Spy Gadgets

 It’s something that always makes me a bit irritated replacing my laser toner cartridges  and I recently decided to try out  toner refill kits. I had been warned of these a few years ago by a friend of mine (he ordered a refill kit and received a bottle of toner ink !). The problem is my Lexmark printer is costing over £200  a go to replace the toner cartridges .  Anyhow I thought I’d jot down my findings in a little toner refill review article.

Whilst looking for a toner refill kit I did some investigation – the waste in this industry is enormous  – everything is set up to be used once and only once. In fact laser cartridges used to be refilled with ease but now the printer manufacturers actively try to stop this – can you believe that many cartridges have little chips on them to stop them working after printing so many pages. This is basically the same as fitting something to your car that stopped it working after 20,000 miles so you had to buy another one. Frankly the more I read about this, the more I was determined to try it – what’s the point in me trying to be greener, recycling my trash, reducing carbon emissions if I throw away a perfectly good cartridge when it runs out of ink .

That’s right – simply put more ink in the average toner cartridge with a toner refill kit and  the printer will work perfectly well  . It took me a little research to find out a good supplier (check links below for my recommendation) but finally I found a firm whom I was happy with.  When I contacted them they did inform me that with my particular Laser printer you could sometimes get a problem (lucky me) but the worst case scenario was I saved the toner ink for another cartridge.

 They seemed to know their stuff about refilling cartridges  and I was happy to do with business with them. I used the online selector and it told me what I needed – so I ordered the special kit (which I only needed once) and the replacement toner ink. It arrived the next day complete with full instructions including a chocolate bar to eat whilst I waited for the  soldering iron to heat up  . Basically this was what I needed to do – let the specially designed and supplied soldering iron heat up (pack included an egg timer so you waited the correct time).  You then apply this to the side of the cartridge and it automatically made a little hole – shake the toner, pour in from the bottle and then use  the supplied plug to seal .

The toner refill kit contained absolutely everything I needed to do the job – it was so easy ! I’ve never used a soldering iron in my life but all you had to was press it against the side of the cartridge and it made the hole.  You must be careful with the ink, it’s extremely fine and could make a mess -  it’s almost like liquid but that makes it  quite simple to pour. Probably took about 15 minutes to do 4 cartridges and they carried on printing fine – no difference to the originals. I still have loads of toner left as well so can refill them again.  

The best part of it was not the money I saved but the fact that I had reused something despite the efforts of the printer manufacturers.  The trick is to check out your printer with a company who have tested their refills, some laser and ink printers  have little design problems  which make them difficult to refill.  But the vast majority of printers can be refilled quite easily, as long as you use quality compatible toner.  But I have also to say the process would be much simpler if the printer companies didn’t try to stop you just to bolster their profits though.