You may well have never considered the possibility of refilling your laser printer, copier or fax machine cartridge yourself. Most people just pay the high price asked for the OEM replacement cartridge with no more than a passing grumble at the cost.

Trying something different always feels difficult because lack of knowledge can raise all sorts of disturbing questions and possibilities in your mind. We know... because we started out as "ordinary users" ourselves. After producing commercial quality laser printing for our educational publishing business using refilled cartridges for the last six years, we know that refilling with toner is easy and very worthwhile.

To help you decide whether you would like to give it a go, we share below some honest answers to some of the questions that may be floating around in your head.

If we succeed in putting your mind at rest and you would like to order then follow this link to find the right product for your machine.

FAQ Contents

Do you supply toner for copiers and fax machines?

What do you mean by "I'm not dead, just empty"?

Will TonerTopUp harm my printer?

Will the use of TonerTopUp void my warranty?

Are there any hazards involved with the handling of toner?

Is refilling safe?

How many times can I refill a cartridge?

What are remanufactured cartridges and are they any good?

What do I do if my cartridge packs up before all of the toner is used?

Why aren't the TonerTopUp products named after printers?

Why don't the remanufacturing companies offer TonerTopUp kits?

What is "drill and fill"?

What else can go wrong?

What about the quality of the prints or copies?

Do I really need to buy the Starter Kit, or is there another way to get toner into the cartridge?

Why do the laser printer manufacturers make cartridge-based machines with really expensive cartridges? Why can't they make a machine like our big office photocopier where all you do is dump in a bottle of toner and walk away?

Are all toners the same?

Is the TonerTopUp toner made by the same company that makes the machine manufacturer’s toner?

What about "universal" toners?

What is the most difficult part of the TonerTopUp process?

Will I get the same number of prints?

Does it really work?

What is your delivery method?

Do you offer discounts?

Where can I find rubber grommets for sealing cartridges, your essentials only toolkit and Special delivery on the website?

Some customer comments are shown here.

Do you supply toners for copiers and fax machines?

We supply toner refills for some models of copier and fax machines but we have a much narrower range than for laser printers.

This is for several reasons. Copiers have traditionally been sold under maintenance contracts which normally include replacement toner cartridges. Supplied in this way, there is no opportunity for the manufacturers to inflate the cartridge price and so the cartridges are inexpensive.

Because there is little market for cheaper remanufactured or compatible cartridges, the toner manufacturers from whom we source our toner have no incentive to produce compatible copier toners.

However for some copiers, where no toner is available, we supply compatible cartridges.

What do you mean by "I'm not dead, just empty"?

Most people think that when their laser printer, copier or fax cartridge runs out of toner with the dreaded “toner low” message, it's dead and ready for the bin! It is not! The components in the cartridge are designed for a life much longer than the rated number of prints of the cartridge. This is commonsense and inevitable as there is bound to be in practice a variation in the life of a batch of components and the manufacturers cannot afford for any of them to fail during the rated life of the cartridge.

Manufacturers have engineered down the design life of their components over the last ten years, but they will still on average last for several times the rated cartridge life.

So when the toner runs out you probably still have a good cartridge, only it's an empty one! If you top up the toner it will give more good service and at a small additional cost. Our toner will allow you to do just that!

No! The toner we supply is of top quality and matched to the requirements of your printer. It cannot harm it. We guarantee this. Please also see the next point below about manufacturers' warranties.

The worst possibility is that you damage the cartridge you are refilling by careless handling or prolonged exposure to light. In this case you will just have to use the toner in the next one!

Will the use of TonerTopUp void my warranty?

No! In most countries, it is against the law to tie the purchase or use of a particular supply to the warranty.

You may like to check this out by looking at what Hewlett-Packard, the market leaders, have to say about it at:

http://www.hp.com/cposupport
/printers/support_doc/bpl03766.html

Sorry this page seems to have been withdrawn! However HP confirm that this is still the current position (July 2005). They make the point that maintenance agreements are normally contracted with their partners and not direct to HP. I quote

“The use of non-HP toner cartridges does not affect either the warranty or any maintenance contract purchased from Hewlett-Packard.”

However, don’t be surprised that they “encourage” you to use their own brand cartridges!

Any damage caused directly by the use of non HP components is excluded and this is, of course, where our warranty comes in.

Remanufacturing of used cartridges is big business. Between 20% and 25% of cartridges used in the UK are remanufactured, that is they do not use the original manufacturer's toner or parts. Neither these many remanufactured cartridges nor your refilled ones will affect your warranty. Refilling is just a way of making your cartridge, whether a new or remanufactured one, go a lot further for a very small price! The manufacturer would have to show that toner had caused a problem with the printer to walk away from their responsibility, and they can’t do that because the toner is as good as the toner they use.

The manufacturers' ploy is to convince you that you should only use their much more expensive cartridges. They make more profit on these than on selling the printer in the first place. You should not believe any sales talk to the contrary!

Are there any hazards involved with the handling of toner?

No! Not if handled sensibly! HP describes toner as "a non-toxic substance composed of plastic, iron, and a small amount of pigment."

You should obviously be sensible handling toner and take a certain level of care. For a start you can easily make quite a mess with it! Don't eat it, drink it, purposely inhale large quantities of it, set it on fire and so on. Like any organic powder flour for instance,, in certain concentrations in air it can be explosive, so don’t throw it around!

Whilst we commonly use a vacuum cleaner to clear up any small remnant of a spill, the powder is fine enough to pass through most non-specialised vacuum cleaner filters and so may pass through the motor which is hazardous and be returned to the air. We therefore recommend that you sweep up any spills as far as possible. If you work on a sheet of newspaper, any spilt toner can be folded up into the paper when you have finished. If you want to see what else HP has to say about toner, take a look at this:

http://www.hp.com/cposupport/printers/support_doc/bpl02957.html

If you have ever removed a sheet of paper jammed in your machine covered with loose toner, or removed the seal strip from a cartridge, you will probably have got some toner on your hands and in the air. There is no need to have more exposure to toner than this in refilling.

Some machines, particularly older copiers, require you to top up a toner reservoir from a bottle as the normal replenishment method anyway.

All in all, you should not be unduly concerned, but please read our comments on safety in the next part.

Is refilling safe?

Many cartridges can be refilled by removing the built-in filler cap, sometimes after undoing a few screws to gain access. For those cartridges that cannot be refilled in this way, melt and pour is the easiest way to go. We provide a starter kit, priced at £9.50 plus VAT, with a soldering iron with a special cutter tip.You do not need to heat the tool to a temperature where the plastic of the cartridge burns in order to melt a hole and so there is no need to generate any combustion fumes at all.

If you are refilling several cartridges, however, you may choose to leave the tool plugged in and some of the plastic will then smoke. As with the combustion of any substance (tobacco for instance!), gases can be produced if the tool gets very hot, some of which are harmful or at least irritant, so be sensible about it and ensure some decent ventilation. We have no hesitation in working this way.

As covered in the above paragraph, the toner powder itself is not considered toxic. Obviously you should anyway try to avoid breathing it in any quantity.

We think refilling toner cartridges is safe for the average adult exercising due care, but we might be wrong. You have to decide for yourself. Whatever you decide, there’s no come back on us.

To be clear for the legal beagles:
All information offered is believed to be true and is offered for consideration in good faith. However Smith & Young Sales Ltd, who trade as TonerTopUp, gives no warranties, neither explicit nor implicit as to the completeness or accuracy of any information offered nor the ultimate safety of refilling toner cartridges in any manner described or suggested nor the ultimate safety or hazardousness of products supplied by Smith & Young Sales Ltd. The onus is on the purchaser to evaluate all possible risk, including the possible incompleteness or inaccuracy of currently available information, and by proceeding to use the refill product or products, the purchaser thereby assumes all risk of peril or injury howsoever arising.

If you decide not to use the product, just return it unopened and in saleable condition and we’ll cheerfully refund your money.

How many times can I refill a cartridge?

An average of three times. (It varies depending on cartridge type and within each type there is considerable variation from cartridge to cartridge.) The range is from 1 or 2 times, to 5 or more times, starting with a new cartridge. While some users can refill an even greater number of times on a given empty, the obvious way to work is to go on refilling until you meet a problem of some kind with the quality of the output. This can occur even on the first fill. As everyone has different requirements, you are the best judge of when the print quality is no longer acceptable. The great thing about refilling is that you are not disturbing the internal components in any way and there are no delicate and skilful adjustments to make. If the cartridge was good when it was empty, it should still be good when you have topped up the toner.

We have been producing a range of educational resource material for schools on laser printers for some years and, as we are selling it, this material has to be absolutely top quality. We lift a cartridge as soon as there is any indication of a quality problem. We have dramatically cut our own print costs by refilling our own cartridges over the years. We are sure you can do the same.

Some cartridges need the waste toner compartment emptying after one or more refills so we suggest that this is routine practice after the first refill.

What are remanufactured cartridges and are they any good?

Because the Original Equipment Manufacturers' cartridges are very expensive, many companies have set up to remanufacture and refill the empty cartridges. It is quite a large industry! At best remanufacturers completely strip down the old cartridge and replace several parts that wear including the OPC light sensitive drum and then refill and reassemble them. The remanufactured cartridges then sell for between 40% and 80% of the cost of the original cartridge.

The best companies provide a good product that can give as good or even better print quality and last longer than the original cartridges. (This is because a variety of components are available on the aftermarket, all tested against the original and with differing characteristics. Some of these have superior performance to the originals.)

Unlike refilling yourself, when you do not disturb the inner working of the cartridge, the remanufacturing operation is not a simple one and some companies unfortunately do not reach such a high standard. Most companies will guarantee that their cartridges will last for the rated life without a problem and will replace any that do not.

Over the years we have used remanufactured cartridges from a small sample of suppliers varying from the good to the indifferent. Bearing in mind that we require for ourselves absolutely top quality prints, the return rate has varied from 70% (Ugh!!) down to less than 10%.

We suggest that it is well worth buying remanufactured cartridges when you need a new one provided that:

A you ensure that you can return any that do not last the course (or are credited for them) and

B you accept that you may have to try a few suppliers before finding a good one.

C you ensure that the supplier always replaces the light sensitive drum (OPC) when rebuilding (If the cartridge contains one!), because this is usually the first component to fail in a cartridge. Obviously if you are subsequently going to refill the cartridge this is particularly important.

With these provisos, we recommend you to buy remanufactured cartridges when necessary and to keep them working until they pack up using our TonerTopUp toner. This combination produces the lowest overall cost for you and is the minimum effect on the environment.

What do I do if my cartridge packs up before all of the toner is used?

If you keep on refilling a cartridge, sooner or later it will fail. If you so choose, you can then simply pour out the remaining toner for use in another cartridge. There need be no waste. Alternatively you may prefer to only partially refill the cartridge each time and waste any toner left in it when it fails. We prefer the first approach!

Either way, do not be tempted to reuse any toner from the waste chamber as this will be contaminated.

We suggest you use a clean plastic bowl or bucket to collect the unused toner and a funnel to pour it back into a cartridge or bottle. You will need to give the cartridge a good shake to get it all out and a bowl is ideal to catch it in. It is a great deal easier to make a mess emptying a cartridge than filling one! If you don't own a funnel, and after all why should you, try rolling a piece of paper with a little ingenuity and a bit of sticky tape.

You may bear in mind that we accept back for refund any toner that you return to us still sealed in its bottle and in resellable condition. (This does not apply to special orders or our trade customers.)

Why aren't the TonerTopUp products named after printers?

There are only a few actual manufacturers of laser printer, copier and fax machine engines, which are the working guts of the machine. These engines are used in large numbers of different machines with different labels on them. Beyond that, different engines can be designed to use the same toner. So our range of products covers many of the thousands of printer, copier and fax machine models that we list on this site.

Hewlett Packard, the market leader, does not make a single laser printer engine, nor do they make a single toner cartridge. Canon actually makes the engines for most Hewlett Packard laser printers, plain-paper fax machines and toner cartridges for those machines. Those same Canon engines found in the Hewlett Packard machines are also found in a wide variety of machines with other vendor names on the outside such as DEC, Wang, Apple, QMS.

It is simple to find the right TonerTopUp product for your laser printer on our product selector page. You choose the manufacturer; choose the model and all the relevant information is displayed.

Why don’t the remanufacturing companies offer TonerTopUp kits?

They make more profit from selling a higher cost remanufactured cartridge than from selling just the toner for you to refill yourself. When you consider that around 80% of the market is taken by high priced, original equipment manufacturers' own brand cartridges, then you can see that the remanufacturers have a large potential market for their own products. They do not want to be associated with the uncertain quality from what they may describe as "drill and fill" suppliers. (see "drill and fill")

What is "drill and fill"?

In the past there have been companies that have sold cartridges that have been refilled, and not remanufactured, using techniques similar to those we suggest. (Generally they drilled holes rather than melting.) They got a very bad reputation for quality because they could not be sure for how many cycles the refilled cartridges would last. The empty cartridges that you can buy in bulk from trade source will have a variable track record. For instance, some may have been been left exposed to sunlight, others may have internal physical damage. A remanufacturer takes them apart and should check and replace problem components. The "Drill and Fill" refillers just filled them. Customers did not like it when the quality deteriorated. It could be during the first cycle.....or after quite a few. Whose criteria were to be used for a "good" print?

Clearly that is very different from buying toner and refilling yourself! If you refill a cartridge you know how it has been treated and you know for sure that it definitely will fail sooner or later. You accept that! You also are the sole arbiter of exactly when the quality is no longer quite right. You are only buying the toner, and that need not be wasted, even if a cartridge fails quite early on, because it can be reused in another cartridge. You take the responsibility for your own refilling operation.

We are happy to guarantee our toner is qualified for use in the models for which we list it. We cannot guarantee how many times you can refill any cartridge or indeed that you will get a good result from any particular refill. We would never be able to guarantee a refilled cartridge supplied to a user. Thus the whole business model of "drill and fill" suppliers is untenable and rightly suspect. If you are buying complete cartridges then they should be remanufactured and bear a quality guarantee for the life of the cartridge and not just be refilled. (See our comments on remanufacturing.)

You should only buy our toner if you are prepared to take the risk that some cartridges will fail early, and also the responsibility for deciding when a cartridge is no longer producing prints to a high enough quality for your standards. In return you will save money and help the environment!

When something goes wrong it will show on the printed page. If you notice spots, dots, blank spots or voids showing up on the printed page (in a pattern that repeats several times down the page), then the cartridge has reached the end of its useful life and needs to be replaced. A razor sharp, pencil thin line appearing on the page also indicates a cartridge has reached the end of the line.

This is the time to replace the cartridge with another original or remanufactured cartridge, and start again. You may want to recover any unused toner left in the dead cartridge as covered above.

It may seem a bit of a pain to have to watch the print quality, waiting for the final inevitable demise of your cartridge, but in practice most people continually keep an eye on their print quality anyway. After all there are occasional problems even with new OEM branded cartridges.

Furthermore, most people using expensive new cartridges take the “Toner Low” warning as an “early warning” signal, knowing full well that with a quick shake they will get many more good prints out of their expensive investment before the toner really runs out. They can tell that has happened when the print quality goes! If you are using TonerTopUp then you might as well just lift the cartridge and refill it straight away. There are no prizes in wresting the last print out of the first fill of toner.

So you will normally only have to discard poor prints when the cartridge has finally expired rather than at the end of each cartridge fill of toner.

By refilling you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have squeezed the full potential life out of the cartridge, and the savings in your back pocket to show it!

What about the quality of the prints or copies?

The great thing about refilling a cartridge yourself using TonerTopUp toner is that you will know whether the cartridge is printing well or else showing signs of wear. Because you do not disturb the inner workings of the cartridge by refilling it, the quality should be as good as it was before the toner ran out.

In fact, because you no longer have to squeeze the last prints out of your cartridge before junking it, you can now lift it for refilling immediately you get a toner low message and before you notice any quality problems caused by lack of toner! It is a luxury you may soon come to appreciate!

Clearly your cartridge will pack up sooner or later, either by a gradual deterioration in print quality or else by a more catastrophic failure. The great thing is that you are in control. You decide when it is no longer good enough.

A cartridge may be fine for straight text work but yet not come up to scratch for the heavy graphics in your sales literature. It is up to you to decide! Whenever it does pack up, it does not owe you anything! By refilling you have gained extra low cost prints, and you can reuse the remaining toner if you wish.

For black toner one of the elements of quality is the density of the print. This is particularly evident in pictures and large areas of black image. One of the characteristics of the OPC light sensitive drums used in laser printers and copiers is that they tend to produce lighter prints as they age. This may be evident during the life of a new OEM cartridge. The toners we supply may have a different density range from the OEM toner, sometimes darker. If you are using a remanufactured cartridge then, if you follow our recommendation, it will have had a replacement OPC drum fitted. This too may vary in density characteristics from the OEM drum. These variations mean that one of the ways that a cartridge can finally fail to met your quality criteria is due to poor density on your prints.

For coloured toners our manufacturers are not able to guarantee that the colour range produced will match exactly to the OEM range. You should therefore try an initial refill to see whether you are happy with the results. Some clients prefer the TonerTopUp toners; others do not. Where exact colour matching is required for graphics industry proofing, we do not suggest the use of our colour toners.

If you have bought several bottles of toner from us and wish to return some unopened ones for any reason, then we will refund you for those that are still sealed and in saleable condition. On occasions when a toner is supplied to a special order or in bulk quantities or to the Trade, then this guarantee will not apply.

Do I really need to buy the Starter Kit, or is there another way to get toner into the cartridge?

In our product selector page the filling method for your laser printer copier or fax machine model will be shown.

For some models we supply the TonerTopUp toner in a similar way to the manufacturer and you can refill in the way described in the machine manual.

Some cartridges have a visible filler cap and for these no tools, except possibly a pair of pliers, are required to refill. Others will have a few screws that need to be removed before the filler cap can be reached. You will need a flat or crosshead screwdriver.

Others including many popular HP models are marked as "melt hole and pour". Our Starter Kit is the fastest and easiest way to "melt and pour" toner into your cartridge, priced at £9.50 plus VAT. There are other methods you could use to get the toner into the cartridge, as well as other tools you could use to put the "toner port" into the housing, but all of them either take more time, require additional specialised tools or are far more expensive than our Starter Kit method.

You only need buy the Starter Kit once, no matter how many different types of cartridges you want to refill, so the cost is minimal in relation to the savings you will realize on your first toner cartridge refill.

Making a hole by drilling into the cartridge is a bad idea as inevitably some swarf from the drill will get into the cartridge and may cause problem.

Follow this link to our page explaining
how to use the Starter Kit.

Why do the laser printer manufacturers make cartridge-based machines with really expensive cartridges? Why can't they make a machine like our big office photocopier where all you do is dump in a bottle of toner and walk away?

The printer manufacturers know that the real profit to be made from their machines is not from the one off purchase of the machine itself, but from the repeated, month in, month out purchase of consumables. The marketing strategy is known as "razors and razorblades". The manufacturers do all they can to hold onto this consumables market. They have patents on the cartridge as well as on some component within it. It has taken nearly two decades for big manufacturing firms (like Xerox and Lexmark) to develop toner cartridges which function properly inside of Canon/HP laser printers, without violating the huge number of patents HP has on those cartridges. Many manufacturers have even started adding electronic chips to the cartridges, sometimes ostensibly to tell you when your toner is low but on other occasions as manufacturer markers or as killer chips. They know this makes it harder for the competitors to sell against them and protects their market until the chips are replicated and made available in the remanufacturing market place.

For some cartridges the chip does not prevent a refilled cartridge from printing, but you get a continual Toner Low message unless the chip is replaced. Having a toner low light stuck on, in spite of having just refilled the cartridge, is a small trade off to pay in these cases for the big saving you will make with TonerTopUp.

In other cases you will need to buy a replacement chip as well as toner as the chip will prevent the refilled cartridge from printer. These are termed "Killer Chips".

No matter how easy it is for the main cartridge-based laser printer manufacturers to make printers that use bottles of toners instead of toner cartridges, they seldom appear on the market since the profit incentive is so great in producing machines which use expensive, proprietary toner cartridges.

Are all toners the same?

No! They are not! We list over 600 different toners. But there are a limited number of types used by lots of different models. We suggest you stick to the right product for your printer model, which you can find from our product selector page.

For a particular model there are toners available from different manufacturers with different characteristics. They are all tested on a number of factors including image quality and number of prints against the manufacturer's own cartridges. Many exceed the OEM toners in certain respects. You can rest assured that we have selected quality products to supply to you.

We make no warranties at all if you buy a toner that we do not recommend for your machine. It may work, but it probably will not, and it may cause damage to the machine. If we cannot dissuade from using an unqualified toner, you we will not accept responsibility for the consequences!

On the TonerTopUp website we do not ofer so called "Universal" toners. These are by tehir nature a compromise and are not used by professional remanufacturers. We see the casualties from the "cheap and cheerful" universal toner suppliers and believe that we should not compromise in this way.

Is the TonerTopUp toner made by the same company that makes the machine manufacturer’s toner?

Possibly, but we cannot tell! Most laser printer manufacturers do not make their own toner. The properties of the toner we use are very similar to the properties of the toner in the original cartridges. We cannot tell if they are made by the same company because the manufacturers do not reveal their suppliers, and the suppliers of the toner keep it quiet too!. All that matters to you is that our toner does the job well and you will get good prints. ( We have actually been told by our supplier that the Epson C900 colour toner is from the same factory as the original! A rare snippet to slip through the net!)

We also know that one of our Oki toner suppliers joint ventures with Oki.... whatever that may mean!

What about "universal" toners?

There are some resellers who are now supplying cheap, "universal" toner. ie a few toners covering the majority of models in the market. This is particularly prevalent with Samsung models. The professional remanufacturers do not use these universal toners and are, in our view rightly, sceptical that they can produce good results across the range.

After all for each new model the reputable manufacturers will always test their nearest specification toner and see whether it produces good results. If it does then they would qualify it for that model too! If a separate toner is developed it is precisely because the other toners fail to produce the right results across the range of materials etc that the machine is rated to use. If the professional don't use them, we don't recommend them!

So we believe that in general you will get substandard results from "universal" toners.

What is the most difficult part of the TonerTopUp process?

Convincing people to have a go!……that they will not appear as a chimney sweep covered from head to foot in black powder! !…….that they don’t need a mechanics' certificate!……and that it is normal rational behaviour and not some weird geeky behaviour!…… to top up their laser printer when it is low on toner.

There is nothing difficult about the process. Take a look at our instructions! There is little to lose.

The easiest way to overcome your natural scepticism is to try it for yourself. We are confident that you will then join our list of satisfied repeat customers and save a lot of money.

Will I get the same number of prints?

The toner we supply should give a similar number of prints as the manufacturer's toner for the same weight on a like for like basis. The number of prints you obtain depends on the image, the toner characteristics and the weight of toner. (Figures are usually quoted with a standard page of 5% coverage in black.)

In some cases a range of models use the same toner but use a different load weight in the cartridge or have a choice of cartridges available with different weights. We normally stock bottles of only one size for each toner type, usually the largest needed, and so for some models this will provide multiple fills.

When filling the rule is always to leave a reasonable gap in the toner hopper so that the toner can be kept fluid by the agitator. There are no prizes for stuffing it all in anyway and so we suggest you fill to a comfortable level and use any surplus next time. Some people prefer to only fill about half full each time so there is likely to be less toner in the cartridge when it finally packs up and they do not bother to reclaim the residual toner in dead cartridges.

When you are comparing the price and value of refilling, it is important to compare the price for the same yield or weight of toner. The manufacturer's load of each cartridge may be given on the packaging or be available from your supplier. For instance there are two cartridges for the HP Laserjet 4000. The C4127X contains 500g of toner and is rated at 10,000 pages and the smaller C4127A contains 300g of toner and is rated at 6,000 pages. We supply 500g in our bottle and so you should get at least 10,000 standard pages from either a single fill of the large cartridge or nearly two fills of the smaller. If you are comparing our prices with others it is sensible to check that you are looking at the same yields or weights. We try to give as full information as possible on our website so you know where you stand.

The new "chemical toners have smaller and more even particles and are very much more efficient in terms of yield by weight. 150g of chemical toner may well yield 5000 5% nominal coverage sheets whereas a traditional toner might well have needed 200g or more.

Particularly with new products, we rely on information from our suppliers for the bottle weight being the correct amount for a cartridge fill. There have been occasions when the weight they supply has been changed from the initial weight supplied. This usually happens after the prioduct ahs been on the market for 3 - 6 months and they have had significant feedback from remanufacturers using the toner. We have no choice but to use the information they provide.

We do not generally make any claims for a particular number of sheets for any of our products, we rather state the number of grams we are supplying. Some suppliers are beginning to change to quoting yields instead of weights. In this case we quote the page yield and give an approximate weight.

You should bear in mind that the normal 5% nominal coverage figure is wildly unrealistic if you are including pictures on your page. Increasingly with colour printers the average page coverage is well in excess of this. Some pages may be nearer 100% coverage for a colour. HP recently said that the average page coverage on one of their printers was 16% and that is probably weighted for business graphics use rather than many pictures. Higher toner use per page means less wear when the toner is exhausted and more refills before quality deteriorates.

We have been refilling our own cartridges for years now and we know that it does. We have saved a substantial amount of money in producing our laser printed, educational material. Importantly, we have not compromised quality.

Many of our customers have come back for more. They know that it works too!

There is no need for you to take our word for it; it is not expensive to try it yourself. Use our product selector to choose the correct product for your printer, fax or copier, get our Starter Kit if it is needed for your model and have a go yourself. It is you that needs to be comfortable that it works!

What is your delivery method?

When you place an order with us on our web site, we should contact you by email or phone within 24 hours to confirm our acceptance of your order and clarify any issues it raises. For instance we may need further information from you for the avoidance of credit card fraud if the delivery and credit card addresses are different.

Where items are in stock they will normally be dispatched within one working day following the acceptance of the order. We normally use the Post Office 1st class letter or 1st class small packet services to keep costs to a minimum and delivery should take one day. For larger orders, over 1.5kg, we use a 24 hour carrier service. In the event that the product is not in stock when we receive your order, or there is any complication with the order we will contact you and tell you when you may expect delivery.

If your order is urgent you may choose special delivery for orders under 1.5kg at an extra cost of £5 by clicking on the "Add item to cart button". You should then choose BOTH the manufacturer and model as "Other". This will bring up a list of miscellaneous items from which you may select the Special Delivery Surcharge.

For orders over 1.5 kg please phone us to find out the cost of the timed delivery options offered by our carrier.

For most overseas orders we use Airsure or International Signed For airmail post services. For Europe this takes about 3-5 days. For the USA and most other countries between about 5 -8 days, provided, of course, it is not held up by your customs! For larger overseas orders we use courier or airfreight services.

In case of non-delivery problems, please contact us and we will start the claim process on your behalf. We will only refund for non-delivery when compensation is received from the carrier.

We prefer to communicate by email on most occasions as it is usually more convenient for both us and our clients. It is less intrusive than the phone and so often one just has to leave a message anyway! You are however of course welcome to phone us with your questions!

Do you offer discounts?

We offer discounts for large orders both to end users and trade resellers starting for orders of around £500. Do phone us to discuss what we can offer you if you will be buying in volume. There may sometimes be special offers on our home page. Have a look!

Where can I find rubber grommets for sealing cartridges, your essentials only toolkit and special delivery on the website?

It is hard to know where to advertise this on the website, but the grommets and these other items are listed in the Product Selector along with a few other miscellaneous items under Manufacturer = Other and Model = Other as though that is a printer model! The grommets cost 10p plus vat each. The essentials only toolkit contains just the special cutting tip for our soldering iron tool and 6 grommets but not the soldering iron itself. It is designed for our overseas customers as it is light to send and because our 240 volt soldering irons will not work in some countries. We normally will only sell our toolkits to our customers for toner.