What can be made from old photo drums. Main parts of laser cartridge
People have been using printers for several decades, so such a piece of office equipment is in every office, but not everyone thinks about the fact that every cartridge thrown into a landfill greatly pollutes the environment.
A cartridge is a replaceable toner container used in laser printers. If the ink runs out, you just need to install a new consumable, and you can continue to enjoy all the conveniences of using the printer. But what fate awaits the used cartridge? Dump?
It would take hundreds of years for a cartridge to degrade naturally, which means none of them have decomposed yet. And with more than 500 million cartridges thrown away around the world every year, this is becoming an important environmental issue.
In Russia, the environmental situation is also deplorable: every year 7-10 billion tons of solid waste are generated, of which only 25% can be recycled, and no more than 1% is actually recycled! According to official sources, over 80 billion tons of solid waste have already accumulated in our country.
1% Really recyclable waste
25% Recyclable waste
The annual amount of solid waste in Russia is >7 billion tons
What usually happens to used cartridges?
“Why not just throw it in the trash? It looks harmless; there are no large icons indicating its danger on the body. Although there seem to be companies that buy used cartridges, you have to look for them. Or just put it in the pantry until better times, and then we’ll figure it out?”
Such thoughts often arise when the toner in the cartridge has run out. Moreover, if we are talking about a company or a budget organization, the count can go into dozens. So why can't they just be thrown into a landfill?
Why is it dangerous to throw cartridges in the trash?
Used cartridges are harmful to the environment. They mainly consist of plastic, which under normal conditions takes about 300 years to decompose. They throw them away in huge quantities, since they are now printed almost everywhere. But the option when they simply lie in a landfill for the allotted time is not the worst. Most often, garbage is set on fire, which releases a large amount of harmful substances into the air from polystyrene (a component of the plastic casing). For them to not pose a threat, the combustion temperature must be around 1000 degrees Celsius, which cannot be achieved without special equipment.
Cartridges are harmful not only because of the plastic. Some of the toner remains in them. It may contain harmful substances (carbon black and/or magnetite, ethylene copolymers, vinyl acetate, magnetic additives Fe2O3, aluminum oxide, titanium dioxide), but even without them it is dangerous due to the very small particle sizes. Toner granules are microscopically small: their size is no more than 3-4 microns (which is about 10 times smaller than ordinary dust!). Few people know, but toner is also a volatile substance.
As a rule, ordinary dust, entering the body, is enveloped in mucus and is expelled with a cough. Due to its size, toner is not identified by our body and is never excreted. It can settle on the surface of the lungs and bronchi, reducing the working surface of the lungs. In case of systematic entry of toner into the body, the situation is fraught with the occurrence of chronic diseases. So making a warehouse of printer consumables near your workplace or refilling cartridges in the office is not the best idea.
If a person experiences breathing problems, allergies, or other symptoms when working near a printer, it’s time to check the condition of the printing device and do a general cleaning of the workplace.
Throw away or return used cartridges?
The most popular solution to the problem is to lightly move your hand towards the trash can. However, think about how many consumables end up in landfills every year? You can’t even imagine how harmful the heavy metals present in the cartridges have on our planet during the entire decomposition period.
What is recycling of cartridges (office equipment) from a legal point of view?
Cartridges are classified as municipal solid waste III-IV hazard class. For proper disposal, you must order a waste passport, in which it will be assigned an exact hazard class. After this, it must be handed over to a recycling company, which must have the appropriate state license, pay for their services and receive a recycling certificate. Only then will the disposal of printer cartridges be considered correctly completed (regulated by the law “On Production and Consumption Waste” dated June 24, 1998).
The rules for recycling printer cartridges are clearly regulated by the Office of Rosprirodnadzor, and the state may impose fines for consumables thrown into a regular landfill from 20,000 to 250,000 rubles for legal entities.
Options for proper and legal disposal of cartridges
Replace empty cartridges with new ones
The most reasonable and economical way to recycle cartridges is to exchange empty used cartridges for new ones in our company. We give you new, ready-to-use consumables, and you hand over the old ones according to the acceptance certificate. We are always ready to send you documents confirming disposal in any way convenient for you to confirm the work or reporting.
Image drum: one of the key elements of the printer
Today, there is a printer in almost every home, not to mention organizations. However, not everyone knows how it works and what it consists of. And this becomes a problem when the device stops printing, or starts doing it poorly, since it is not possible to determine the cause of the problem. There can be quite a few of them, and one of them is, more precisely, its wear or damage.
What is this detail?
The image drum is a part that helps apply toner to paper. It is also called a photoconductor, photosensitive drum, etc. In fact, this is the “heart” of the cartridge, which is responsible for the important task of transferring toner directly to paper.
The part is a hollow metal cylinder, the surface of which is covered with a layer of a special composition charged with electrostatics. Initially, it repels the toner, but when exposed to light, it completely changes this property and begins to attract the dye.
The operating principle of modern printers is based on this effect: during operation, certain areas of the drum are illuminated, toner sticks to them, the cylinder is rolled over a sheet of paper, as a result of which it remains on it, forming an image or text. Next, the sheet goes through heat treatment, as a result of which the toner hardens and is firmly etched into the paper, completing the printing process.
In most printer models, such a drum is an integral part of the cartridge. However, some manufacturers make it as a separate element, which simplifies control and maintenance of the part.
Drum life
Over time (usually after 3-4 cartridge charges), the photodrum begins to wear out. Its outer layer, consisting of a substance sensitive to electrostatics, suffers directly. It is gradually erased from the drum, which is why it does its job of transferring images to paper less and less well. Much more rare are problems associated with mechanical damage, for example, due to improper transportation of the printer or the drum itself, which led to scratches on it or a change in the geometry of the element.
The photodrum may have a different life depending on the type and manufacturer. As a rule, this is up to 6,000 pages, in the highest quality cartridges – up to 9,000-10,000 pages. There are also printers in which the drum is a separate module (for example, Brother). In them, the part begins to wear out only after 20,000-25,000 printed pages.
It should be noted that these drums are not rebuildable parts. If they wear out or fail for other reasons, the only solution is to replace them with a similar new product.
Signs of wear
The main sign that it is time to buy a new drum is the appearance of a longitudinal stripe on the pages when printing. And the better it is expressed, the less time the parts have left to serve. The wear of this part can also be assessed visually. If you take a chance and remove the photoconductor from the cartridge, you will immediately be able to see what condition it is in. If the surface is smooth and free of scratches, stains and other defects, the drum is in excellent condition and will work for a long time. If the top layer is even slightly damaged, the print quality will no longer be 100%.
However, the discovery of this defect does not mean that you need a new printer or cartridge - just select and purchase a new photoconductor from us.
Image drum- This is one of the main parts of modern copy machines and printers.
Structurally, it is a metal cylinder (usually aluminum), coated with a layer of photoconductive material - a dielectric, the electrical resistance of which drops sharply under the influence of light radiation. Initially, selenium compounds were used as photoconductors. Currently, selenium photodrums are almost completely out of production. Instead of selenium, various organic compounds are used (the composition is a trade secret of the manufacturers). Recently, photodrums coated with amorphous silicon have become widespread.
Photodrums play the following role.
They are first charged with an electrostatic field so as to repel toner powder particles. Then, using light, part of the surface of the photodrum is illuminated. In this case, the illuminated surface is charged with the opposite sign and now, on the contrary, attracts toner particles to itself, where they stick. The drum is rolled over a sheet of paper and simultaneously discharged. Therefore, toner remains on a sheet of paper in some places, but not in others (after all, the toner does not stick to the drum everywhere). The sheet of paper will then go through a special high-temperature oven where the toner is baked onto the areas of the paper where it hits. This is how an image is obtained on paper, the same one that the light illuminated on the photodrum. In laser printers, the role of light is performed by a special laser beam. He draws a mirror image of the sheet on the drum. In copiers, the role of light sources is performed by special LEDs, which also illuminate a mirror image of the printed sheet on the drum.
Replacing the photoconductor
Why is it required replacing the photodrum in photocopiers, laser printers or cartridges?
Let's consider 2 cases:
- The image drum is located directly in the copier or laser printer, not in the toner cartridge. In this case, you need to buy new photodrums from time to time to replace the old ones. The fact is that these photoconductors have a limited resource, usually several tens of thousands of copies. After which the photosensitive surface of such a drum wears out and is erased. On sale there are both original photodrums from the manufacturer of the office equipment used, and compatible drums from third-party manufacturers.
- The image drum is located in the toner cartridge. The resource of such a photodrum usually small, from 2 to 10 thousand copies. Therefore, such a cartridge can be refilled with a new one only 3-4 times. And then you can either throw away the old cartridge and buy a new one, which will contain a new drum (or remanufactured in some non-original cartridges), or buy a new drum and insert it into your old cartridge. By replacing the drum, you will restore your old cartridge and you can refill it 3-4 times again. Drums usually cost several times less than cartridges. Therefore, when replacing the drum, very noticeable savings are obtained. Only compatible photodrums for cartridges from third-party manufacturers are available on sale, since in this case, manufacturers of copiers and laser printers instruct users to buy only cartridges and not refurbish them.
Note 1. When restoring a cartridge, you often have to change not only the photoconductor, but also some other parts. Most often this is a squeegee, a dosing knife and a rubber shaft. This slightly reduces the profitability of the cartridge restoration procedure, but still leaves this business extremely profitable.
Note 2. There are devices for restoring the photosensitive layer of photodrums. Thus, you don’t have to buy new photoconductors, but restore old ones. But, firstly, this equipment is expensive and only pays off with massive daily restoration of something. Secondly, you can replace the drum in a cartridge in an office or apartment, but it is advisable to restore photodrums in a special room. Therefore, the average user should not do this.
What is a photoconductor?
Externally, the photodrum looks like a cylinder with a diameter of several centimeters and a length from 21 cm to several tens of centimeters, empty inside, with plastic gears on one or both sides. It is covered with a polished layer (or varnished) of different colors. Typically, the image drum is wrapped in black paper to protect the photosensitive layer from light.
If the drum is exposed to too much light, the first prints and copies will appear as a “black square” on the sheet. After some time, the photosensitive layer will restore its properties and the operation of the printer or copier will return to normal. Particularly strong illumination can lead to complete irreversible loss of the photosensitive layer of the photoconductor. Therefore, when refilling a cartridge or restoring it, cover the exposed areas of the photodrum with black paper or do this in the dark.
The color of the working layer does not say anything about the quality of the photodrum! It’s just that there are a very limited number of drum manufacturers on the Russian market. And users distinguish them not by name, but by the color of the working layer. The fact is that photodrums are not packaged in retail packaging. It comes to the point that it is sometimes impossible to even determine from the packaging not only the manufacturer of the drum, but also what printer this drum is intended for. When a new manufacturer of photodrums enters the Russian market, “color confusion” begins. This “color confusion” ends with a new “color myth” until the arrival of a new manufacturer.
Based on materials from the site http://www.sibmen.ru
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Classmates
The laser cartridge consists of a waste toner compartment and a toner compartment. The waste toner compartment includes the drum unit, primary charge roller, cleaning blade, and drum sealing blade. The toner compartment includes a magnetic roller, a toner dispensing blade, a magnetic roller sealing blade, a toner hopper and a sealing pin.
Since in Russia there are no unified federal standards that would fix the names of consumables for printers and copiers, these names are not unambiguous and have many synonyms.
Names of working compartments and parts of the laser cartridge mechanism
| Part name | Common synonyms |
|---|---|
| I. Waste toner compartment | |
| Image drum | Organic Photo Conductor, OPC, Drum, Drum unit, Photoreceptor, drum, photoreceptor drum, photosensitive drum |
| Primary charge shaft | Primary Charge Roller, PCR, charging roller, charging roller, primary charge roller |
| Blade cleaning | Wiper Blade, Cleaning Blade, squeegee, wiper, cleaning blade |
| Recovery Blade, OPC Sealing Blade, Drum Sealing Blade | |
| II. Toner compartment | |
| Magnetic shaft | Magnetic developer Roller, Mag Roller, Developer Roller, development roller, image transfer roller, developer roller |
| Toner dispensing blade | Doctor Blade, Metering Blade |
| Mag Roller Sealing Blade, mylarka | |
| Toner Hopper | Toner Reservoir |
| Sealing pin | Seal, seal |
I. WASTE TONER COMPARTMENT
Laser Toner Waste Box Parts
(1) Image drum- this is the photosensitive “heart” of the laser cartridge, consisting of a hollow aluminum cylinder coated with a layer of dielectric.
The photodrum can be located either in a cartridge (drum) or directly in a printer or copier (drum unit). In the first case, the photodrum is serviced together with the cartridge, in the second case – independently from the other components of the printer or copier.
The functions of the photodrum are as follows. After sending the document for printing, the primary charge shaft, pressing against the photodrum, transfers to it a negative charge and the ability to repel toner microparticles.
The laser beam transfers a document print invisible to the eye to the surface of the photodrum. The areas of the photodrum marked by the laser beam change their charge to positive and attract toner. Thanks to the attracted toner particles, a visible imprint of the document sent for printing is formed on the photodrum.
The photodrum, rolling over a sheet of paper, transfers the document print to its surface. After this, the paper medium enters the printer oven, in which it is heated. Under the influence of high temperature, the toner is fused into the paper and fixed to it.
The photodrum is the most expensive and at the same time the most capricious part of a laser printer. It is afraid of any mechanical damage; from direct sunlight it can light up and produce black prints; you cannot touch it with bare hands, since toner sticks to the sweat and grease marks remaining on its glossy surface, which leads to printing defects.
Over time, the glossy layer of the image drum wears off, resulting in poor print quality. The first sign of the end of the drum's life is black stripes along the edges of the printed document. When such stripes appear, it is necessary to diagnose the photodrum, and then either clean its surface with a special solution, or replace the photodrum with a new one.
(2) Primary charge shaft- this is a part of a laser cartridge that, evenly pressing against the surface of the photodrum, transfers to it a uniform negative charge. After the paper passes through the photodrum, the primary charge shaft neutralizes the residual effects of the previous charge on the photodrum.
The primary charge shaft consists of a metal shaft on which a layer of conductive foam or rubber is applied. This part of the laser cartridge is quite heavily contaminated with paper dust, so it needs to be cleaned regularly and thoroughly.
(3) Blade cleaning is a flat metal scraper with a polyurethane tip designed to clean the photodrum of a laser printer from microparticles of toner and paper adhering to it. In Russia, the cleaning blade is better known as a “squeegee” (from the German Rakel - scraper). In color laser printing, a squeegee removes color toner stuck to the transfer belts.
It should be noted that not all laser printers are equipped with a squeegee. In some models of Xerox and Samsung laser printers, excess toner adhering to the photodrum is removed from its surface using the primary charge shaft, and from there it is shaken off with a special brush into the waste toner bin.
(4) Drum Sealing Blade closes the gap between the image drum and the waste toner bin. The sealing blade, while not preventing waste toner from entering the hopper, does not allow it to spill back onto the paper.
II. TONER COMPARTMENT
(1) Magnetic shaft is a structural element of a laser cartridge that charges toner microbeads with a negative charge and transfers them to the surface of the photodrum.
The magnetic shaft is made in the form of a hollow tube; manufacturers use various materials for its manufacture. Samsung magnetic shafts are made of high-quality rubber, Canon and HP magnetic shafts are made of metal coated with a rubberized layer. The materials used in Samsung mag rollers are more durable than the materials used in Canon and HP mag rollers, resulting in less wear and tear and longer life.
Laser cartridge toner compartment parts
(2) Toner dispensing blade is a metal frame with a flexible plate at the end, designed to evenly distribute toner over the surface of the magnetic roller.
Metal toner dispensing blades are most often found in Samsung and Brother laser printers, but HP and Canon make them from polyurethane materials.
To perform its function, the toner dispensing blade must have a high-quality, smooth surface without defects, nicks, or protrusions. Curvature of the toner dispensing blade degrades print quality, causing light or dark longitudinal stripes to appear on the document.
HP and Canon dispensing blades are more durable than Samsung and Brother blades and therefore less prone to wear and tear. Their breakdowns usually occur due to the use of low-quality toner.
Toner particles stick to the toner dispensing blade, so it needs to be cleaned periodically to prolong its performance.
(3) Magnetic shaft sealing blade- This is a thin plate, similar in function to the sealing blade of a photodrum. The blade closes the gap between the magnetic roller and the toner supply compartment. It allows toner remaining on the surface of the magnetic roller to pass into the compartment and prevents it from spilling out.
(4) Toner Hopper Designed to store unused toner. The hopper is equipped with a special wire frame (Toner Agitator Bar), which mixes the toner, keeping it in working condition, preventing it from clumping and drying out.
(5) Sealing pin– this is a seal that covers the toner hopper, protecting the toner from spilling when transporting the cartridge. The sealing pin is removed before using the cartridge.
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Thinking about another homemade product, I realized that there is no strong Powerbank. The idea of a structure in a pipe was immediately formed. But I didn’t want to take a PVC pipe. Soldering it is not a problem, but it’s somehow handicraft. As always, I came across an old laser printer cartridge just in time. The cartridge contains a photo drum. It is painted, has a strong construction, and is lightweight. The drum is hollow inside. Its case will fit a pair perfectly. It’s decided, we’ll take a photo of the drum in the housing.
Making a Powerbank from a Printer Cartridge
We take the cartridge. If there is a lot of toner in it, then clean it. Mine was old and there was just a little bit of toner. But that didn't stop me from getting dirty.
In general, we remove the photo drum and cartridge. Everything is simple here, you need to unscrew a pair of screws on both sides of the cartridge. I left only the drum and screws, and threw out the rest. There is a lot of toner flying in all directions.
We clean the photo drum of toner, the body is not scratched, excellent.
Using a hot air gun, I remove the guides. They are made of plastic and come out of the body well.
For the Powerbank design, I will use two batteries with residual capacity as in the photo. For my ASUS Android background, it was enough for one and a half times.
I used it as a boost converter. It is compact and has proven itself to be excellent.
I will charge the batteries. You can do without it, but you definitely need it. You can use a scarf from a mobile phone battery.
I will turn on the boost converter with a micro toggle switch. Great size, fits perfectly.
Assembly
We solder the batteries with negatives to each other. We solder the wire to the connection point. We do the same with the plus. Since the batteries are used, when disassembling I recommend not tearing off the nickel-plated tape, but cutting it off. This makes it easier to solder the wires to it later. One minus came off and I had to carefully solder it. We bring the wires to one side, there will be a charge controller.
The plugs for the case, as well as the board holders, were cut out of plastic. PVC plastic, I really enjoyed working with it. Soft, processed with a construction knife.
I mark the holes for all the connectors and the switch. I cut with a knife. I make small recesses for the boards.
I attach the boards with thermal glue. Holds up perfectly, pressure does not squeeze out from the outside.
Solder the wires to the controller. From the controller to the other side of the tube to the boost converter board.
To fix the batteries in the case, I will use pieces of wine cork. You need to cut off a piece of the plug to allow free passage of wires. We insert the batteries, the plug and install the plug with the charge controller. Everything is holding up great.
We solder the switch on the plug on the side of the boost converter. We break the positive or negative power wire. The one that comes from the battery charge controller.
This is such a strong and quite convenient Powerbank. In general, I think a photo drum is a good element for something like this. I recommend repeating this device.