Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Hi,
I saw a kit for at home refilling of laser printer cartridges. I have had bad luck with recycled cartridges I've bought online & wonder if this might be a better approach. Have any of you tried this? How did it go? Also, I found a kit online that looked interesting but it doesn't come with a "reset" chip. How much of a problem is that? Thanks!

I haven't refilled HP cartridges, but I have done so on my Samsung.

1. The process itself was easy: 2 screws, pop out the plastic plug, fill, repackage, and shake. I've found that cartridges for newer models to be more complicated.
2. The quality of the printouts will the replacement toner is acceptable.
3. After a few refills, the drum goes wonky, leaving toner streaks on the page. Not sure if it's normal degradation, or the toner itself is inferior.
4. Now about that chip... if you existing cartridge does have one, I would be suspicious if the kit does not mention anything about it. Look on YouTube for a video showing the refill procedure for your specific model.

General advice: if you can't refill the one you have, consider buying a used business-class laser printer (may even be cheaper than buying a new cartridge for your existing one). Older models are less likely to employ anti-refill tactics, and the output (B&W) quality will be similar to newer models.

I also did the same on Samsung. Same process.

Refilled 2x. Prints got lighter despite new toner and setttings. I recall needing to clean out the waste toner reservoir. The fuser gets scraped after printing and the waste collects in a little reservoir. It isn't designed for multiple refills so it needs to be emptied. To get rid of streaks I cleaned the roller and scraper.

Besides the prints getting lighter, I gave it up because I didn't like the idea of inhaling the fine carbon dust. I felt like a coal miner after cleaning out the waste reservoir. I did the deed outside and it made my lawn look like I spilled toner all over.

Dangerous? Probably about as dangerous as being an office rat printing and reading thousands of pages. Or riding a bike behind a smokey bus.

I burned the leftover stuff. Wow. Now where did I put the salt peter and brimstone?

Not sure how to deal with HP.

Sometimes just giving the cartridge a little shake can get you some more pages.

after I gave up on refills I bought a whole new printer this year for 100 dollars. Laser BW with a duplexer.

The kit for my old Samsung did come with some stuff...like a fuse? I'm fuzzy it was so long ago. Just googling around exposes the cottage industry around replacement chips. I recall most of that business at HP is now owned by Avago. People seem to be selling new chips and reselling them. HP was reluctant to keep the printer asic biz in house.

Pumping in toner took me long past the shake trick. I actually think I refilled four times.

The printer was new in 2000. I never bought a new cartridge. that's 17 years

Apparently the more modern stuff has more sophisticated print counting hw.

Hi,
This is great information, thanks everyone!

Hi,
This is great information, thanks everyone!