Laser printers , like inkjet printers, end up running out of ink and you have to change the toner, in this case (instead of the cartridges). Compatible toners are pretty cheap, but sometimes they give you trouble, so today we are going to show you how to refill a laser printer toner by yourself and for little money .
Actually, a “compatible” toner is usually quite cheap, since it costs a fifth of what original toners cost. However, their result may not be entirely good, and in fact, some compatible toners even give problems. So sometimes it pays more to buy powdered ink and recharge the toner by ourselves, as long as we talk about the manufacturer’s original toner, which will work better without a doubt.
In any case, know beforehand that it is a rather cumbersome operation, since normally the original toners are not designed to be recharged , so despite not being complicated, it is, as we say, cumbersome (especially since you will put it all lost of dust with almost total security). With that said, let’s go there.
Necessary materials
Logically, you will need toner powder, if the manufacturer of the same may say that it is compatible with the model of your printer. Here we give you an example for HP printers and another for Brother, in both cases only for black.
Obviously, you will need to acquire the powder of the colors whose toner you want to recharge. If your printer is monochrome you will only need black powder, but if it is in color and you need to refill the color toners as well, you will need to buy additionally blue, red and yellow.
In addition to toner powder, you will need (or at least recommend) the following materials:
- Gloves.
- A disposable plastic surface to try to stain as little as possible.
- A flat screwdriver.
- Pliers.
- Cutting pliers.
- Insulating tape.
How to Refill Toner in a Laser Printer
The first thing you should do is take the toner out of the printer, and then locate where you have the tank . Normally it has a cylindrical shape, and you will see that on one side it has nothing but on the other it has a kind of circular shaped lid. It is this cover that we must remove to be able to put the dust there.
This cap, as we said, is normally designed not to be removed (but all toners have it so they can fill the toner with dust at the factory) and for this reason it is quite difficult to remove the cap. You will have to put the screwdriver and pry, using the pliers. In some brands of toner it is literally glued and you will have to use the cutting pliers to be able to “force” the cover to come off.
* Of course, if you do not get it and you want to fill it at any cost, if you are sure where the tank is you can drill a hole with a drill, then put the powder there (and you will have to cover it well with tape American in this case). We do not recommend this technique.
Now put on your gloves, if you haven’t already. Typically toner powder refills have a funnel-shaped head , but if the one you purchased doesn’t have one, you can make a funnel out of paper foil . The important thing is to make sure that as little dust as possible ( although not toxic ) is escaping. It’s time to put the powder inside the toner to fill it.
Once filled, we recommend that you press it with the handle of the screwdriver to make it compact inside. Once this is done, you can proceed to put the lid back on, and we recommend adding one or two strips of electrical tape to ensure that it does not reopen easily.
Once this is done, we recommend that you clean all the toner with a piece of kitchen paper so that it is clean before installing it back into the printer. The process, as you can see, can be somewhat cumbersome due to how dirty it is to work with ink powder, but in reality except for the phase of having to open the lid, which costs a lot, it is a fairly simple process.