New Laser Printer, "Waste Toner" ???

[GlennSprigg]

I've had many InkJet printers, and a couple of old simple B&W Laser printers, but since getting my new colour laser, I've
learnt something new!!  It's only a few months old, (Brother), and have only printed about 50 or so pages. Now it comes
up occasionally, with a warning msg on my screen, which I found out was saying the "Wast Toner  Cartridge" is about to
expire, and needs replacing!    Up until now, I had never even 'heard' of such an item! (Though I now know it's use).

To anyone else, uninitiated/curious, after research it seems this is a common false warning, from those 'sensors'.
YouTube has numerous videos of how to clean them, and reset them, without any expensive replacement. Grrr... 

[tom66]

My Brother printer has this.  Apparently the waste toner should be disposed of properly. There are recycling companies that take the waste cartridges as recycling and give you refurbished replacements in return, for a small fee. 

[GlennSprigg]

My Brother printer has this.  Apparently the waste toner should be disposed of properly. There are recycling companies that take the waste cartridges as recycling and give you refurbished replacements in return, for a small fee.

I understand that, but this printer is virtually new! and the reporting is not valid.

[Psi]

It sounds like there is a faulty sensor on the waste toner bottle.
It's detecting the bottle as full of waste toner when it clearly is not because it's a new printer.

[voltsandjolts]

FYI toner is microplastic 'dust' with some colour embedded.
It's a health and environmental hazard.
Whatever happens, do not breathe that crap in.

[MosherIV]

I used to work for Xerox developing new office MultiFunction printer scaner machines.
Yes, wast toner is a thing and real. It is just that, waste toner that is not transfered to paper and scrapoed off the developer drum.
It also contains 'developer' which is something used to help toner transfer from the toner resivor to the developer drum. For Xerox machines, these were micro beads which were magnetic.

Xerox managed the waste toner either in a complete toner cartridge or with seperate toner and waste toner bottles.

Sounds like the sensor is playing up.

[Ed.Kloonk]

After having a nice, exy A3 business class printer in the office for three years, I finally figured out how to activate the two-sided A4 copy feature the other day.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I did not know that was a thing either, and it kinda sucks to hear as it means they are not that efficient if a part of the toner never gets used.  I guess is it because there is some kind of cleaning process between prints and any residu just ends up in a separate canister?

[MosherIV]

I guess is it because there is some kind of cleaning process between prints and any residu just ends up in a separate canister?

Yes that is correct.
The image is scanned onto photo sensitve drum. The photo sensitvity reduces attraction to toner electrostatically. Then the drum is rolled through toner, picking up toner forming the image with toner.
The toner is transfered from this drum onto paper, using static - the charge is reversed so that the toner now wants to stick to paper and not the drum.
At this point, some toner is left on the drum. It is this toner that needs to cleaned off.
I never asked why the toner is not re-cycled but I think it is because the toner is now statically charged and trying to add it back to the main toner resivour would transfer charge to the resivour and disturb the whole process.

[amyk]

I never asked why the toner is not re-cycled but I think it is because the toner is now statically charged and trying to add it back to the main toner resivour would transfer charge to the resivour and disturb the whole process.

It could be discharged... but of course, if you want to believe in a conspiracy, then it's because they want you to consume more of it!

Inkjet printers have a similar "waste ink receiver" --- but in that case, the waste ink is what comes out when it cleans its head.

[bw2341]

I've had many InkJet printers, and a couple of old simple B&W Laser printers, but since getting my new colour laser, I've
learnt something new!!  It's only a few months old, (Brother), and have only printed about 50 or so pages. Now it comes
up occasionally, with a warning msg on my screen, which I found out was saying the "Wast Toner  Cartridge" is about to
expire, and needs replacing!    Up until now, I had never even 'heard' of such an item! (Though I now know it's use).

To anyone else, uninitiated/curious, after research it seems this is a common false warning, from those 'sensors'.
YouTube has numerous videos of how to clean them, and reset them, without any expensive replacement. Grrr... 

If it's only been a few months, I would return the printer as defective as soon as possible. If it were my printer, I would have returned the printer on the first occurrence of the error message. The price of laser printers keep dropping so out-of-warranty service is not worth it. On the cheapest models, on-site warranty service is usually not available and the shipping costs alone for a large and bulky item are a huge fraction of the purchase price.

This is why I bought my cheap laser printers when they were on deep discount at my local brick-and-mortar retailers. I bought them expecting a short service life and thankfully, they've lasted well enough. There have been print quality problems which I've solved myself with partial disassembly and cleaning.

[bw2341]

I never asked why the toner is not re-cycled but I think it is because the toner is now statically charged and trying to add it back to the main toner resivour would transfer charge to the resivour and disturb the whole process.

I think one of my cheap B+W laser printers recycled the toner. A different printer had a waste toner hopper built into the combined toner and drum cartridge. I had to disassemble and clean out the hopper as it was overflowing and leaking onto the prints.

I found a service manual for an older Brother colour laser (actually, LED array) multifunction printer which describes the theory of operation. Brother uses separate toner cartridges, drums, transfer belts and waste toner boxes. There is a drum cleaning roller in contact with each drum. Between prints, the cleaning roller redeposits the waste toner onto the drum which then deposits it onto the transfer belt. Underneath the transfer belt, a cleaning roller picks up the waste and deposits it into the waste toner box.

Due to a toner cartridge leak, I had to clean up the drums, transfer belt and waste box cleaning roller on my Brother multifunction.

[tooki]

I did not know that was a thing either, and it kinda sucks to hear as it means they are not that efficient if a part of the toner never gets used.  I guess is it because there is some kind of cleaning process between prints and any residu just ends up in a separate canister?

Laser printers (and analog xerographic copiers) all have waste toner receptacles too. It’s just that on most black and white machines, the kind that use an integrated toner and drum cartridge, the waste receptacle is part of the toner cartridge. A wiper blade wipes off any untransferred toner from the drum into the waste bin.  On color lasers, there is an imaging drum or belt that all the drums first transfer their toner to, so that all 4 colors are joined before transferring to the paper. So in addition to the drum wiper blades, the transfer drum/belt also needs to get wiped. And since it doesn’t have a toner cartridge of its own, it needs a waste container.

This document shows the anatomy of a black and white toner cartridge. Note the wiper blade just to the left of the drum, and just behind it the “waste hopper”.

https://support.hp.com/ph-en/document/c05515383

As for efficiency, I don’t think lasers waste nearly as much toner as inkjets waste ink.

Not that the efficiency is in any way tied to cost: that’s entirely up to the printer manufacturer, since the cost to make both ink and toner is trivial. Despite the waste ink, the printers with the lowest operating costs today (ignoring the nearly-gone, and much lower print quality, dot matrix printers) are inkjets. But of course, that’s in printers with fairly high up-front costs, since the machine isn’t being subsidized by insanely marked up ink.

[andy2000]

It could be discharged... but of course, if you want to believe in a conspiracy, then it's because they want you to consume more of it!
[/quote]

I have seen warnings not to pour the waste toner back into the toner reservoir.  The main reason not to reuse the waste toner is that it's contaminated with dust from the paper.  This would be abrasive and wear out the drum faster. 

Normally it's a small amount of toner, and not worth worrying about.  You should empty the waste toner if you refill a cartridge since it's usually just about full when the toner runs out.