Copiers are handy pieces of equipment that normally work well…except when they don’t.

Toner is one aspect of copier that causes various issues like the toner running out too fast, blemishes on your printed pages, toner spilling inside the machine, and wasting toner by changing out the tank before it completely empties.

Low on Toner

A fairly common issue with toner is when users change out their toner tanks too soon. Copiers and printers will give warnings such as “Low on Toner” or “20% Toner Left”, which serve as good indicators to buy more toner. However, just because your machine says “Low Toner” doesn’t mean you should switch out your toner. We at DSI have seen customers throw out tanks that were a quarter full or even half full just because their machine said “Low Toner”. This can be a huge loss of money for a company since toner is not cheap. It is important to keep running your copier until it won’t let you print or copy anymore, that’s when you know to switch out your toner. 

 

“Low on Toner” Even After Placing New Toner

“Low On Toner” is a message we’ve all seen before. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but when it shows up soon after you just placed a new toner, it can be annoying. The first and most common reason is the toner being stuck to the walls of the cartridge. All you would need to do to fix this is just shake the cartridge to even out the toner. Another possible reason is that your copier’s toner pump is out. However, when your toner pump is out, the machine will say that the copier is “Out of Toner”. Another less common reason is that the sensor in your machine is malfunctioning, and that is something you would need to get fixed by a professional.

Smearing

Smearing is another issue connected with toner. One reason for smearing is that the cartridge is not installed correctly. It may help to print out a series of blank pages and see if this fixes anything. You could also try installing the toner cartridge again, but if this doesn’t work, then there may be something wrong with the drum unit, and it might be time to replace it. Smearing goes hand in hand with fading, and fading usually occurs if you are low on toner, so all you would have to do is replace it. Of course, there are instances where your prints come out faded even though they have enough toner, and this is most likely due to the issue of the transfer roller not being cleaned. The transfer roller’s job is to relocate the toner from the drum and transfer it to the paper.

Printing Color on B&W Prints

Another common problem regarding toners is its tendency to print color on black and white prints. This is most likely caused by the leaking of color toner cartridges. To fix this issue, make sure to clean out all the leaked toner, and then just replace your color toner cartridge. 

Toner cartridges cause problems left and right, but there are usually easy fixes for them. We hope this article helped.