Toner Refill Kits – Do They Work?

I recently got rather fed up with spending a fortune on replacing my laser toner cartridges and decided to try out a toner refill kit. Now I had been warned of these a couple of years ago by a friend (he ordered a kit and just received a bottle of toner!). The problem is my Lexmark printer is costing over £200 ($400) a go to replace the toner.

Whilst looking for a toner refill kit I did some investigating – there is an enormous amount of waste in this industry – everything is set up to be used once and only once. Laser toner cartridges used to be easily refillable 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 rubbish, 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 carries on printing.

It took me a little research to find out a good supplier (check below for my recommendation) but finally I found a firm whom I was happy with. They are called Toner Topup and 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 were very knowledgeable about all things to do with toner refill kits 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 little   solder  tool 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). This was then applied to the side of the cartridge and it automatically made a little hole – shake the toner, pour in from the bottle and then seal with the supplied plug.

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 have to be careful with the ink as it’s so fine it’s almost like liquid but that’s quite simple. 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.

Thoroughly recommended – check their site – they supply all over the world – you’ll save a fortune and help the environment by using a toner refill kit.