Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Toner Transfer
tautech:
--- Quote from: KL27x on January 20, 2019, 04:18:55 am ---If it weren't for wanting to do PCB's, I might have bought another Brother after I stuffed my last one. I had been using Brother laser printers for the previous 4-5 years. I found my particular Brother worked for PCB's if you replaced the toner with generic. But this degraded the print quality fairly quickly, ruining the cartridge or the drum or something.
*I had the Brother and the HP at the same time, for awhile, and I kept a stack of Pulsar ready to go in the HP. But my Brother printer died a year or 3 back when I turned it off while a large (mistaken) print job was spooling. And it never worked again. So on second thought, maybe I wouldn't buy another Brother.
--- End quote ---
Yep, if you read the printer advisory for PCB Fab-In-A-Box they specifically state:
--- Quote ---B&W Laser Printers are ideal, however...the entire BROTHER printer line does not work with our PCB process. They use a non-standard toner formulation that does not work well with our process.
--- End quote ---
https://pcbfx.com/main_site/pages/start_here/printer_info.html
KL27x:
^ They might be wrong, though. Someone on the forum posted their success using a Brother printer. They even tracked down the MSDS or somesuch of the toner. Some of the Brother printers apparently use a standard formula. The cheap entry level one I had wasn't one of them. It was a higher melting temp plastic. The lights flickered when the fuser was heating up. I don't recall the model of mine, but IIRC, the replacement cartridge was model TN 350. So if you can find the ingredients in that, then you could research any other Brother Printer by looking it up in the same way. I seem to remember looking at it, but I don't remember where. It is documented somewhere on this forum's history.
So if you were in the market and interested in a Brother, I wouldn't let this automatically put me off. I actually liked my Brother, better. At the same cost, it printed faster, the toner might have been a little cheaper, the print software was better for printing 2:1 reduced booklets/datasheets, and the printer fully enclosed the paper drawer, keeping out lint and dirt. Because my printer is underneath an electronics workbench, it gets a bit of debris, now and then.
Any rate, IME with entry level inkjets and entry level monochrome laser printer, the laser printers are way more reliable, have faster output, and are probably cheaper in the long run. I don't miss running down to the Staples to buy a new inkjet cartridge.
Someone on the forum pointed out the refillable inkjets as being the cheapest. I googled it. The cheapest one was double the price of an entry level inkjet printer, and it intentionally did not have a replaceable sponge. When the internal sponge was filled with ink, the printer was dead. The reviews said that you could only refill it ONCE!
Kilrah:
Hmm I still see those original cartridges available on amazon, so is there any reason you wouldn't be good for at least another 5 years with one? Does the wiper also degrade in factory sealed package?
Kilrah:
--- Quote from: KL27x on January 20, 2019, 04:58:26 am ---Someone on the forum pointed out the refillable inkjets as being the cheapest. I googled it. The cheapest one was double the price of an entry level inkjet printer, and it intentionally did not have a replaceable sponge. When the internal sponge was filled with ink, the printer was dead. The reviews said that you could only refill it ONCE!
--- End quote ---
Look at the Epson EcoTank ones.
Friend has one and I recently used it for an animation where we'd take photos of people at an event and give them an A4 high quality print on photo paper. Printed about 150 of them and only used about a 3rd of the printer's photo ink tanks (which a refill bottle fills 2-3 times), so maybe about $5 worth of ink. The sponge is an externally accessible "maintenance kit" that costs about $20 and is swapped in seconds, and on his 1 year old printer currently reports about half used.
Of course the printer is more expensive, aka its real value instead of being discounted to nothing because of making up for it in the long run with inflated cartridge prices.
james_s:
I make a point of never, ever buying OEM cartridges retail, I refuse to support that business model and the tremendous waste resulting from the fact that it's often cheaper to buy a whole new printer than it is to replace the consumables. If I really want an OEM cartridge I'll find one on ebay.
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