aftermarket toner

[brent]

almost afraid to ask everyones opinion on toner. I get vendors that call and just try to religiously sell me
compatible toners. and maybe they are b etter now. maybe not here is my experience

I had a bizhub 423 with 200k on it. only ran oem toner its whole life. so I get a compatible toner from
x company.. install the toner mind you the machine is over 150 miles away. I get a call that the machine is ratcheting
I am like crap so I went out and sure enough the toner in the sub hopper what just as hard as a rock.. coincidence?
I don't know. that was 3 years ago. and I came back then literally threw away the compativle toners for that machine.
what is your alls experience with compatible toners..??

not only copy quality but is it goofing up your drums cleaning blades? fusers? very interested on your opinion
and where you are getting toner from..

ps 3510 machines do wonderful with generic toner in my opinion

brent

[Hansoon]

Re: aftermarket toner

Brent, I'm using after market toner from day one with the Di-350 and later on Di-351, Di-450, BH-350 series and never had serious problems. OK, I can't compare cause I never used OEM for those machines. As mentioned before, I get the toner from a very large German supplier (NOT K!). I know these people very well since many years and they are selling huge amounts of toner in Western Europe. If that toner was bad they would not be able to continue to sell it. However......, there is a lot of Chinese junk on the market I have heard from colleagues.

Most of the dealers I know use OEM because they must meet certain quota with their OEM's and their techs do not care about costs so much, if at all, they just want to be at the safe side staying away from possible trouble. Me, as an Indy I have to look at every dime these days to stay alive cause profits are way down compared to the past.

Hans

[allan]

Re: aftermarket toner

I have first hand experience with the chinese stuff, cost the company a lot of money to replace the toner vacuum the hopper replace developer drums blades and UFR's and that in less than 15k prints. I used to work for Konica Minolta ZA dealing only with OEM stuff and i have to say parts last a hell of a lot longer. Like lets say u use good aftermarket toner like the German stuff a B363 drum would last about between 60k to 80k and with OEM toners would go past 150k(after vacuuming the paper dust from cleaning section at about 80k).

[Hansoon]

Re: aftermarket toner

Allan I have BH-350's with after market drums + after market toner going beyond 120K. Main reason for changing them is less the copy quality but more the fact that the drums became scored from the transfer roller stands. After solving the problem with worn collars this is still an issue with these machines.

Hans

[allan]

Re: aftermarket toner

Yea those white plastic bits are bad. The OPC it strips of ends up on the charge grid and makes black line on the edges. The drums we get also strips of the splines on the drum gear and those bits of black plastic ends up on the stick grease on the rest of the gears all the way down to the bypass drive, causing a nice noise to come from the machine.

[Copier Addict]

Re: aftermarket toner

We have gone back to OEM toner on our BH 350 series and BH423 series. The copy quality calls were eating up any savings we got from buying the aftermarket crap. And a happy side effect is that the drums are lasting at least 50 percent longer and the fuser thermistors don't seem to wear the upper roller as quickly.
BTW we are using OEM drums as well.

[Desert Rat]

Re: aftermarket toner

Thank you all for sharing your experience with after market toners. I was just pondering do the same thing.
But now I will stick with the OEM toners. Unfortunately I have a customer with 4 BHC360 and they like to buy there
own parts and supplies. They use the aftermarket toners. They seem ok. The also buy the drum and blades so
I end up rebuilding the old units. I have told him to buy just the black and I will rechip it for color.
He is slowly getting the idea.

Thanks again

DR

[Woxner]

Re: aftermarket toner

its not just the collars that score the drum. take afew shims out of the tranfer roller. there is five or six on each side sometimes. some b/w did ok on generic but not great. cq was not as good. but generic on color is the worst. less wax in toner killing fusers drums and clogging t belts

[copier tech]

Re: aftermarket toner

My phone is full of pictures of damaged imagine units caused by compatible toner, its takes out the transfer units & drums way before they hit 100% on OEM toner they reach 200% simply not cost effective.

[copyman]

Re: aftermarket toner

I only use aftermarket in older B&W models. Only OEM in color and newer B&W models.

I've been using aftermarket in the 223 series and all the predecessors 250, 251,2510, etc. for last 20 yrs with no major problems. For the 223 series when I rebuild the image units I also use aftermarket drum/blade & OEM developer. I'm sure it depends where you buy the aftermarket. I've been buying from Copylite for last 10 yrs.

[Desert Rat]

Re: aftermarket toner

Good to know, thanks for sharing.

DR