Printer Toner

Printer Toner Stats

In the old days lasers didn’t have the print resolution that they do now. Originally toner particle sizes were about 12 micrometers but that changed to a smaller eight micrometers size once resolutions pushed past the 600 dpi standard. Particle size will continue to shrink as resolutions become better. Because toner powders are comprised of such small particles, breathing them can be a health hazard, especially if you have a reparatory condition like asthmas, bronchitis or allergies. The toner dust hangs in the air, which is one reason not to attempt to refill your own abridgers.

Toner Cartridges Are Not Compatible

It’s not just a simple matter of pulling a toner cartridge out of a box and sticking it in your printer. With lasers, all parts of the machine have to work together in order to produce a working output. Printer designs are proprietary, with each machine designed to be different and better than a competitors. Each design is made to meet customer needs.

Toner pigments, polymer binders and melting points must match the design of the machine. Some lasers produce great amounts of heat when producing printouts, like older Macintosh models, while others are more compact, run cooler and don’t introduce as much ozone pollution to office air like Samsung. Image quality and operating speeds are other factors that must be considered. Color toners are made of organic dyes, polymeric binders which holds the pigment in place until the final image is rendered or fused to the paper. Each color toner requires specific operating characteristics to be met in order to work on a particular printer.

Proprietary Cartridges

As with Inkjet Refill Kits, laser printer toner cartridges go beyond mere design parameters and remain in the area of proprietary materials for several reasons. The primary reason is that toner cartridges are money makers for manufacturers. While the costs of lasers have come way down in the past 20 years, from the $2,500 Apple IINTs weighing 60 pounds to $70 personal lasers that perch on a desktop and weigh less than 15 pounds like Samsung models, cartridges have not reduced in price proportionately. A good cartridge will still cost $65-$100, but that is still down from the $120-$140 range when first introduced.

Buy Printer Toner New

The best bet is to buy new and recycle the cartridge when done. Refiling your own cartridges isn’t recommended, both for aforementioned health reasons and the mess created when doing so. Refilled cartridges sometimes are not reliable. You’ll read the usual manufacturer’s disclaimers about how using a remanufactured cartridges voids their warranties. But while inkjet cartridges only get about 200-400 pages per in output, a laser cartridge gets about 3,000. So unless you have a tremendous output from your laser printer, the costs savings per year will be negligible.

Where to Buy Laser Cartridges

• Office Depot
• Office Max
• Staples
• Radio Shack
• Costco
• Wal-Mart