Proper upkeep and maintenance of your laser printer will keep it working properly for many years. With a little bit of time, and these 4 tips, you can keep your laser printer printing as well as it did the day you took it out of its box.

Get in the habit of performing these tips on a monthly basis. You can also use them to correct printing problems such as streaking, gaps in printing, and toner smears.

Tip #1 – Clean the inside of your printer

Cleaning the inside of your laser printer is very important. Toner is just like dust and will build up over time. To clean the inside of your printer you should:

• Unplug the printer and let it sit for an hour to cool down. If you have  not used your laser printer within the last hour, unplug it and proceed to Step #2.
• Remove the paper trays.
• Open the printer and remove the toner cartridge. To avoid leaking toner, be careful not to shake or tip the cartridge. You should also place it on a piece of newspaper.
• Wipe/dust the interior of the printer with a dry lint free cloth or a clean/dry paint brush. The paint brush will allow you to remove toner from hard to reach areas.
• If your printer has them, wipe the corona wires with cotton swaps dipped in isopropyl alcohol. BE CAREFUL! If you break a wire it is going to be expensive to fix. The corona wire is a charged wire that draws toner off the drum onto the paper.
•  Wipe the rollers with a slightly damp cloth to remove any dust.

Tip #2 – Clean the outside of your printer

Keep the outside of your printer clean too. Use a damp cloth to wipe down the outside of the printer. If you ever spill toner on the exterior of your printer (when changing a cartridge) make sure to wipe it up immediately. It can stain.

Tip #3 – Use high quality toner cartridges and paper

You should always purchase quality toner cartridges for your laser printer. Some say you should only purchase OEM cartridges, while others say remanufactured/compatible toner cartridges are just as good. Which you use is up to you, but just make sure you buy your toner cartridges from a reputable vendor. If you do run in to any problems they will support the cartridge and, often, the printer. The same goes for the paper you use . . . Make sure it is quality. Low quality paper can cause paper jams, smeared prints, and increased toner dust inside your printer.

Tip #4 – Use laser cleaning sheets

Laser cleaning sheets are a great supplement to the above tips. These sheets run through your printer like piece of paper would. Their special surface allows them to pick up exess toner and dust as the rollers pull them through.

Happy Printing!

Are you annoyed by poor quality print outs from your inkjet printer? Ever have prints with missing segments, incorrect colors, or horizontal bands running across your print?

Flaws in your printouts are very common, but the good news is that they can be prevented if you adopt a few routine printer maintenance habits.

TIP #1 – Use your inkjet printer regularly

When  your printer is left unused for long stretches of time, the ink in the print head and nozzles can dry and cause printing flaws such as jagged lines and incorrect colors. To avoid this, try to use your printer at least once per week.

TIP #2 – Perform nozzle checks

If you leave your printer unused for a long period of time, you should perform a nozzle check before you use it again. This will make sure your printer prints normally. The nozzle check can often be run thorough your printer’s utility function. Your printer’s user manual will have specific directions.

TIP #3 – Clean the print heads

If your nozzle is clogged, cleaning the print heads should fix any poor print quality issues. Cleaning utilities come with your printer drivers. Some printers even have a print head cleaning button on their control panel. Your printer’s user manual will have specific directions.

TIP #4 – Align the print heads

If your printouts have vertical lines or horizontal bands this generally means that your print head needs to be aligned. This utility can be found with your printer drivers or in your printer control panel. When you align the print heads, the printer will print a pattern on a piece of paper. You then follow prompts from your printer to adjust the pattern. Specific information for performing a print head alignment can be found in your printer’s user manual.

TIP #5 – Replace your inkjet cartridges

Flawed printouts can often be caused by cartridges that are low on ink. Your printer will prompt you when a black or color cartridge reaches a certain level of ink. Printer manufactures say you should replace your cartridge when you receive this warning because print quality will suffer if you don’t. When replacing your printer cartridges, be sure your purchase the correct replacement cartridge and install it as your printer’s user manual directs. Incorrect installation can cause more flawed printouts.

TIP #6 – Turn your printer off (the correct way)

Leaving your inkjet printer on for extended periods of time can cause clogged nozzles and flawed printouts. After you finish using your printer for the day you should turn it off using the printer’s own power button. In most printers, the power button initiates a process that seals the print head from outside air, preventing clogged nozzles. If you unplug your printer, or turn it off using a power strip, the print head sealing function may not run.

Happy Printing!

Paper jams! A big frustration for all of us who use inkjet printers. Here’s a few tips to help prevent them.

Tip #1
Paper leaves dust on the rollers, and two sided paper leaves ink residue. To clean your rollers get a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs. Open your printer door and find a metallic bar with some rubber wheels on it. Those are the rollers. Gently place the cotton swab (with alcohol already on it) on the roller. Now, push the paper feed button on your printer and the rollers will begin moving. Let the cotton swab rub on the roller as it moves. Repeat this a few times for each roller.

Tip #2
Allow the paper to feed easier through the printer by leaving a 1/4″ gap between the paper tray guide and the paper in the tray.

Tip #3
Keep the paper more upright and closer to the feed rollers by placing a piece of stiff card stock in the paper feed tray. If you do this make sure you have plenty of paper in your printer so it does not try to pull the card stock through the printer.

Tip #4
Fan your stack of paper before placing it in to the paper tray. This separates the sheets, allowing for the feed rollers to pull a single piece easier. It also releases any excess dust on the paper.

Tip #5
Curl the edge of the first piece in the paper tray. The slight upward curl will help the feed rollers grab the paper easier.

Tip #6
If you are using heavier weight papers (more than 12ml thick) you should check to see if your printer has heavy paper settings. If so, use them! Your printer manual will have more information on this.

Happy Printing!

Disclaimer: These are just paper jam prevention tips, so we can’t assume liability if you use them. Damage could occur. We’ve been using these tips to prevent paper jams for years. So far no problems.

Inkjet printers may look, and feel, like cheap plastic boxes with some electronics inside, but they are quite the opposite. Just look at what you can print with them! They are pretty sophisticated machines. You can’t see what happens while you are printing (if you open the door on the printer, all printing stops), but  you can hear the print head moving back and forth. While it moves, it sprays ink drops, the size of red blood cells, on to predetermined locations on a piece of paper. These drops are sprayed at a rate of thousands per second. Pretty amazing!

To make sure your printer keeps doing an amazing job of printing you need to take care of it. Here’s what you should do.

1) Conduct routine maintenance with your printer software.

Almost all printers have functions called head cleaning and head alignment. The head cleaning function makes sure all ink nozzles are free of obstructions. If the heads are not clean, your printer will begin to print faint in some areas while printing normal in others. Periodic print head cleanings will prevent obstructions and keep your prints looking good. IMPORTANT – If your printer has not been used for a month you should definitely run the print head cleaning utility.

Print head alignment is a software routine that requires a little help from you. When you align your print head, you are making sure all the nozzles are pointing the right direction and firing in the right place. You’ll need to make sure that your printer has paper in the paper tray, then look at the print out after the alignment has run. If you see repeating white lines or grid patterns your print heads are still misaligned. Run the alignment utility repeatedly until they disappear. This maintenance step should be performed once or twice a year, or when you see white lines or grid patterns in your print outs.

2) Conduct routine maintenance of your printer’s roller and feed mechanism.

Standard copy printer paper leaves dust as it runs through your printer. Two-sided printer paper will leave a slick inkjet coating on your rollers. Ink, from your cartridge, can over spray and build up on the rollers. Over time the dust, inkjet coating, and over spray will result in streaks, inconsistent paper feeding, paper jams, or paper not feeding at all. All of these things lead to poor print quality, or no prints at all!

To make sure your rollers and feed mechanism always work properly, you should get a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs. First open your printer door then look down the paper tray of your printer. You should be able to see a metallic bar with some rubber wheels on it. Those are the rollers. You should be able to touch them with your fingers. Gently place the cotton swab (with alcohol already on it) on the roller. Now, push the paper feed button on your printer and the rollers will begin moving. Let the cotton swab rub on the roller as it moves. Repeat this a few times for each roller.

After you have cleaned the rollers, use a some canned air to blow any remaining dust and debris out of the printer. This type of maintenance should be done a few times a year, or whenever you notice inconsistent paper feeding.

Happy printing!

Disclaimer: These are just printer maintenance tips, so we can’t assume liability if you use them. Damage could occur. We’ve been using these tips to clean our printers for years. So far no problems.

Most read a title like this, “HP Has Raised Ink Cartridge Prices”, and don’t think to much of it. Cartridge prices are all ready high, right?

Effective July 1, HP raised prices for older DesignJet ink cartridge and print heads by around 10%. This increase is due to the rising cost of production and raw materials.

As discussed in the past, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan are responsible for HP cartridges shortages. The natural disaster could also be responsible for the raw material shortages causing the price increase. The increased cost of crude oil (increased 20% from last year) is another reason. The manufacturing of ink cartridge casings (plastic) and other components in both ink and toner cartridges require crude oil.

This is the perfect cartridge storm! Combine the increased cost of raw materials with a shortage of supplies caused by the Japan earthquake, then add in the rising cost of transportation and HP has unlimited reasons for increasing cartridge prices for as long as they want. Let’s hope they don’t take advantage of the situation.

Back in March I wrote about possible HP cartridge shortages caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan (Possible Printer Ink Cartridges Shortages). While HP doesn’t necessarily manufactured their inkjet and toner cartridges in Japan, they do source components from a partner (Canon) that has a manufacturing facility in Japan. It’s hard to say how hard this partner was hit by the disaster, but it is becoming evident it was hard enough to cause shortages in some of HP’s more popular printer cartridges. In March, HP announced that it would be limiting the distribution of some of its toner cartridges.

Here we are, the first day of July, and distributors are seeing (feeling the effects) of the limited distribution. First the good news, HP has lifted the restriction on the 78A (C6578A) printer ink cartridge. Now for the rest of the news!

The HP 85A Black Toner Cartridge (CE285A) is still in very short supply. So is the high yield HP CE250X Black Toner Cartridge. Distributors are finding both of these cartridges to be very hard to come by. Consumers should be seeing the same.

If you typically shop at the larger office super stores you may not see the effects of this shortage. HP, as most businesses, will always make sure the shelves of their largest suppliers are always stocked. If you prefer to buy your cartridges from other vendors, you may find yourself being forced to look to someone new. Don’t expect your current cartridge vendor to have these cartridges in stock.

Finally, if you learn that an order you placed for one of these cartridges is back ordered, make sure you check with the vendor to see when they expect to have the cartridge back in stock. Despite what you are told, make sure you have a contingency plan in place. The vendor may have a time line, but HP’s supply restrictions will dictate what that actual time line is. Unfortunately, it is out of the vendor’s hands.

You want to recycle your printer cartridges? Use the links below to get more information on recycling your inkjet or laser toner printer cartridges.

HP - http://www.hp.com/recycle
HP offers  an easy way to recycle HP brand computer equipment, printing cartridges, and rechargeable batteries.

Lexmark - http://www.lexmark.com/recycle
Lexmark offers services for recycling your empty inkjet cartridges, toner cartridges, and printers.

Dell - http://www.dell.com/recycle
Dell offers services for recycling printer cartridges, computers, and printers.

Canon - http://www.canon.com/recycle
Canon offers recycling services for toner cartridges only.

Epson – http://www.epson.com/recycle
Epson offers recycling services for printers, scanners, projectors, and more.

Xerox - http://www.xerox.com/recycle
Xerox offers services for recycling toner cartridges.

All of the above services will provide you with a paid shipping labels you can use to send your empty cartridges or hardware to the manufacturer. If you are looking to get a little something in return for your recycling efforts, you might want to try out the recycling programs offered by the office superstores.

Staples - http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/products/3dollar_inkrecycle/
Staples offers rewards points for select printer cartridges. They are currently offering $2 per empty cartridge with a max of 10 cartridges per month.

Office Depot - http://www.officedepot.com/a/promo/pages/0912_green/
Office Depot’s Worklife rewards programs rewards customers for recycling printer cartridges.

Should you trust remanufactured printer cartridges for your printing needs? The company that made your printer is spending millions trying to convince you that you should not but just about every store you go in to offers some type of remanufactured cartridge as an alternative to the manufacturer brand cartridge. What to do?

Let’s take a look at a few facts that might help you decide.

We’ll start with the two biggest advantages offered by remanufactured printer cartridges; they are environmentally friendly and they are inexpensive. Since remanufactured cartridges are produced with reused materials, fewer natural resources are used to provide you with a cartridge you can put in your printer. Because fewer resources are used and less production takes place, remanufactured cartridges are less expensive than their manufacturer brand equivalent.

For some, these two facts alone are enough to answer the question, should you trust them? Others of you might need a bit more information. Let’s take a look at the remanufacturing process.

Remanufacturing a printer cartridge is a multi-step process. Some remanufacturers do it very well, others not so well. While no company will completely disclose their exact process, the general process is as follows.

Empty cartridges are first visually inspected for damage. There are varying levels of visual inspection. I know of a few companies that will refuse to remanufacture a cartridge at the slightest sign of damage. Unfortunately, there are others who ignore major signs of damage. It’s the yin and the yang of the industry! Regardless of their level of inspection, all damaged parts are repaired or replaced. The next step is to test the cartridge’s circuits to make sure they are still functioning properly.

Cartridges are then cleaned and emptied of any remaining waste ink/toner or ink/toner  residue.  Once clean the cartridges are filled with an ink or toner that the remanufacturer claims is equivalent to the manufacturer brand ink. Remember, it cannot be the same ink. Printer manufacturers hold patents on their ink formulations. Unless a remanufacturer were to license the formualation it is illegal for them to use it (or to claim it).

After the cartridge is filled, it must go through a very important process. The sealing process is of the utmost importance to the cartridge. If a remanufactured cartridge is not sealed properly you can expect a cartridge that does not print with any quality, if it prints at all. Once sealed the cartridge is print tested. Some remanufacturers do multiple print tests, others only do one. The print out from the remanufactured cartridge is matched to a print out from a manufacturer brand cartridge. If the prints match the cartridge moves to the packaging phase. If the prints don’t match, some remanufacturers will still move the cartridge to the packaging phase. It’s the yin and the yang of the industry again!

The final step is to clean the cartridge, one last time, and then to put it in a sealed plastic bag and retail box.

Are you feeling some trust now?

You should be. The key to all of this is finding the right place to buy your remanufactured cartridges. If you can do that you can have a high level of trust in the cartridge you are getting. Reputable cartridge vendors only deal with reputable remanufacturers. They know the cartridge they provide to you reflects directly on them and your desire to keep buying cartridges from them.

Remanufactured inkjet and toner cartridges are a low price alternative to the expensive printer manufacturer brand cartridges, but are we about to see them become extinct?

Printer manufacturers have been trying for years to eliminate these cartridges from the market place. Why? Because remanufactured cartridges eat in to the profits earned by your printer manufacturer. If you are buying a remanufactured printer cartridge, you are not buying a cartridge made by the company that made your printer. Remember, these companies depend on the sales of printer cartridges to really make their profits. Printer manufacturers currently use two major tactics to eliminate remanufactured cartridges from the marketplace.

The first tactic is the lawsuit. Printer manufactures have a history of bringing lawsuits against those that  remanufacture printer cartridges. The suits are based on infringement of design patents.

The second tactic is recycling. Yes, recycling! In most cases printer manufacturers are recycling cartridges and doing the “green thing”. But, their recycling programs also keep empty printer cartridges out of the hands of remanufacturers. Remember, in order to remanufacture ink cartridges, you must first have an empty ink cartridge.

Remanufacturers depend on a steady flow of empty ink cartridges to work with. If they don’t have the “empties” they have nothing to work with.

I would not deem either of the printer manufacturer’s tactics as overly effective. The lawsuits have come and gone, the recycling programs have been in place for years, but the remanufactured printer cartridge has continued to flourish.

Now comes a threat that could effect your ability to use remanufactured cartridges (it has nothing to do with the printer manufacturers) . . . A shortage of empty cartridges caused by consumer habits.

That’s right, we are creating our own dilemma!

Without a steady supply of empty inkjet and toner cartridges, the remanufacturing industry cannot survive. Our recession kicked off a series of events that have severely limited the supply of empty cartridges.

As the recession took hold, the nation underwent a drastic change in their printing habits. Everyone was looking to save money where ever they could. Home and work printing was an area where cutbacks occurred in order to achieve savings. Printer cartridge users either cut back on the amount of actual pages they printed or they switched over to remanufactured cartridges.

Both of these have a direct effect on emtpy cartridge availability. Remanufacturers rely on a certain percentage of the population to buy printer manufacturer brand cartridges. They then collect these cartridges to be remanufactured. If  consumers are printing less, then less manufacturer brand cartridges are being purchased. The fewer that are purchased, the fewer that are available to be remanufactured. When consumers switch from manufacturer brand cartridges to remanufactured cartridges, less manufacturer brand cartridges are available to be remanufactured.

What’s the fallout from an empty cartridge shortage? Well, I doubt remanufactured cartridges will go extinct, but we will see the price of these cartridges increase. As this happens remanufactured cartridges will become a less attractive offer for those trying to save money. When that happens the only alternative is to go back to the manufacturer brand cartridges.

Isn’t that what we were trying to get away from? Kind of ironic, huh?

I recently have a friend contact me about switching his printer over to a Continuous Ink Supply System (CISS). Maybe you’ve heard it called other names, Continuous Flow System (CFS), Bulk Feed Ink System, or an Off-Axis Ink Delivery System. Which ever name you refer to this system by, it provides a method for saving on the cost or printer ink. They system allows you to buy large containers of printer ink that connect to a special cartridge system you put in your printer (where the cartridges go). A set of tubes then connects the large containers to the cartridge system. When the containers run out of ink, you replace them.

What are the advantages of this type of system?

Well, first and foremost,  you are going to save money. You may invest a little more to get started, but over time using a CISS will save you money. You’ll just be buying ink rather than an entire cartridge. You’ll also be replacing your ink far last often.

Second, you’ll be able to refill or replace ink while your printer is printing. Because the ink is no longer contained within the cartridge inside the printer you won’t have to stop everything when you need printer ink. Simply refill the exterior ink holder and you are good to go. Ever notice how each time you replace a cartridge your printer needs to run an alignment and cleaning process. This requires the use of ink. With a CISS, there is no need for either of these processes.

What are the disadvantages of a CISS?

The ink for Continuous Ink Supply Systems is not made by your printer manufacturer. For this reason, some say that it is not of ‘good quality’ and your prints won’t look at good as they would if you had used a printer manufacturer brand cartridge. Maybe this is true, maybe this is not. It’s something you will have to decide for yourself.

Using a CISS requires some retrofitting of your printer. In order to get a CISS to work in your printer, you are going to have to make some physical changes to the printer. A few systems will require you to cut a hole in your printer so the ink tubes can be connected to the cartridge unit.

Printers are made with close fitting cartridge holders. If you check out your printer you will see that the ink cartridge fits snugly in its holder. This can make it difficult, or impossible, to install a retrofit cartridge unit in your printer. There is simply not enough room. Additionally, jamming may occur when the tubing gets in the way of the path of the print head. The only prevent this is to permanently remove the printer’s cover and cut holes in to the printer’s body for the tubing to run through. In some cases you may also need to modify the printer’s carriage (the part that holds the cartridges) by removing the cartridge clips.

Here’s the danger in making all these physical changes to your printer . . . You warranty will definitely be voided.

Is CISS right for you?

Maybe , maybe not. You need to decide. If you don’t mind making modifications to your printer that will void its warranty and are up for saving money on printer ink, a CISS is for you.

If reading any of this made you nervous, the CISS is not for you.