Question Toner advice for a color laser printer ?

[splunge]

I have an HP Color LaserJet MFP M277dw printer. I have been disappointed with the color and have been hounded by toner that wipes off and stray lines and yellow streaking. I suspect it is the off brand cheap replacement toner I put in it. HP brand is however obscenely expensive. Is there a way to distinguish decent replacement toner from c#$p that will break my printer?

A link to an article or any leads would help.

 

[Ralston18]

Unfortunately using third party toner products is often problematic.

And likewise, using vendor (HP) toner is indeed expensive.

However, you may be able to save some money by joining HP's Instant Ink and Toner subscription plan.

I use HP inkjet cartridges and have more that halved my inkjet cartridge costs previously purchased via local big box stores. And, interestingly enough, the subscription sent HP cartridges seem to last forever....

My last set of big box store cartridges cost over $120 - tended to last around 9 months with another $60 or so being needed for an individual color cartridge from time to time. Annual cartridge cost previous being $180/per year.

Current subscription plan running $7 - $8 per month. Less than $100.00 per year.

Down side being that I subscribed to a 100 pages/month limit which means that every 10 pages over adds a $1.00 to the monthly subscription rate. I can easily change to more pages/month if necessary. And I am much more careful about what I print and not "waste" pages.

My suggestion is to take a close look at how much money buying off-the-shelf HP toner would cost you and then compare the pricing to a subscription plan. Take a look at the printer's admin pages/reports to get a sense of how many pages are printed each month.

FYI:

https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink.html

Just read all the fine print etc.. Do some math and see if the subscription plan will be benefiical to you.

Overall: print quality will be much better and the printer itself will be a bit more "protected". Barring any existing issues due to the previous low quality toner. (Which may have voided any printer warranty.)

Just offering a lead....

 

[Paperdoc]

I do not have an HP printer like that, so I do not have direct experience here. But I HAVE used a Lexmark Colour Laser printer for years, and most of that time I used third-party toners from a maker called Moustache. They always worked well for me, and I always felt the print quality was equal to what I got from genuine Lexmark carts. About a year ago that printer failed - a burned-out heater unit in the fuser section - and my family gifted me a colour Laser by Brother, model HL-L3290 CDW. I have purchased already a set of Moustache toner carts for it, but the original "start-up" cartridges have not gone empty - well I did have to replace Black just recently. Can't see any difference there yet.

I live in Canada so I have been buying from 123Ink.ca, an on-line seller here

https://www.123ink.ca/

All prices I note here are Canadian $, but you'll get the idea. I always bought the "High Yield" versions because they are a better buy per page. On that website a set of all four colours as Re-Manufactured HP units (not completely new) High Yield is C$ 350, whereas the comparable set from Moustache is C$ 220.

I'll just add one note. You mentioned problems with toner just wiping off. There are certain types of PAPER that you can NOT use in a laser printer. I KNOW that the glossy stuff used for high-quality photos in ink jets will never work in a Laser, nor any other high-gloss paper. The ink simply cannot bond to that surface. Although the print from a laser unit with plain paper is not the same as you get from an ink jet on photo paper, it is pretty good. I use them that way for decorative photos around the house, and simply put them in a frame with glass front, so they look glossy.

Streaky prints CAN be the result of a poor toner cartridge. SOME can be cleaned gently with a dry cloth. SOME (like those in my Brother unit) have a small cleaner wiper built into the toner cartridge you can use by swiping it across a couple times, then returning the cart to the printer. SOME printers also have a "cleaning utility" to clean off accumulated dirt and toner in the paper feed path - check the manual on your printer for such a software tool. Usually it uses a couple wasted sheets or paper.

 

[jaydean]

The fuser is there to apply heat to the paper. This heat melts the toner so it adheres to the paper. If the fuser does not apply sufficient heat then not all the toner will melt, and the un-melted particles can rub off. I had the same issue with my Brother mono laser and I fixed the problem just by changing the settings to a slower print speed and there is a toner fixing checkbox which I guess simply ups the fuser temperature to bake the toner onto the page better. It worked a treat.