For those suffering "Sudden Tourette Syndrome" with their laser printer, here are 3 tips to search for to prevent the problem. It seems toner is the cash cow as razor blade sales are to the shaving companies. We'll see how that goes next week.Ī side note while on the subject of toner refill: Brother's are notorious for short cycling and being a royal pain when it comes to toner. The seller is pretty big with high ratings, so I don't think I'll get screwed. I just ordered an "ebay special" toner refill bottle at the $10 level. and no more rabid ink streaking problems to deal with. Two HP ink cartridges equals the price of this printer. There's also an old DeskJet in the other room that will be "recycled" once its ink cartridge goes. I was really hoping to make my old laser printer work, but life sucks sometimes. The stuff I'm making I only do small runs, so by the time I have a finished and tested design, I don't need to make any more. Since I'm developing my own PCB's, that could mean multiple back to back trips if I screw up or do a board revision update. Over the life of a cheap laser printer, the cost per page on standard paper is about $0.02-0.05USD depending on how it's used.Īs a dying cripple, I'd also have to make my way out and back to the print shop multiple times at sometimes very odd hours of the day/night. There's also no guarantee they'll use the correct toner and paper that will be PCB etching compatible. There is some truth to that, but here it costs $0.40-0.50USD per page at the print shops. I just don't know the brand or the specs. Considering the drum wear, it has probably been refilled a few times. I've considered trying to swap toners between the printers, but I've heard that can be dangerous. I'd use that laser printer, but the drum is going out and has bad snow and ghosting problems (it was cheaper to buy a new printer than try and fix this one). My old Minolta toner acts like glue when just partially heated.
![getting excess toner on brother hl 2140 printer getting excess toner on brother hl 2140 printer](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/RwkAAOSwhA9fGzX7/s-l640.jpg)
They seem to be higher quality, so I may look for an even "cheaper" refill kit. I emailed them but got the standard "we don't know" answer back. Google searches seem to indicate cheap refill kits will fix the toner transfer problem. I hope to not have a project ever that excessive. The printer does seem to print out 10mil traces cleanly. The printer does work nicely with debian/lenny, but not all of the advanced features are there from windoze. Of all the things I excessively researched, toner was not one of them. I bought it this weekend from newegg for just under $85 shipped with an extra USB cable. Once again, great for office work, but not for PCB's. It seems that once the toner is fused, it will not become sticky again under an iron at any heat for any length of time. I'll confirm that the official Brother toner in my HL-2140 is great for printouts that will be in a hot car or attic.