Canon mf4890dw with recycled cartridge?

[Cubytus]

Hello there,

the starter cartridge is now almost empty, and it is now time to buy a new one. I have the choice between the stock one at ~$120, and a good quality recycled one for half that price, both warrantied for a full year.

I was a bit unsure about using recycled catridges, since at least one acquaintance reported several friends of his had "damage" (unspecified) to their printer. I don't know if they were talking about inkjet or laser printers.

Canon specifically excludes damage caused to the printer by non-original cartridges from warranty coverage.

What would be the risk in using recycled catridges in a laser printer?

 

[A.Goldberg]

I can't speak for canon in particular but I've used generic toner on HP and Brother laser printers, both BW and color. I've never had a major issue. The only think I can think of was the Brother, one time we had a batch of weird color toner so the colors were slightly different. It wasn't anything bad or permanent, just different, that thing sucks at printing images anyways. I've used color in HP though without issues.

If I remember Canon's have the toner cartridge and drum separately. Other companies like HP combine the two parts, which is why their toner costs more. Having the separate toner and drum isn't ideal because eventually the drums wear out and you have to replace them ($$).

The "damage" your friend may have been referring to was the drum. When lines start printing down the page that's when you know your drum is bad. It may be he damaged the drum or it wore out or the toner cartridge broke it somehow. But that is a part that wears out.

So that was a bit of ramble, long story short I've never had an issue with genetics. Check Amazon, check the reviews. "Remanufacured" is better than "refilled" or the vague "recycled".

Ps. Actually read the instructions on replacing the toner, there's tabs to remove, shaking, etc. Not prepping it right can cause problems too.

 

[Cubytus]

Glad to read that "genetics" wasn't an issue!

However I think this Canon 128, since it's a consumer level model, has the toner and drum in the same unit, what Canon calls "Single catridge system". The recycled cartridge isn't a mere "refill", but a complete refurbish, according to the catridge's manufacturer.

Independently, I gave away another laser printer using one cartridge and no separate drum because it started to print horizontal lines that wouldn't fade away after many pages.. What is weird is that it still was on the starter toner, and I wouldn't expect the drum to fail after only 500 or so pages.

 

[Cubytus]

Check Amazon, check the reviews. "Remanufacured" is better than "refilled" or the vague "recycled".

This is unfortunately seldom specifiedamong vendors. Most use the indeed vague term "recycled"

 

[A.Goldberg]

@Cubytus

That is odd to have drum issues after 500 pages on a new printer. Could have needed a cleaning or maybe it was defective from the start. Or maybe the starter toner was only good for 500 pages (which is pretty short unless you're printing a lot of black/color on the page). White streaks generally mean your toner is low.

In go to Amazon and type in the toner model #. From there I look at all the generic brands and pick the one with the best overall reviews, provided there are a sufficient number of reviews.

I'm partial to the models with the combined toner and drum. In my mind it makes more sense in terms of reliability to replace the drum routinely and divide the cost into the toner, rather than spend $50+/drum x4 colors at some unknown point in time.

Generally speaking Canon's consumer laser printers don't have the best reviews in terms of software and reliability. I prefer HP, then Brother, then Canon, then Samsung or Lexmark/Dell. Canon benefits from being cheaper and having cheaper toner.

After buying a color laser I would never go back to owning an inkjet ever again. Those high capacity Epson inkjet with the tank look interesting, but I've never had good luck with Epson and unless you frequently print with an inkjet the heads will clog.

Old inkjet used to have the heads built into the cartridge, so everytime you replace the ink you replace the head. Now most printers separate inks and heads. Most heads are not replaceable, and those that are it's basically just worth buying a new printer given the cost.

 

[Cubytus]

That is odd to have drum issues after 500 pages on a new printer. Could have needed a cleaning or maybe it was defective from the start. Or maybe the starter toner was only good for 500 pages (which is pretty short unless you're printing a lot of black/color on the page). White streaks generally mean your toner is low.

These were horizontal black lines, not the unmistakeable pale vertical areas that low toner levels usually do. AFAIK there's was no "cleaning" program on this mono laser, and I tend to think either 1. the printer was stored, unused, for a long time in an unsuitable location 2. drum was defective from the start, in which case it's a mystery why the buyer didn't take it back to the store, or 3. the buyer badly mistreated it, e.g. yanking the paper out or using non-approved media. 500 pages isn't that exceptional on a starter toner, but I never heard of any manufacturer installing such a fragile drum that would last only 1% of their usual life expectancy.

I'm partial to the models with the combined toner and drum. In my mind it makes more sense in terms of reliability to replace the drum routinely and divide the cost into the toner, rather than spend $50+/drum x4 colors at some unknown point in time

Makes more sense, but remanufacturers can be tempted not to change the drum to shave a few bucks, especially on $20 toner cartridges. Without more information, I'd think the $60 "recycled" toner would in fact be "remanufactured".

Generally speaking Canon's consumer laser printers don't have the best reviews in terms of software and reliability.

I can relate to that. As soon as the printer is turned off and back on after minutes being off, the ADSL modem crashes. Every single time. Never found the source of the problem, and never had the patience of using iPhone tethering to hold a chat with Canon's representatives while we try to debug the issue.

Even debugging my own Samsung ML-2510 on El Capitan lasted 2 hours, and was unsuccessful. I finally found the problem: Mac OS X didn't register the correct address for the printer; and the solution: manually edit this in CUPS.

 

[rdowns]

HP's latest printer DRM treats third party ink as damaged.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/19/12979766/hp-firmware-drm-printers-third-party-ink-cartridges