Rebuilding old cartridges that print real light.

[idbit]

After watching a couple of the cartridge rebuilding videos that were posted on my last thread, it has me thinking that I might be able to rebuild a couple of these old cartridges I have sitting around. The printer is a 10-year old Samsung ML-1450.

Here's the question. If a cartridge is at the point where it's printing real light, even though it's full of toner, is it shot at that point? Will I ever be able to resurrect it? When I say printing light, it's not the way it looks when you're getting low on toner. The coverage is still 100% there. It's just faint. And it doesn't seem to stick to the page very well. I've printed shipping labels like this, where the package was returned for some reason. After traveling across the country, you can barely read the label. (I started putting clear shipping tape on these labels, covering everything important, until I got a new cartridge.) On these cartridges, I don't think there are any other problems, like ghosting, or that melting plastic smell that some of them make when they're no good anymore.

Sorry if it's a confusing question. I just don't want to buy the toner, take the time to rebuild the cartridge, and then have it still print just as light. Anybody have any experience with this situation?

Thanks!
IB

 

[fotofreek]

I don't know much about laser printers or the Samsung units - I''ve had several HP laser printers. I had one that needed a fuser replaced. The fuser heat-sets the toner on the page and prevents what you describe as not sticking to the page very well. I also had the same experience when I shopped for my last laser printer. I took an envelope and some paper stock heavier than the typical copy or multipurpose paper to test the printers that were being demonstrated. Starting at the low end, cost-wise, I tested each printer. Some didn't have a large enough gap for the thicker items, but some also didn't have sufficient heat from the fuser unit to "set" the toner to the thicker paper products. Toner would rub off the printed page.

Although dirty optics can also cause light printing, it wouldn't prevent the toner from sticking firmly to the paper. From your question I assume that this is not a printer that you simply add toner to. If it is a self contained cartridge and you are using aftermarket cartridges you may have purchased a poorly performing one. I would guess that the wrong toner in a faulty cartridge might not fuse properly.

Sounds like the fuser isn't developing enough heat to fuse the image. Could be poor electrical contacets that won't let the fuser come up to proper temperature, or the fuser itself needs replacing.

 

[mikling]

I had this problem with a very old Canon LBP-430..using a parallel port!!! When I enquired a copier technician about this I was told that it likely could be the fuser and maybe sometimes the paper/humidity in the paper. For me it was the fuser and since I had multiple toner carts I sought a replacement that used the same toner units.

 

[idbit]

Well the printing light issue only happened with a couple of these older remanufactured cartridges I put aside. Right now, with the remanuf cartridge from a different supplier, it prints dark, no problem. So I don't think it's the fuser. Only problem with this cartridge is that I think the drum is shot. It ghosts, leaks, etc. So it's either one problem or the other. But at least this one I'm using now prints dark. So I'm thinking maybe this company uses a toner that's a better match for my printer. I'm thinking maybe buy some of that company's toner and use it for rebuilding one of these cartridges that was printing light. Just make sure I really do it proper and get rid of every speck of old toner.

Let me ask this. When that kind of light printing happens, is it ever the drum itself causing that? Or is the light printing always either a bad fuser, bad toner, or the wrong paper?

Thanks for the help guys! I appreciate it.
IB

 

[fotofreek]

I've never rebuilt a toner cartridge but I've read up on it when thinking of rebuilding one. What was apparent was that you can only do a small number of rebuilds on a cartricge before replacing the drum. As I recall, there is also another part - somthing that removes any excess toner from the drum before making the image - that needs replacing. This little bit of reading led to another article about cheap rebulit cartridges that have not had these parts replaced. Your used third party cartridges may well be a problem because there wasn't adequate attention given to replacing parts after the max number of rebulids that would give a result as good as OEM or well rebuilt OEM carts. In addition, if one of your non-OEM carts is leaking this is definitely a sign of a poor quality non-OEM or rebuilt cart.

I'm sitting at my desk looking at two inkjet and one laser printer. My laser printer is uses solely for business purposes and is not one with which I would experiment with cheap third party carts. Toner leaked into a laser printer is a real problem and poor quality prints (too light, uneven, or ghosting) would not be adequate for any business document. The supposed high quality aftermarket carts I've tried aren't cheap enough, compared to OEM carts, to have the printer potentially problematic. If I were using inkjet printers commercially to sell prints I would feel the same way about using a printer with more archival inks and no experimentation.

All that being said, if you want to essentially tinker with cart rebuilding I guess it is no different from what I do with refilling inkjet carts. it is not, however as simple as just replacing the toner. In addition, you should probably start with a known well built, new cart - probably an OEM cart like we do with inkjet carts. You could also check out the availablility of the other parts that are necessary for a complete rebuild after a few simple toner refills.

 

[idbit]

Thanks fotofreak. The funny thing about this, the company I bought this last cartridge from states right on the same product page that all of their rebuilds use new drums:

"All InkOwl cartridges are of high quality with custom-made parts and come with new, long-lasting drums. If you plan to refill, this drum allows you to refill many times. We ensure that all our cartridges are either built of all new parts or are remanufactured with new internal components."

The drum on this thing is far from new. The QC was bad. One screw was missing, one screw hole was stripped. They were nice about giving me a refund though. I never followed through in time. I needed the cartridge and just got lazy about it.

All that being said, if you want to essentially tinker with cart rebuilding I guess it is no different from what I do with refilling inkjet carts. it is not, however as simple as just replacing the toner. In addition, you should probably start with a known well built, new cart - probably an OEM cart like we do with inkjet carts.

Yeah I plan on doing that anyway - starting with an oem cartridge. But if I can milk a couple life cycles out of one of the old ones I already have, it couldn't hurt. I'll just have to try it on one of them.

You could also check out the availablility of the other parts that are necessary for a complete rebuild after a few simple toner refills.

Wow, is that how it works? So theoretically, I could keep rebuilding the same cartridge forever, as long as I can keep finding replacements for all the parts that go bad? I just did a quick search on Samsung drums. It looks like Alibaba.com lists drums for real cheap, only $2 or $3, but you have to buy 10 or so. I don't know how difficult it is to purchase from them. It looks like if I wanted to buy spare parts for this printer, it would be alot of work - especially since the printer is 10 years old. I guess at the time it comes down to it, I can decide if I want to spend the time on it.

 

[fotofreek]

Not to mention that you must vacuum out the remaining toner, a good amount of which is not suitable for use as another refill - it is waste that is developed during the clearing of the charged drum of excess toner, leaving just the toner the creates the image. You can not use a regular domestic vacuum as the toner is extremely fine and injurious to you health when inhaled. Just like refilling inkjet carts, you need a bit of special equipment and you need to develop a workflow specific to the refilling process. It is certainly not impossible, and I'm sure that you would find it easy once you've done a few. You are right, however, that buying multiple spare parts at a time for a ten year old printer may not be practical.

I'm not surprised that you've found what was claimed to be a high quality aftermarket refilled cart lacking. That a company gives a money back guarantee is less valuable when you consider that you are their customer PLUS their quality control person. Of special concern to me is the cart that leaked toner into the printer. Who needs to waste the time and effort to clean up the mess. There is a balance to strike of how much of a pain in the butt it is to wade through the faulty devices til i'd find a good quality one and how much the savings would be. I would say, however, that I am also an inveterate tinkerer and am intrigued with the inner workings of these devices. So --- I play with inkjets because they are not an essential part of my work and I've laid in a supply of backup printer to cover the potential failures, but I need my laser printer to simply work optimally all the time.

 

[idbit]

I'm not surprised that you've found what was claimed to be a high quality aftermarket refilled cart lacking. That a company gives a money back guarantee is less valuable when you consider that you are their customer PLUS their quality control person. Of special concern to me is the cart that leaked toner into the printer. Who needs to waste the time and effort to clean up the mess. There is a balance to strike of how much of a pain in the butt it is to wade through the faulty devices til i'd find a good quality one and how much the savings would be. I would say, however, that I am also an inveterate tinkerer and am intrigued with the inner workings of these devices. So --- I play with inkjets because they are not an essential part of my work and I've laid in a supply of backup printer to cover the potential failures, but I need my laser printer to simply work optimally all the time.

Yeah that's what's frustrating about it. I need the laser for day-to-day things. But I print enough that I have to think about cost. The oem cartridge for this printer is about $125, where rebuilds are about $60. Then you add to that the fact that the oem really skimps on toner, about half of what a rebuild gives you. So at that point, it's 4 times the cost per print for the oem. So I have to find an alternative. But I've run out of options. The only only option left is to buy the oem and just hope that that toner I use for refills doesn't cause it to print light, which is what happened the last time I refilled an oem cartridge. I did empty out the old toner that time, but I don't think I got rid of every speck. So I'll have to be more thorough next time - and probably switch brands of toner to the Inkowl version because at least their rebuilt cartridges print dark for me.