Trent SC said:
Running a Brother HL-1230 laser printer...
My TN660 toner cartridge is heading inexorably towards empty and I've had a
depressing 10 minutes online looking at the costs of replacements. However,
I did see one site offering a 230g bottle of toner refill powder, and I
wondered what the group's experience of this has been - is it fairly easy to
fill a cartridge with this stuff, does it degrade the quality of the prints,
stuff like that.
The link to this stuff is
http://www.kmsmedia.co.uk/acatalog/Brother_TN6300___TN6600_Toner_Refill_Powder.html
and I would be extremely grateful for any suggestions, as the difference in
price is more than threefold.
TIA
Trent
This is one of the easiest toner cartridges to refill. You should be able to
refill a TN6600 at least 5 times, maybe more. It will take only a few minutes
once you get the hang of it.
BTW you can use this procedure with a TN6300 also, the TN6300 uses the same
toner as a TN6600 but is only partially filled. The TN7600 uses different toner
but can be refilled the same way.
There are 2 things to watch out for.
1. You MUST remove as much of the old toner as possible because the toner that
remains in the cartridge is mainly developer and if that is not removed you
will get a grey cast to the print.
2. After a few refills the big roller will develop grooves at each end, you
should see marks there even after one fill, when these get about 1 1/2 to 2 mm
deep they will start to leak toner and you will get awful marks all over the
page. Don't worry if these marks are there, only if they are quite deep.
It is important to handle the roller with care and keep your fingers off it.
Ideally you should remove the big roller, if you wear examination gloves you
will avoid contaminating the roller with your fingers. Many refill instructions
ignlore the need to remove the roller, I believe this is a mistake as you may
get cross contamination of the new toner with the old.
Removal of the roller is simple but not intuitively obvious.
Sit the cartridge on a piece of newspaper with the roller at the top and the
labels away from you.
At the left hand end right in front on the top corner is a little plastic clip,
twist and pull this to the left gently and it will disengage.
At the right hand end, look directly at the end of the cartridge, you should
see a hole with a small plastic stud in it at the top, push this stud gently
into the cartridge and you will see that a plastic lever bends into the
cartridge, rotate this lever until it is vertical. Lift the right hand end of
the roller by the lever about half an inch and push the roller towards the
left. Using a flat bladed screwdriver gently ease the latch on the outside at
the left hand end away from the case until it disengages from the cartridge
completely. Lift the roller out. None of this needs any force.
Clean the roller with a lintfree cloth (no liquids) and put it to one side,
resting on a clean lintfree cloth. Don't turn the cartridge over at this time,
you have been warned! Do not touch or attempt to remove the smaller roller that
is now revealed.
Remove the filler plug, right hand end at the very bottom and empty the toner.
Place the whole thing in a plastic bag with NO HOLES in it to do this. You must
get all the loose toner out through the filler plug and through the gap left by
the roller, tapping and very gently shaking the cartridge will help, I cannot
overemphasise how important it is that you persevere and get as much toner out
as possible. This is the only messy bit and changing plastic bags after the
initial waste toner is removed will help. You can safely discard the old toner
in your normal refuse, it is approved by most authorities for disposal.
Replace the roller at this stage.
Fill through the filler hole and replace the plug.
Wipe the cartridge down, avoiding the roller and test. You may get a slight
grey cast for a couple of pages.That's it.
It is easier to do than it is to describe.
Tony
