CSToncall.com - Printer Services

Toner... Not a very exciting topic is it? Not even that important - right? You could not be more wrong. Toner is the lifeblood to your printer satisfaction. No one would ever put watered down gasoline in their car, but you would be amazed how many people put watered down toner in their printers and then physically assault the printer because of lousy printing. Part of the problem is the misconceptions about toner and the importance is due to misinformation. This page is dedicated to making you a toner expert and to assist you picking out the right toner for your applications.

New Toner: Pretty easy one. This is brand new toner that is manufactured by the fine folks at HP, Canon, Epson, etc. for use in their printers. A high quality product that comes at a high price. One of the reasons behind Hewlett Packard's tremendous success is several years ago they came up with a brilliant idea - sell a quality printer for a really low price and make the profit on toner. Go to any store that sells DeskJets for the home and you will see that you can purchase a color DeskJet for $110 but the ink refills are $60. Of course they give you the ink included in the printer you buy because they know you will be back for more.. and more.. and more..

Refilled / Recharged: Generally these are low priced and low quality. Amazing how often those two terms go together. Resellers of refilled toner always get your attention with an amazingly low price. And then your printer repair guy gets your attention with and amazingly high printer repair bill! The refill / recharge toner idea was a great idea when it first came out, but the problem is in the lack of quality control. Anyone can become a toner refiller by ordering a kit from the internet or back of a magazine, but most people do not understand what is required to produce a quality product. The refill process is very simple. On the side of toner cartridges is a sealed hole where the original manufactured injected the toner. To refill you take a syringe type device, insert into the sealed hole, inject toner, reseal hole. The problems are a) was it the right type of toner that was injected? b) were there any defects, cracks in the toner drum? c) did the toner drum even work when it was removed from the last printer? If you ever used toner that required an expensive repair bill to fix the damage the toner caused, it was probably refilled or recharged toner.

Remanufactured: Great quality at a great price. While it still requires filling a previously used toner cartridge with new toner, there are some extra steps taken that solve all of the problems of refilled toner. When the original toner manufacturer produced the toner cartridge - they were only worried about the internal parts of the cartridge lasting as long as the original toner supply. In the remanufacturing process, all of the internal components are removed and the entire cartridge is thoroughly cleaned. Then most all of these internal components are replaced with new. Then the toner is replaced with new toner that meets or exceeds the original manufacturers recommendations. An easy way to spot a quality-remanufactured product is to look for the statement that says "if this toner causes any damage to your printer we will pay for the repair"

Combined Systems Technology believes that you should always use the right tool for the right job and the same goes for toner. Selecting the right toner will give you pages of satisfaction and keep your printer running for a long time with minimal maintenance. Please contact us to discuss all of your printer questions and needs.