[bombcar]

I would like to see cartridges designed ecologically - refillable perhaps, or at least designed to flow as much out as possible - and allowing you to override the "toner low" warning and keep printing even if it's almost dry.

[pifm_guy]

Most are refillable if you follow an unofficial online guide.

Beware that toner dust is really nasty stuff and gets everywhere, so however careful you are you'll still have clouds of toner dust escape and stick to every surface of your house inside and out...

Top tip:. Never clean toner dust with warm water. It will stick and become permanent.

[gnu8]

In any situation where you can see toner you want to be wearing an N95 mask. Inhale any of it and it is in your lungs forever.

The best thing for cleanup is a 3M electronics vacuum which has a filter that will trap that stuff securely.

[nsxwolf]

This makes these refill kits sound really dangerous.

[pifm_guy]

There isn't yet enough research on health hazards of toner to really give a good answer here... Black toner for example is mostly polyester plastic and carbon dust. Neither of those are particularly toxic, although they are in a much finer powder than you'd normally encounter them.

Basically I'd still steer clear of them, but exposing yourself to them isn't a certain death sentence like say organic mercury.

[gnu8]

I would say akin to smoking a cigarette. One time won't hurt you in a measurable way but if your job is refilling toners or dealing with broken laser printers you need some protection.

[nebula8804]

Be warned that mixing different formulations of toner could cause the toner to not stick tot he drum properly and start to pool up in your printer requiring expensive maintenance.

[pifm_guy]

Typically one can fix that by adjusting the transfer drum voltage, normally found in the service section of the menu.

You might also need to adjust the fuser temperature for non-oem toners

[nebula8804]

Lets put aside the fact that you wouldn't know the correct values for whatever garbage generic toner the refill company gave you. How are you going to deal with the fact that the printer already has particles of the old toner in the system and now you are introducing contamination with a set of different particles from the new cartridge/refill?

[nerpderp82]

I have never used one, but I think it is interesting that Epson does sell a line of printers that have easily refillable ink reservoirs.

https://epson.com/ecotank-ink-tank-printers

[kevin_thibedeau]

Inkjets have to be used regularly or they will suffer from clogs and in the case of Epson you're SOL if a head clean doesn't work. You can leave a laser idle for years and it will print fine.

[ghaff]

For a lot of people a laserprinter is probably better than an inkjet, especially given that a lot of people don't print much these days. And you can get even color lasers for a pretty good price these days. I've had a B&W laser at home forever. About a year ago, I just got rid of my inkjet rather than spending a bunch of money to get new ink. It was a large format photo printer and was sometimes nice to have but not worth it.

[bombcar]

I've found that Walmart is perfectly acceptable (and cheap) for printing normal photographs (pickup in an hour!) and if I want to go larger they offer that too.

Of course you can order things printed online and shipped, but a black-and-white laser covers most of my needs there.

[ghaff]

Yeah, I don't need many photos printed and, when I do, there are lots of options that don't involve $100+ in ink cartridges. I did sometimes print color maps too but B&W is usually fine at the end of the day, I can print a map, or (usually) on a phone/tablet works.

[RobotToaster]

I think eco tanks (and some other modern inkjets) will purge the heads regularly if left on, so it should be fine if left on standby constantly.

[zaroth]

I have a Brother laser printer which is used for almost everything, and a Canon inkjet for the occasional color print.

I’m pretty sure my Canon inkjet uses more ink when idle than when I occasionally use it to actually print something. Quite sad.

I do wonder where it all physically goes tho. After years of seeing my cheapo cartridges just “evaporate” whatever reservoir the printer has for cleaning the heads and purging ink must be well and fully saturated at this point?!

[Brian_K_White]

huge sponges and felt blocks. not kidding.

[nebula8804]

Yes and the printer has an internal counter keeping track of how much it has dumped into the sponge. After a long time it will stop and require disassembly of the printer and a reset procedure to rectify this.

[someweirdperson]

Mine doesn't, some nozzles clogged every time I wanted to print (infrequently, sometimes months). Now I'm printing a test page every week to prevent that (maybe should add a cron job).

A contributing factor could be that the best-before date on the bottles is in the past. Though I have no idea how that date would matter for filling up, and no idea how to observe it after the ink is in the printer and the bottles disposed of.

[jve]

I have a HP Smart tank I can refill with a bottle of cheap ink. Anyways, I don't print often, and it doesn't clog. But I have it always plugged into outlet - I _think_ that it manages print heads so they don't dry. I have this thought before Ink Tank printers. Printer specialist should chime in as I generally don't like dealing with printers.

[thebetatester]

They sound cool but apparently have a sponge that holds the ink between the tank and the jet and eventually that becomes saturated and it's basically game over for the printer because it doesn't sound like the sponge is user serviceable https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25047231

[zelon88]

Make no mistake, they can be refilled. By the manufacturer.

Most times a company will lease several multi-function printers from a manufacturer like Ricoh. These lease agreements come with a certain quantity of toner replacements included or discounted. Most also include service agreements, because they don't want you servicing a unit you do not own yourself.

When you have one of these agreements, you are supposed to send the empty toner back to the manufacturer. I have no doubt at all that they refill these and sell them as brand new units. Honestly, it would be an absurd waste if they didn't.

So think of it as a "Blue Rhino propane tank" which are notoriously not filled to capacity from the factory either. They don't give a crap how much product is in the container to begin with or when you return it. They only care that you return it as that increases their profit margins.

[RobotToaster]

I remember when I was at school about 15 years ago there were printers that used wax(?) blocks, that were just put into it, not sure how it worked exactly.

[fractallyte]

Xerox Phaser printers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Phaser) used wax „solid ink“ blocks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_ink)

Advantages: waterproof print; very clean; easy to change ink blocks; maintenance was mainly just emptying a tray containing small amounts of waste wax (biodegradable)

Disadvantages: when offline, the printer still used power to keep the wax in a liquid state, otherwise a cold start could take a while; colors were occasionally not as vibrant as regular laser printers

[bombcar]

We had a tektronix with blocks - and that one had to be kept off except for very specific times, because if left on it would stay warm and over a week or two drain all the wax out of it into the waste tank.

[_carbyau_]

I had to support one of these. I thought the colours were quite good but had nothing to compare with.

Main disadvantage was the smell when it was warmed up. It had to be kept in a ventilated separate room.

[fractallyte]

Yes, I forgot about the smell. Definitely a downside...

It smells like slightly burnt, melted wax. Very much like a candle, including the smoke...!

[denton-scratch]

Tektronix did a range of printers that used wax. They used rolls of wax sheet. They produced fantastic output, but the rolls of wax were really expensive. And if you put a coffee mug down on a printout, they got stuck together.

I think they were meant for one-off proofs of image-heavy marketing material. The colours were intense and vibrant, in a way that no colour laser or ink-jet ever is. Also, the wax stood a bit proud of the paper, giving an embossed look. But they weren't very permanent - if you folded the printout you'd damage the image; you could even scratch the wax off with a fingernail.

These were expensive printers.

[chrisco255]

Epson has a line of printers that has refillable tanks rather than cartridges. The bottles that the ink comes in are designed so that they do not spill out when held upside down. They must be inserted into the tank to dispense.

[Alupis]

You can refill them. They typically have a plastic plug on one side, and some companies will refill them for you, or you can buy a refill "kit".

However, the internals of the cartridge will break down over time. Typically it's the "blade" that evens out the powdered toner that wears out, leaving too much toner stuck to the page and results in those gray-page prints and streaks/lines.

If you buy refilled cartridges, the blade seems to be the most common failure point long before you run out of toner.

[culi]

This is the opposite of how their designed. The chips on cartridges exist solely to make sure you're only buying proprietary cartridges and they cost about 20x the prices of the rest of the materials. The ink is dirt cheap and Costco actually had a service where they'd refill them for you (not sure if they still do since they got sued by some of these companies not too long ago). The plastic might even be more expensive than the ink

[maerF0x0]

> refillable

They used to be in some applications (like really big photocopiers). But toner is messy nasty stuff to deal with. Maybe refillable at a shop could work though.

[bityard]

I've been refilling the toner cartridges for my low-end Brother printer with generic toner off Amazon for years. It's not that bad and costs a fraction of the price of even a generic replacement cartridge. The toner comes in a bottle and you slowly pour it into the cartridge, perhaps with the assistance of a small funnel if necessary. I wear gloves and do it outside or in the garage. It only gets messy if you try to do it inside or have the dropsies. Obviously don't breathe it in.

[maerF0x0]

> I wear gloves and do it outside or in the garage.

This is the protip my living room wished I knew.

[colechristensen]

Toner cartridges are generally recyclable / refurbished. You don’t throw them away, you take spent ones back to the place of purchase when you buy a new one.