Static Control, the largest manufacturer of aftermarket imaging systems and components, has recently launched a remanufactured universal cartridge which can be used in multiple printers.
According to the company, this remanufactured universal cartridge “offers an extended yield of up to 128 percent more than the OEM cartridge”.
This one-of-a-kind cartridge was not developed overnight, said Static. It all started while in the early development stages of a solution for the CE340 series of cartridges (OEM SKUs: CE340A, CE341A, CE342A and CE343A) used in the HP® LaserJet® Enterprise 700 MFP M775 printer. This colour printer is FAST, Static explains, capable of printing 30 pages per minute. This is done thanks to a mechanism within the printer called the continuous image transfer belt. This technology helps increase the print speed by transferring all the colours onto the paper at the same time. Older colour printers would print one colour first, then the next and so on.
While this technology has existed for several years, the introduction of the M775 printer narrowed the window for the aftermarket to find a solution that worked properly with the transfer belt.
The issue with many aftermarket solutions, comments Static, is that the toner is not adequately removed by the cleaning blade, meaning that old toner would be pressed upon new prints causing a print defect that we refer to as filming. This would happen in the CE340 series after about 5,000-10,000 pages of printing, depending on the type of printing and environment.
This issue occurred not just in CE340 series. The CE270 Series (OEM SKUs: CE270A, CE271A, CE272A and CE273A) cartridges used in HP Colour LaserJet CP5525 and Enterprise M750 printers, along with the CE740 series (OEM SKUs: CE740A, CE741A, CE742A and CE743A) used in the HP Coluor LaserJet CP5225 presented the same transfer belt issue, but after many more pages were printed. The filming would start around the 75,000-100,000 pages mark and transfer belts should last for approximately 150,000 pages in these machines.
Changing a transfer belt in these machines is a costly and difficult service call, and an issue that Static Control said it did not want to burden its customers with.
“Rather than release cartridges with this kind of hidden cost,” said the company, “we set out to find an optimal solution.
“Ultimately, we’ve solved the problem with a high performance toner that can be properly cleaned from the transfer belt by the cleaning blade.”
Static Control explained that its engineers determined that a universal cartridge could be designed to provide a single, optimised solution for the three cartridge families. The only differences in the plastics between the three cartridges were notches on the waste bin section.
Subsequently, Static Control engineers developed an advanced automation process to modify used cartridge cores across the families to work in all of the applications.
Next, a chip needed to be developed that could work in all three series of cartridges. The company’s chip engineers developed and manufactured a solution that, according to Static, “provides the end user the most OEM-like experience.”
Static added, “Thanks to our engineer’s understanding of the symmetry and toner load of these cartridges, they knew there was an opportunity to provide an extended yield in the CE740 series of cartridges. After testing and qualification, our black cartridge offers 128 percent more pages than the OEM (16,000 pages versus 7,000) while the colour cartridges offer 50 percent more than the OEM (11,000 versus 7,300).”
The company concluded, “In the end, our universal cartridges can reduce the number of SKUs you have to offer from 12 to four, and provide the unique advantage of an extended yield offering in the CE740 series of cartridges.”
To find out more, download the cartridge info sheet here.
