Replies

1. 
   frammer52 | Oct 22, 2009 01:38am | #1

   I have 4 printers now.

    

1. 
   bc | Oct 22, 2009 01:40am | #2

   lol!

2. 
   Dan019 | Oct 22, 2009 03:10am | #3

   Dont know about the color prices but I've been buying my black toner

   from Goodwill Industries. They have a couple of business ventures going on and one of them is selling reconditioned carts.

   The black ones cost me 1/3 the cost of new ones. I found out about them from Pam Esser. She was in a networking group that I belong to.

   Pam Esser Stauffer
   484.599.0273
   [email protected]

   Dan

    

3. 
   xxPaulCPxx | Oct 22, 2009 03:38am | #4

   Take a look at the settings of your printer driver. If your default is to print color all the time, then it is likely pulling from all the toner tanks to print a very rich black... which you probably don't care about 95% of the time.

   Create an extra printer driver, set it to be the default, and change its settings from color to B&W.

   No when you go to quick print that email, you use only cheap black, instead of black, red, blue, yellow, and whatever else is in there.

   Tu stultus es
   Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
   Also a CRX fanatic!

   Look, just send me to my drawer.  This whole talking-to-you thing is like double punishment.

1. 
   jimAKAblue | Oct 22, 2009 08:53am | #8

   It took me months to figure out how to force my HP to print a cheap black style. HP built in multiple ways which reset the default back to the expensive colored black style. They also forced me to do way too many "alignments". F HP! I now use that machine for scanning to PDF only. When I bought the replacement, I bought a black only laser Samsung. I love my Samsung.

4. 
   Shep | Oct 22, 2009 03:43am | #5

   Do you have a Cartridge World store near you? A friend of mine bought a franchise, and he'll refill ink cartridges for about 1/2 of what they cost new.

   I do believe I've heard him say that some stores are better than others. It depends on the guy doing the work, just like our trade.

5. 
   HootOwl | Oct 22, 2009 04:02am | #6

   Our Konica Minolta laser printer which we bought on deep discount at Staples came with 'starter' cartridges.  Then the sales people try to convince a guy to buy 'fully loaded' cartridges cause they say the 'starter' cartridges won't last very long.  Well.....the price of the four 'fully loaded' cartridges is more than the price of the printer.  Knowing better.....I declined much to their dismay.  The 'starters' had 1/3 of a load of toner in them.  They lasted a long time.

   These cartridges can be easily refilled with toner and there is nothing different about the 'starter' cartridge than a 'standard' cartridge other than how much toner is in them at the get-go.  Ours have a plastic plug in the end which you pop out and pour the toner in when they eventually run out of the first load.  Super simple. Takes a few minutes per cartridge including the walk out to the driveway to ensure that you don't spill any toner on the floor in the house.  <G>  Some cartridges don't have that hole and so you must make your own.  Again, no biggie.  They sell a tool to do this.

   We got our toners from Meritline. They have instructions there for many laser printers which will explain what must be done to refill....and if you will need to make a hole or not.  They also sell the tool to do so and plugs for the holes. Some cartridges (like ours) need to also have a chip replaced on the cartridge in order for the printer to run after refilling.  Other models do not need to have any chips replaced........and on some you can 'trick out' the existing chip to see the now fully loaded cartridge. All of this info is likely available concerning your printer. 

   IIRC, most cartridges can be reloaded about 6 times or so before they need to be replaced.

   
   

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   Edited 10/21/2009 11:17 pm ET by HootOwl

6. 
   Chucky | Oct 22, 2009 05:08am | #7

   I have two now.

   Just purchased a Brother HL4040CDN to replace the Xerox 6120 which ran out of colour toner.   Cheaper to buy a new printer then 4 new toner cartridges.

   Am still using the Xerox for b/w prints.  It was purchased on sale and came with a full set of toner cartridges.  The b/w is good for 4500 pages.

   The Brother came with starter cartridges.  Before I bought it, I googled to make sure I could refill the cartridges.  I found out that it stops printing even if one of the colors is empty and that you have to change all of them.  I found a tip which describes how to reset the consumables count by pressing the buttons in a particular sequence.  That should fix the single empty toner issue.  Now I can buy toner refill kits at a much reduced price.

   I have installed the printer twice on my system.  This gives me two seperate printer objects in Control Panel.  They both print to the same printer but one is set to print in color while the other is set to print in b/w.   The b/w is the default.

1. 
   jimAKAblue | Oct 22, 2009 08:56am | #9

   Good idea (setting up two different printers color and black)