Print cartridges are a bit of a strange market. At one time copier toner was refilled from a bottle whilst the drum and developer were changed every year or so by an engineer. Copiers were big machines that cost as much as a car, so paying an engineer to work on the machine was not a big issue.

Canon had three areas of expertise in the 1980s, Business Machines (they made calculators), Cameras of all kinds (the companies origins) and Copiers (a relatively new field after Xerox's monopoly ended).

In the early 1980s Canon realized that there would be a market for personal copiers and laser printers based on them. Xerox had a strong presence in big copiers and laser printers, but had shown little interest in smaller machines. A problem with small machines was that arranging an engineer visit to houses and small offices wouldn't be easy. One of Canon's primary businesses was making cameras, and the difficulty of changing films had been overcome by making cartridges. Canon's PC 10 personal copier wrapped the toner, developer and drum up in a user changeable cartridge.

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Re-manufacturing things is a bit unusual. Regrettably not usually stripped and rebuilt TVs, phones, washing machines and carsalthough they are often sold second hand. Print cartridges are special because of physical and intellectual property law.

Printer brands don't want anyone else to make parts for their printers. The market for new printers is very competitive so brands aim to sell new printers cheaply, then they make a profit on things like accessories, extended warranties and above all cartridges.

Low prices on the main item are not unusual. Retailers advertise TVs and HiFi at low prices but then make a profit on warranty, cables and aerial installation - or on hire-purchase agreements.

Mobile phones are the next biggest seller, almost always sold with a contract and vendors use confusion marketing:- minutes, texts, TV and internet to mis-match customer and contract.

Computer vendors aim to sell things like anti-virus software, network cables and a tote bag

Car manufacturers don't want anyone making compatible exhausts, radiators or window glass. Car manufacturers have to live with people buying tyres, batteries and lamps from other suppliers because everyone knows those parts are made by specialists in the products, and not usually by the car manufacturer. Most car parts are made by a network of subcontractors but you might be reluctant to buy unbranded brake-blocks and feel that it just isn't worth the risk that material or construction won't be right.

Companies other than Canon and HP can't make these cartridges. The parts are copyright and protected by patent. Other manufacturers can't just copy a cartridge. It has been estimated that low cost printers sell for about a third of their actual manufacturing cost, whilst the profit margin on cartridges is 60% to 80%

Printer companies can't stop others re-using manufactured

Laboratory equipment would be needed to measure the average grain size of toner, its melting point, dispersion of waxes on the teflon surface of the fuser, specific gravity. The stochastics of toner transfer between rollers might be done by weighing the product of several seconds exposure to known voltages. There is also the possibility of using a sensitive AC coupled amplifier to count the "noise" of toner transfering. Triboelectric charges on particles and surfaces can be measured by an electroscope. Chemical composition can be decided by infra-red reflectance.

Toner producers like Imex have equipment like high magnification optical microscopes and scanning electron microscopes. It's not the sort of thing individual recyclers have.

There are potential problems with patents. The basic technology of the laser printer is the same as that of the copier and dates back to Chester Carlson's US Patents 2221776 and 2297691 of 1942. There was then a burst of patents establishing the process in the 1950s after which Xerox emerged as the main manufacturer of copiers. However Xerox grew to be such a monopoly that in the mid 1970s that in 1975 they were forced to sign a Consent Decree licensing their technology to competitors.

Xerox researcher Gary Starkweather invented the laser printer using a modified copier in 1969 and by 1977 the 9700 model was on the market. Early laser printers were big, and had mini-computers as formatters.

Costing

The printers themselves were priced at about 4 times the price of a cartridge (The CLJ 1600 only came with starter cartridges). Clearly this made sense in marketing terms, otherwise businesses wouldn't do it. Canon and HP wanted to get these printers out there and get cartridge sales flowing. To do that they pared the printer sales cost to the bone, and inflated the cartridge cost as much as they dared. That creates the situation where it could sometimes make more sense to buy a new printer than new cartridges.

Cartridges are fairly complicated. Each cartridge contains about 70 components not including its packaging and the toner itself.

Cartridges are also technically quite sophisticated, there is a lot of development effort behind getting toner grains made of styrene acrylate, wax and colourant with near spherical grains concentrated in a size range around 5 microns.

However it doesn't look arguable that a toner cartridge is as sophisticated as something like a DVD-player - which has a retail price around £20 whilst these cartridges have a retail price around £50. Printers use a lot of cartridges - about 20 cartridges in the life of a mono printer and more for a colour machine. Popular cartridges probably sell in similar numbers to DVD players.

There are thousands of examples of things about as complicated as printer cartridges that sell for far less; radio controlled toy cars, clocks, headphones and low-energy lamps. Even video recorders sell for less than the cost of a cartridge.

It is easy to be critical of the printer manufacturers for their sales model - cheap printers, expensive cartridges - the razor-blade or Gillette model as it's known. All the evidence is that most printer buyers aren't prepared to pay extra for the printer to get print costs down. On average they buy cheap printers - the manufacturers subsidise that from the price of cartridges.

The cartridge contains about 70 components of which about 20 can be bought from Uninet. Waste hopper or cartridge top polystyrene moulding Toner hopper or main polystyrene moulding Toner hopper base polystyrene moulding Drum shutter lower part. Uninet 11988 Drum Shutter and Shutter hinge Drum shutter upper part. Left gear-side blue handle Right contact-side blue handle Gear cover in polystyrene Left hand gear plate Right hand contact plate Optic pipe upper Optic pipe lower Plastic hinge pin. Uninet 10886 Plastic Cartridge Pin 50 pack Soft plastic toner hopper tape bung. Uninet 11624 Seal Toner Hopper Fill Plug 100 Pack Toner hopper release tape. Uninet 1003 Clear Seal Adhesive, 50 Pack Toner hopper release tape surfaces Feed roller right hand transparent bearing OPC Drum OPC drum coating Drum left drive hub Drum right hub Drum conductive Inset Precharge Roller (PCR). Uninet 11017 PCR Roller 9 pack (special order) PCR conductive Saddle PCR non-conductive Saddle PCR contact-side spring PCR non-contact spring PCR plastic contact strip PCR electrical contact metalwork Metal hinge pin. Uninet 10851 metal cartridge pin 50 Pack Waste scraper blade metalwork Waste Scraper Blade Uninet 10853 Wiper Blade 10 pack OPC top seal mylar Uninet 11849 Recovery Blade 100 Pack Developer roller. Black Uninet Part 10004, Color 11962 Developer roller coating Doctor blade steel support strip Doctor blade Doctor blade coating Developer sheet Developer blade polystyrene fastening strip Engine drive gear Small idle gear Developer roller gear Toner feed roller gear Toner stirrer gear Developer roller bushings. Uninet 11351 bushing spacer 10 pack Stirrer axle Stirrer mylar blade Feed roller foam Feed roller shaft Contact plate tin-plate metalwork Toner hopper tape foam Black spring Silver spring Shutter spring Right handle spring 7 screws Foam toner feed roller washer. Uninet 10262 O-Ring foam washer, 50 pack Developer roller foam back Developer roller velvet. Uninet 10259 Developer Roller End Felt Waste Scraper Blade End Foam. Uninet 10261 50 sets Waste Scraper Blade End Felt. Uninet 10260 50 sets OPC bottom seal velvet OPC bottom seal mylar Drum shutter label Cartridge top label Rear serial number label CRUM chip on PCB. Uninet Parts: 10716, 10707, 10708, 10709, Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow Toner 13626 2,500 Pages Absolute Black toner 13627 10kg (22 lb) bag 9998 Absolute Cyan Toner 2,000 Pages 10826 Absolute Cyan Toner 10kg (22lb) bag 10000 Absolute Yellow 2,000 Pages 10828 Absolute Yellow 10kg (22lb) bag

Recycling Business

If you are recycling things professionally then controlled ventilation, air filters, heavy duty compressors and toner-safe vacuum cleaners and protective clothing are one of the expenses that have to be taken into account - otherwise you won't get public liability insurance.

For those reasons - and because its a low margin job - recycling is increasingly done in Eastern Europe and Asia. Wages are lower, and because it takes a considerable effort to recover the parts from a used cartridge that is important. Environmental and employee protection legislation may be in place, but aren't respected. Likewise, the manufacturers copyrights and patents on their parts are less respected. Most of the technology behind laser-printers is more than 30 years old and the patents and copyrights are often meretricious nonsense intended solely to protect the revenue stream from manufacturers original cartridges.