advised that they would be issued on arrival at the airport. When we got there 'the girl' regretted that we wouldn't be able to go home as 'the computer' ( a new toy ) was down and she couldn't print our tickets, and no tickets = no boarding.

The Flt. Engineer gave her his pen.

[Bushfiva]

Your cartridge numbers and prices don't match up. If you've got an HL-2040, the list price of the TN-350 is around $85 with a street price of $50 or less. Are you sure you're not talking about the drum unit? For a compatible refill, I wouldn't pay more than $35.

We moved to Brother printers a while back for all our cheap mono printing, and they've turned out to be unbreakable and supremely refillable (but the inkjets are utter dogs).

[mixture]

but then if the cartridge fails it isn't necessarily going to damage the rest of the printer, as happened previously with an ink jet, and a new cartridge would restore to normal again ?

Depends how it "fails"... you might end up with a lot of toner all over the place which is a right pain to clean up fully and safely.

Just buy the original carts and be done with it. All the third party refill nonsense is just not worth the hassle.

Lasers are much cheaper to run anyway.... you shouldn't be changing your laser cartridges that often to even bother worrying about the cost of a new cart. And if you are, then you need to get a laser that takes high-cap toners.

[Milo Minderbinder]

I've seen too many printers ruined by toner powder leaking out of remanufactured lazer cartridges.
Once the stuff gets out, and gets all over the guts of the machine, any attempt at cleaning is virtually pointless.
As Mixture says, buy the real item. When you look at the cost per page, its pennies in difference, really not worth the aggro or risk

[Sunnyjohn]

Thanks for that tip, Milo. I would never replace my Canon inkjet with anything other than Canon cartridges but I have a cheap old Samsung BW laser and it occurred to me to replace the next toner cartridge with a refill. Not now. Incidentally, that Samsung has seen its way side-by-side through three Canon ink jet printers. Full marks for reliability!

[jimtherev]

Milo is right of course (Respectful bow) but the fact remains that I only once replaced my HP laser carts with OEM ones; the rest of the time (five years and 60,000 pages) I used compatibles - always from the same company based in Channel Isles - and never had real problems with toner spillage. (ok, a few bits of dust, occasionally, but not enought to do damage.)

I've obviously been lucky then, but I will still buy compatibles for my new printer.

[unclenelli]

Some of the cheaper end printers are cheaper to buy a new printer, than buy replacement ink.
(Beware of cheaper lasers, as they tend to arrive with lower capacity toners installed.)

[ExSp33db1rd]

..........that needs a new Brother TN 2050 Toner/Cartridge.

Your cartridge numbers and prices don't match up. If you've got an HL-2040, the list price of the TN-350

Bushfiva ......... first of all my apology - finger trouble - I need a TN 2025 not the 2050, but certainly not the TN-350. My prices were quoted from a search of NZ suppliers on the Internet yesterday, the first was NZ$85 + 15% gst + postage, but a compatible at $39.99. free delivery. "Trade-me" offered a compatible with a starting price at $25.99 with 4 days bidding still to go, but I wouldn't touch that with a barge pole, at least the Internet store is accountable if things go wrong.

After writing I visited the Warehouse ( local WalMart/Tesco type store ) and they didn't have my model number, but had many others and the cheapest was $123. Sadly they were offering 2 for 1 in yesterdays New Year Sale so I missed out due Nil Stock

I hadn't considered toner dust everywhere, so I guess a 'real' one is the way to go, and as mentioned, it isn't as if one has to buy one every day, or even every year at my rate of use !

Thanks guys.

[Milo Minderbinder]

this threads a good example of how different peoples experiences vary.
I guess it just proves that sometimes you can get away with refills / clones, IF you happen to come across someone who knows what they're doing.
The problem is that they are few and far between......

Several comments here about the reliability of Samsung and Brother lazer printers. As far as I can make out these brands both use the same factory (or group of factories) for their production, and there isn't much difference between their products, except maybe in styling.
Its worth stating that a Health Service Trust who I'm currently contracting for has close to 2000 Brothers of various models, some going back six years or more and they're pretty much bullet proof. The only problems are where the printers have second trays fitted and the staff switch them around when they run out of paper......

[Bushfiva]

Brother changed from Canon engines to Samsung engines a few years back.

[Bruce Cox]

The TN-2025 has been around for a long time.
Many of the new compatibles are just as good as the original and will last as long, if not longer.
Checking the boxes of original cartridges will show they are manufactured in many different countries. Even the manufacturers chase price.

There are some good cartridge supply places out there as well as the rip off merchants. Build a relationship with a independent cartridge supplier, and reap the benefits.

I would be using non genuine as the price is to hard to go by.

Often you need to buy 2 printers to get the same amount of prints as you get from 1 NEW Compatible cartridge.

[ExSp33db1rd]

The TN-2025 has been around for a long time.

and so have ! !!

yes, we've had it a long time so I guess the next trick will be being told that the machine is obsolete, so maybe I'd better buy in a few compatibles for the price of a couple of originals ?

[El Grifo]

Been filling up my 5 cartridges on my Canon iP47800 for ages now with no ill effect.

They are drilled and plugged and I simply fill them in situ !

[OFSO]

Oddly, the Carrefour supermarket chain here sells their own brand of cheapo replacement cartridges which, for HP at least, cost MORE than original HP cartridges.....

This must be some kind of French marketing system.

Incidently the TGV ticket collectors have scanners which can read your ticket bar code from a laptop or smartphone screen, but such is my faith in these devices that I prefer to print the tickets off.

[Fareastdriver]

Anybody know of a website where you can find out which printers accept compatable cartridges and which ones show 'cannot recognise cartridge' like my Epson has started to do.

[P.Pilcher]

In order to attempt to defeat those like you and me who use compatible cheap cartridges, some printer manufacturers continually change the systems used in their ink cartridge chips in an attempt to defeat the compatible manufacturers. Over the years I have acquired my compatible cartridges from www.tonezoneuk.com (http://www.tonezoneuk.com). I fund that they tend to keep up to date with the latest tricks and traps of the computer manufacturers thus I tend to give them a ring before comtemplating any new purchase. I WILL NOT pay these ridiculous prices for ink jet ink when BS inks are available, reasonably priced, from a number of suppliers - and I have always obtained excellent results with my photographic prints. It currently costs me about 50p per cartridge to refill my Canon photo printer.

P.P.

[Milo Minderbinder]

came across one a few months ago (a Brother from memory) where the printer was using a simple form of UV Spectroscopy to detect whether the cartridges had "real" ink in them. It was shining a UV light through the transparent cartridges and obviously was looking for the correct absorbance curve for "real" ink.

[P.Pilcher]

That's a pity. Up until now I have been of the opinion that of the printer manufacturers, Brother seemed to take the most sensible attitude to ink use. Their cartridges were a little more expensive than the good quality compatible ones, but neither of the Brother printers I have recommended have appeared to have any mechanism to check on the type of ink used. They both have happily used third party compatibe cartridges from new.

P.P.

[Sunnyjohn]

I've been giving this thread some thought (I do that sometimes) and it occurred to me to work out how much I pay for a set of cartridges for my Canon printer. It's about £50. So two sets of cartridges costs me slightly less that the printer (£110). So it does seem daft to pay so much when I could buy cheap cartridges, wear my printer out quicker, but buy another printer and still save money. However, one problem with this is that by using cheap cartridges the quality of my prints will gradually deteriorate but I won't notice. The second one is that I get used to a printer and don't really want to buy a new one. It's an interesting argument though. I get through about five sets of cartridges a year (just checked on my Amazon orders!), so I will spend about £250 a year. I could buy cheap cartridges for about a third of that, say £80, and buy another printer. Hmm . . .

[jimtherev]

Hmm, had that discussion with myself when I got the HP laser some years ago. So I made up a test sheet and printed it off - made 2 actually and put one in the filing cabinet and t'other in bright sunlight to see how it stood up. Then when it occurred to me - about every 12 - 15 months I printed another copy of the same sheet. Confirmed that the printer was still behaving reliably and that the toner was still the same quality.
Sadly the engine failed after some years - but by that time the printer owed me nothing.

[Milo Minderbinder]

I had to scrap an HP Laserjet 2100 yesterday
Nothing wrong with it, except it used a parallel port lead (permanently wired in) while the replacment Win7 PCs we're installing don't have parallel ports

At a rough guess I reckon its around 13 years old and still printing perfectly
The online user guide dates from 2000

It could still be used in a modern office as a network machine if attached to a jetdirect card, or other print server. Those old HP machines were quite simply indestructible

[jimtherev]

Yep, I was using a Netgear mini print server - about the size of a matchbox (remember matchboxes?) Never faltered - the only drawback being it was a one-way street; I couldn't read printer info on the computer.