Toner Chip swapping

[SalesServiceGuy]

I have $900.00 of new in a box toner from the e2555c series copiers for which i have no units left in the field.

Has anyone tried taking the toner chip off an empty e2515AC (TFC415U-M) and attaching it to an e2555c(TFC50U-M) toner and testing to see if it works?

Looking at the MSDS sheets there is no real difference.

The plastic projections on the top of the toner are different. You have to trim those off with a utility knife.

I have a e3505AC, destined to be a parts machine, that I do not care too much what happens to it that I can use as a test.

The e3505AC has a used GD1370NA fax board which can be reused through the current e3525AC series saving $500.00 in sales cost.

[Blizzoo]

It should work as long as the cartridge chip from 2515AC is not empty. Having at least 1% left should work until the 2555c toner powder is consumed - once completely consumed the machine will wrote onto the chip that is 0% left and at this stage the chip can not be reused. Done that trick on some older Toshiba series swapping chips when I had physical issues with new toner cartridge.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Mucho thanks! I have a TFC415U-M with 3% left. Worth a try!

I expect the black toner is likely not much of an issue. It will be interesting to see if I can salvage any of the older more expensive CMY toner.

[SalesServiceGuy]

I had a TFC505U-C at 2% for e2505AC. I had a new 100% TFC50U-C for the e2555c that has no value to me.

I trimmed off the plastic projection on the top of the TFC50U-C and exchanged the toner chip from the TFC505U-C.

I had a several hundred page print job to complete.

I did perform under Job Status, the Replace toner Cartridge procedure several times. It seemed to have no effect.

I watched the toner percentage decline from 2% to 1% where it stayed. The LCD panel continued to display Toner Near empty-C.

I restarted the copier but there was no change in the Toner Near Empty message on the LCD panel.

I inserted the TFC50U-C with the chip swapped and print 100s of pages on the e2505AC.

There was no change in image qulaity.

I conclude that while this procedure is acceptable for internal office use it is not acceptable to give to a customer except in short term situations where you are waiting for a new toner to arrive.

I will save $125.00 dealer cost by using up a discontined copier toner so it was worth the experiment.

[Rusty.Harris]

This whole toner/ink stuff just has ticked me off ever since color copiers came to be in the 90's.
Oh, lets do the razor/razor blade think! We'll make the copiers not too expensive, but over charge on the ink/toner.
And, let's do this as well. We'll charge too much for black toner/ink, but we'll charge 3-5 times more for the CMY ink/toner.
Then, when we come out with a new model, we'll add a notch/tab so the old toner won't work in the new one. Many found
a way around that, so they started putting crum chips on the cartridges. People started finding a way around that with
aftermarket toner, so they would issue a firmware update that disables the aftermarket crum chip.

Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox.

[djbass]

I had a TFC505U-C at 2% for e2505AC. I had a new 100% TFC50U-C for the e2555c that has no value to me.

I trimmed off the plastic projection on the top of the TFC50U-C and exchanged the toner chip from the TFC505U-C.

I had a several hundred page print job to complete.

I did perform under Job Status, the Replace toner Cartridge procedure several times. It seemed to have no effect.

I watched the toner percentage decline from 2% to 1% where it stayed. The LCD panel continued to display Toner Near empty-C.

I restarted the copier but there was no change in the Toner Near Empty message on the LCD panel.

I inserted the TFC50U-C with the chip swapped and print 100s of pages on the e2505AC.

There was no change in image qulaity.

I conclude that while this procedure is acceptable for internal office use it is not acceptable to give to a customer except in short term situations where you are waiting for a new toner to arrive.

I will save $125.00 dealer cost by using up a discontined copier toner so it was worth the experiment.

A quick read of the service manual would have saved you the trouble, where it describes in detail the process of toner remaining detection.

The chip on the back of a toner cartridge contains the following information:

• Data to identify recommended TOSHIBA toner cartridges
• Thresholds to determine if the toner cartridge is nearly empty
• Value of the counter for the period of the toner cartridge rotation time
• Data for optimizing image quality
• Threshold of toner remaining displays

Essentially you can not simply swap a chip from a used or partially used toner to a new toner to reset the percentage remaining as this information is carried with it. Toner detection is done in two phases, a counter value Is written to the chip and based on this value a percentage of toner remaining is calculated, the auto toner sensor in the developer tank measures the ratio of toner vs carrier in the tank and once it detects the amount of toner inside the tank is below a threshold it displays a toner empty message and writes a final value to the chip that the cartridge is empty.

This means a few things, a cartridge even if it is displaying 1%, will continue to function so long as there is toner inside and the toner is successfully fed into the developer assembly (as you have discovered), a cartridge that is marked as empty, even if there is toner remaining will no longer function (which can happen if a customer forgets to remove the seal before installing the toner), a toner cartridge that is missing the chip will display "Toner not recognised" but will continue to function however toner remaining display will be disabled.