Compatible Brother Colour Toner

[sgrimshaw]

Need to get a set of toners soon for my Brother DCP-L3550CDW.

I've been using compatibles for a while and not noticed much difference to the originals .... but looking now the price of compatibles seems to have rocketed .

Last set I bought were high capacity ones in Dec 23 and cost me £49.99 ... now even the normal capacity ones are around £100 with some high cap sets costing around £200.

Anyone got any recommendations?

[Mr Pointy]

I haven't needed them yet but when I was researching I looked at Amazon & there were a number of vendors with pretty good reviews. This one is for 2x Black & a colour set for £58 or just a set of four for £43 (both high capacity):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08ZSMGX6N
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0838XXVF6

[sgrimshaw]

Mr Pointy said:

I haven't needed them yet but when I was researching I looked at Amazon & there were a number of vendors with pretty good reviews. This one is for 2x Black & a colour set for £58 or just a set of four for £43 (both high capacity):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08ZSMGX6N
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0838XXVF6

They might be worth a bash, there is a voucher on both ... so the 4 pack comes out at £30 and the 5 pack at £38 ... could get an extra 5% if doing a Subscribe and Save

[Mr Pointy]

sgrimshaw said:

Mr Pointy said:

I haven't needed them yet but when I was researching I looked at Amazon & there were a number of vendors with pretty good reviews. This one is for 2x Black & a colour set for £58 or just a set of four for £43 (both high capacity):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08ZSMGX6N
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0838XXVF6

They might be worth a bash, there is a voucher on both ... so the 4 pack comes out at £30 and the 5 pack at £38 ... could get an extra 5% if doing a Subscribe and Save

Hopefully they aren't rubbish. I'm a few weeks away from needing a new set.

[sgrimshaw]

Mr Pointy said:

Hopefully they aren't rubbish. I'm a few weeks away from needing a new set.

I'll let you know .....



If they're any good, I'll probably get another set.

[Griffith4ever]

business user here. On my third set of these with no issues.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CCJ27TLR?ref_=ppx_hz...

£52. Diff printer but good supplier / source.

Tbh, only issues I ever had with my older OKI in fake toners was the odd cartridge with a duff chip.

The brother ones, above , have been flawless.

Edited by Griffith4ever on Tuesday 4th March 08:23

[sgrimshaw]

Griffith4ever said:

£52. Diff printer but good supplier / source.

The brother ones, above , have been flawless.

Thanks for that, if the one's I'm trying are crap I'll give those a go.

[dapprman]

Mr Pointy said:

I haven't needed them yet but when I was researching I looked at Amazon & there were a number of vendors with pretty good reviews. This one is for 2x Black & a colour set for £58 or just a set of four for £43 (both high capacity):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08ZSMGX6N
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0838XXVF6

I'm on my 3rd set of Cool Toner carts. Two were for my previous printer (a Samsung, suffered a hardware failure, printer actually told me what but that was a non-repairable part and by then Samsung printers were no more) and the third is my present set in my Brother printer.
Happy to recommend them and hope I have not cursed the brand

[sgrimshaw]

Mr Pointy said:

Hopefully they aren't rubbish. I'm a few weeks away from needing a new set.

Well they arrived.

They're probably fine, think there may be an issue with my printer as they are similar to the set of compatibles I was using before.

The colour is nowhere near as good as with my Lexmark Colour laser.

Drums are all at 93% ... printer has hardly been used.

Hopefully it can be seen from the images below, the Brother seems washed out, whilst the Lexmark is pretty much bang on to the original.

This is a scan of a colour test page from the Brother:


Same file printed on the Lexmark:


Original file:


Any thoughts would be welcomed.

[Mr Pointy]

I'm going through a similar issue with my original OEM toner cartridges & in fact the yellow one has developed a fault which Brother aren't interested in as it is over a year old. I get a simillar output to your first scan with OEM toner & frankly I don't think that even with OEM toner that the Brother print quality is as good as HP or Lexmark - it seems "grainy" to me. It's adequate for the majority of uses though.

However, this has come up today:

https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/printers/...

So maybe make sure your printer & the Brother iPrint&Scann app cannot access the internet.

[Mr Pointy]

Actually I've just recovered a scan I made & I would say that even with a faulty yellow OEM toner that the last steps aren't as washed out as your scan:

[sgrimshaw]

Mr Pointy said:

So maybe make sure your printer & the Brother iPrint&Scann app cannot access the internet.

How do I stop it?

Printer has a fixed ip if that helps.

[Griffith4ever]

sgrimshaw said:

Well they arrived.

They're probably fine, think there may be an issue with my printer as they are similar to the set of compatibles I was using before.

The colour is nowhere near as good as with my Lexmark Colour laser.

Drums are all at 93% ... printer has hardly been used.

Hopefully it can be seen from the images below, the Brother seems washed out, whilst the Lexmark is pretty much bang on to the original.

This is a scan of a colour test page from the Brother:



Any thoughts would be welcomed.

You've got horizontal banding there. On all colours, so its not the toner or their individual drums.

[Griffith4ever]

sgrimshaw said:

Mr Pointy said:

So maybe make sure your printer & the Brother iPrint&Scann app cannot access the internet.

How do I stop it?

Printer has a fixed ip if that helps.

I disabled the PC utility from checking and downloading Firmwares ages ago - simply as I don't want problems introduced when everything works as it should - it would always ask to install them mind you, not just do it automatically. I did it after installing one that reset all my network settings (I have purposefully disabled WSD and set fixed TCP/IP ports as I need my printers IP NOT to ever change, and even with DHCP reservations, the Printer network tool can STILL change its IP using the WSD driver - a new "helpful" windoes 11 feature.

I also , just now, went into my Asus router and selected both printers and disabled their internet access, for ever! I'm fairly sure my printers don't have teh abolity to go online on their own and do a firmware update, only through the PC companion app, but all teh same, it took minutes to block them.

[Griffith4ever]

This is my HL-L8260CDW - photo take by phone on pro mode so not enhanced much hopefully!

[Griffith4ever]

This last row on yours indicates something odd going on. Compare it to mine. Yours is almost not there.

[Fore Left]

You can refill the original cartridges if you're prepared to do a bit of DIY. I've done a couple on my L3230CDW.

L3550CDW refills.

How To.

[cb31]

Mr Pointy said:

However, this has come up today:

https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/printers/...

So maybe make sure your printer & the Brother iPrint&Scann app cannot access the internet.

Thanks for pointing this out, I watched his earlier videos of other print manufacturers doing this but thought Brother was above this kind of disgraceful behaviour. I've just blocked my printer from the internet via my unifi network and removed the Brother iPrint & Scan apps from our laptops. Done some tests with scanning and printing with Preview on the Mac and it works fine. Just hope this printer never dies.

[Tisy]

Unfortunately they get you to buy a new one in the end as you find out with your old OS that things increasingly become "unsupported" as time goes on, eventually reaching a point where it hampers your workflow and so you cave in and buy a new PC with the latest OS. All good you think, until you go to install the printer drivers for your 20 year old printer and discover that they are not compatible with your new shiny OS.

I suppose you'd have a better chance at success if you were running Linux rather than Windows.

If I upgrade to Win 10 or later then my ancient - but perfectly functioning - Epson scanner from the late 90s will become useless as the Win 2000 drivers are only compatible with later Win OS up to 8.1 which is what I'm using.

Back to the printers, I fell for the hype some years ago over the ink tank printers and bought one, thinking it would save me money in the long run. How wrong I was ! What I should have been thinking is "how is the printer manufacturer going to making money from me if I buy this?". Naturally, the truth eventually comes out and they make their money from you because after a while it flags up a clogged print head message and then you have to take it to an approved specialist that charges about twice as much as the printer is worth to run their "special" solvent and wiper blade system across the head to clean it.

I was just watching the how-to videos linked from ForeLeft above on how to refill the toner cartridges. Sure, it works, but let's be honest, how many people can be arsed with buying blow torches and gas cans to melt a hole in their toner cartridge and then mess around unscrewing it to install fiddly plastic wheels and springs all to save about £20 vs. a non-OEM cartridge that takes 5 seconds to change? I suppose there's an argument if you're printing 10k per day - the savings will stack up, but not for the home user how maybe only prints off half a dozen pages per month.

[Mr Pointy]

Tisy said:

Unfortunately they get you to buy a new one in the end as you find out with your old OS that things increasingly become "unsupported" as time goes on, eventually reaching a point where it hampers your workflow and so you cave in and buy a new PC with the latest OS. All good you think, until you go to install the printer drivers for your 20 year old printer and discover that they are not compatible with your new shiny OS.

I suppose you'd have a better chance at success if you were running Linux rather than Windows.

If I upgrade to Win 10 or later then my ancient - but perfectly functioning - Epson scanner from the late 90s will become useless as the Win 2000 drivers are only compatible with later Win OS up to 8.1 which is what I'm using.

Back to the printers, I fell for the hype some years ago over the ink tank printers and bought one, thinking it would save me money in the long run. How wrong I was ! What I should have been thinking is "how is the printer manufacturer going to making money from me if I buy this?". Naturally, the truth eventually comes out and they make their money from you because after a while it flags up a clogged print head message and then you have to take it to an approved specialist that charges about twice as much as the printer is worth to run their "special" solvent and wiper blade system across the head to clean it.

I was just watching the how-to videos linked from ForeLeft above on how to refill the toner cartridges. Sure, it works, but let's be honest, how many people can be arsed with buying blow torches and gas cans to melt a hole in their toner cartridge and then mess around unscrewing it to install fiddly plastic wheels and springs all to save about £20 vs. a non-OEM cartridge that takes 5 seconds to change? I suppose there's an argument if you're printing 10k per day - the savings will stack up, but not for the home user how maybe only prints off half a dozen pages per month.

The savings are far more than £20 - you can buy all 5 toner cartridges for significantly less than one OEM one. It's often cheaper to buy an entire new printer than a full set of OEM toner replacements.

Look at Vuescan as a Windows 11 compatible driver for your Epson scanner:

https://www.hamrick.com/