Generic Toner Recommendations

J

JJ91284

Gawd
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I have a Brothers MFC-L8850CDW and my original toner will be running out shortly. Link to the printer below.

http://www.brother-usa.com/mfc/ModelDetail/4/MFCL8850CDW/Overview

Anyone have experience with recommendations for generic toners. Toner isn't cheap so I'm looking for alternatives.

Brothers Genuine Toner Standard ($230 Amazon)
TN331BK 2,500 pages Black
TN331Y 1,500 pages Yellow
TN331M 1,500 pages Magenta
TN331C 1,500 pages Cyan

Brothers Genuine Toner High Yield ($351 Amazon)
TN336BK 4,000 pages Black
TN336Y 3,500 pages Yellow
TN336M 3,500 pages Magenta
TN336C 3,500 pages Cyan
 
I've dealt with a few different toner companies selling both refills and also compatible toner carts.

The worst ones have actually been the refills of the OEM toner carts. They are usually falling apart
junk with poor print quality when I get them.

Best luck I've had was buying compatible carts from v4ink on Ebay.
I believe they have a website as well.

ETA: Looks like they are on Amazon too.


.
 
Spartacus said:
I've dealt with a few different toner companies selling both refills and also compatible toner carts.

The worst ones have actually been the refills of the OEM toner carts. They are usually falling apart
junk with poor print quality when I get them.

Best luck I've had was buying compatible carts from v4ink on Ebay.
I believe they have a website as well.

ETA: Looks like they are on Amazon too.


.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. Anyone else have any suggestions?
 
OK, going to tell you this from a professional point of view.

DO NOT use non OEM toners in a Brother printer. The reason is the fuser in these printer are very sensitive and excess (leaking) toner will kill it. Non OEM toners tend to leak more than OEM, and you can kiss the fuser good bye.
I wouldn't say this if you asked about a HP or Lexmark. But if your fuser fails and Brother finds you use non OEM toner and or drums, they will void your warranty.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
OK, going to tell you this from a professional point of view.

DO NOT use non OEM toners in a Brother printer. The reason is the fuser in these printer are very sensitive and excess (leaking) toner will kill it. Non OEM toners tend to leak more than OEM, and you can kiss the fuser good bye.
I wouldn't say this if you asked about a HP or Lexmark. But if your fuser fails and Brother finds you use non OEM toner and or drums, they will void your warranty.
Click to expand...

My warranty is likely no longer good since I believe my printer is more than a year old. Out of curiosity I looked up the price of a new fuser for the printer and it's roughly $140. Replacing the fuser doesn't really scare me as I really haven't ever failed fixing anything. I've rebuilt automatic transmissions, built PCB's with hot air reflow station and am good with my hands when it comes to working with metal, ect.

In the past I owned a Dell 1350CNW color laser printer and it produced some great prints. I decided after the trial toner cartridges ran out to just refill it with generic toner powder and replace the chips. This worked great for 2-3 replacement cartridges worth until it started leaking toner powder and had streaks on my prints.

I ended up tossing that printer and bought the same one and stayed with oem toner. After the second replacement cartridge it started leaking toner and leaving streaks. I then tossed that printer and figured maybe it was the printer itself and I went with brothers this time around.
 
I have 2 Brother HL-4150cdn color laser printers that I purchased for my wife Flipbook business. We carry these printers to different events and use a lot of toner. We were advised not to buy the aftermarket toner cartridges as this company had tested a lot of different aftermarket and toner refills and none are as good as the Brother brand for color prints. I can tell you to how to get all of your toner out of each cartridge.
Place a small piece of black tape over the sight glass window on the side of the cartridge. This fakes out the printer and it thinks there is still a full toner in the cartridge. You just have to watch when the colors start to drop off as that is when your toner is running out. You should yield at least a couple hundred more sheets depending on how much coverage you are using on each sheet of paper. I purchase our toner from Amazon and have saved all the old cartridges and had to reset the flag on some and then tape the sight glass to reuse them at home. When we go on a job then I reinsert the full toner cartridges but now I have taped them off so not to waste money. On average we get 2500 sheets out of a cartridge that are not taped off when Brother claims 3500 sheets. We are printing 12 pictures on each sheet of paper so we use a lot of toner.
You can also turn down your setting to preserve toner as well. Hope this helps.
 
we have that same exact printer at my work.

i buy all the toner off ebay.

it's all the re-manufactured toner cartridges. some are better than others but, no problems for the last 3 years.

sometimes the color is a little off but the savings is well worth.
 
Just some info if you refill the OEM toners (but I come from the black and white Brother laser printers).

If you decided to refill the original toners, they might lack a certain gear and spring. You can buy these gear and spring very cheap online and they are quite easy to attach onto the toner.

The refills I have used so far are from inkowl.com and they have cause me zero so far the past 5 years.

However if you try to do a "full (extended capacity)" refill on the original toner then you will need to reset the gear at 50% because the toner will flag up that it's empty at the 50% mark.

From previous experiences with generic toners, I had a couple of bad ones out of a dozens. They ended up being exchanged in the end. As of now I try to stick to OEM toners and refill those.
 
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