MICR Toner and Toner Recycling Blog

And the survey says...

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:27:00 +0000

We recently polled our customers on a couple of questions and the results are below. Note only about 2.8% of all emails sent to customers resulted in a completed survey. I'm not surprised, we're all bombarded with unnecessary email and completing a survey isn't exactly a top priority. Still even if only a few people complete the survey, it's helpful to keep a tab on the pulse of our customers. We had 37 Brother P-Touch printers to give away for people that filled out the survey, and 450 people filled out the survey. Sorry we didn't have a printer for everyone, for those of you that didn't get one - better luck next time! On to the survey...

UPS vs. FedEx - We've just switched to FedEx from UPS and while half of our customers seem indifferent between the two services, those that did have a preference prefered FedEx. I guess we made the right move.

Recycling with "the box" - this one surprised me. To date, we've had very little participation with recycling with the box. We've tried fliers with each "box", but not much success. We recycle so many common items, but most people hopefully are recycling locally. Yet 61% plan to recycle with the box. Hopefully the survey also worked as a reminder that we offer this service and will recycle more and more with the box. Check out our box recycle flier and see all that can be recycled with "the box".

Buying from environmentally conscious green companies - The survey we split 50/50 between those that prefer to buy green and those that buy based upon superior product and service. Luckily with Advantage, you don't have to compromise. We are green and we provide the best products and service!

That's it for our survey. When we email our customers we really try to make sure we have something of value or an offer of value, because we know you are inundated with unwanted email. Thanks for being one of our valued customers!

Solar Project - Day 7

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:49:00 +0000

It's been a week and we are now producing solar power, real green power delivered free from the sun! The array was installed in one day. It took another 2-3 days for the electricians to mount the inverters and run the conduit from the array to the inverters to our panel. Yesterday was sunny, so it was a good day to crank up the inverters and see what we were producing. We could have started it sooner, but it was rainy on Friday and the engineers from Empower didn't want to launch on a cloudy day because there was still more testing to go and they wanted to see the array perform at full power. We're producing 11KW of power right now at 11:20. That's actual power delivered into our electrical system after any loses from the inverter.We actually have three 6KW inverters. Here's some actual data from each inverter...

The SMA WebBox collects data from the inverters on power generated and CO2 emissions avoided. You can checkout our power production at anytime from our SunnyPortal. Right now it doesn't show much power generated, but it will. The system isn't real time and only gets updated every so often. Still it's nice to be able to monitor the power generated by the system.

At this point there really isn't much to do with the system. PV systems such as this are relatively maintenance free. Annual maintenance includes pressure washing the panels and the roof underneath the panels, as the Solyndra modules rely on the reflective surface of the white roof for 20% of their power generation. I'll update in the future on the system performance promised vs. delivered. -Marvin

Solar Panel Project - Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:04:00 +0000

Day 1 of the solar panel project was really satisfying as we were able to install all of the solar panels in one day. At the end of the day we could see what we'd accomplished. Day 2 consisted of testing each of the 9 strings to make sure the were functioning properly. The plan was to get all of the strings jumpered and connected to the splicer box on the roof, but we ran out of cabling so that will have to be finished on Friday.

While we were on the roof, the electrician ran conduit from the roof penetration to the inverters (indoors). 3 SMA SunnyBoy inverters will do the job, but they take up way more wall space than I'd hoped. I have no idea where we will mount the inverters for future arrays. We went with three inverters to save money over buying one large inverter, but there is a space penalty.

Day 3 is a bit of a wash, as it's raining, so nothing will happen on the roof. The electricians will be able connect the inverters to our panel. This is how the power gets into our system. We also wired the sunny boy webbox to the inverters which will enable us to monitor real time power production and see exactly how much power is generated by the system via a web browser.

Day 4 - assuming it's sunny, we should be able to run the power from the splicer box to the inverters and crank it up. That's the plan.

Advantage Laser Solar Panel Project

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:52:00 +0000

Day 1 of the solar panel project got off to a bad start. The crane started setting up at 9:00 and was ready to go, but we had no panels. The truck was already a day late and communication with the trucking company was terrible. First the panels were supposed to be there Monday morning, then Monday evening, then Tuesday morning at 7:00 sharp, then at 9:00 they were an hour out, finally the panels arrived at 2:00pm Tuesday. Meanwhile we had 10 people standing around with little to do.

Once the panels arrived, we got to work with the crane. We had 8 pallets of panels and two more pallets of support legs and other misc hardware. The nice thing about the Solyndra panels is they are so fast to install. Once we got trained on the assembly, we were able to have all 125 panels installed by 6:30 that evening. Yes, we did finish in the dark, but it felt good to get the panels installed.

Check out more photo's of the solar array.

Advantage Laser Installs 21.8KW Solyndra Solar Array

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:47:00 +0000

Next week we begin installation of rooftop solar array on our MICR toner cartridge manufacturing facility in Atlanta, Georgia. The solar project has been broken into three arrays. We will start by installing Array #1 - a 21.8KW array that will produce 29,654 KW hours per year. This will only provide about 23% of the power we currently use. Once Arrays #2 and #3 are built the complete system will provide 70% of our power usage. Our goal will be to become power neutral meaning we produce 100% of the power we need. So after all 3 arrays are installed, we will have to decrease our power usage by 30% via increased efficiency e.g. LED lighting project (more on that later).

It Makes Environmental and Business Sense

The environmental benefits of solar power are obvious, the challenge is to operate as green as possible and still remain a viable business. I looked at solar a couple of years ago, but it was difficult to make the numbers work. The federal government was giving a 30% tax credit and the state (Georgia) had no incentive whatsoever. Several months ago Mark Bell with Empower contacted us about solar. He got us up to date on solar power legislation and incentives. Solar (green) power was included in the economic stimulus and recovery act of 2009. Now the federal government will pay the 30% as a grant up front and the state of Georgia will give an additional 35% tax credit towards a commercial solar installation. This made all the difference. The federal grant, means we don't have to borrow as much money. The state also has a grant, but it is limited to $2.5 million and applications flooded the GEFA office. The rebate program was closed after just one day. So we're going the tax credit route, which creates a challenge in itself. Sometimes I think the tax aspects of a solar array are much more complex than the technical ones. After calls to two accountants, the state and Empower, we determined the array would pay for itself in about five and a half years. Not bad, after that we'll have an array with a 25 year life expectancy with free green power.

Solar Panels Made in the USA

Much of the solar PV (PhotoVoltaic) is dominated by China these days. We prefer to buy products made here in the USA when we can. Lucky for us, we have a white roof. Why should this matter? This allowed us to install a new innovative solar panel from Solyndra (made in Silicon Valley CA). Traditional PV uses a solid panel that is angled to the sun to maximize efficiency. But angled panel makes a great sail and therefore it requires a physical attachment and penetration through the roofing system or a heavy ballasting system.

Solyndra has a revolutionary solar panel that uses a series of tubes with space between them so that the wind passes right through them. The tubes on the Solyndra panel absorb the sunlight that is reflected off the white roof as well. The result is an array that can be installed in a fraction of the time and maximizes efficiency per square foot. The Solyndra panel costs about twice as much as a traditional panel, but the savings in installation time and mounting brackets make them come out about even. We are one of the first Solyndra customers in the Southeast for a technology that may revolutionize solar installations on many flat-roofed buildings.

Below is our rooftop layout of all 3 arrays. Array #1, on the far right, will be the first. Installation of all three was too much of a financial burden. Our goal is to install an array each year for the next 3 years.

Once Arrays 2 & 3 are complete, our system power will be a total of 65.9 KW producing 85,865 KW hours a year.

Selling Green Power vs. Decreasing Peak Load

As we harvest energy from the sun there are several ways to take advantage of it. One is to use the power ourselves with net metering. With net metering our meter "run backwards" when we're producing more energy than we're using. Otherwise it just slows down our meter. An advantage of net metering is we can use the solar array to decrease our peak load. Commercial customers are charged per KWH, but GA Power has incentives to business to smooth out their power usages by charging more, the higher your peak load. Each month a commercial business peak load rate is determined by the highest half hour power usage in the previous 11 months. The business about calculating peak load appears to be intentionally designed to be confusing. Empower has been working with us to see if they can decrease our peak load, and thus lower our overall price we pay per KWH.

Another option we have is to sell our "green" power to GA power through their Green energy buyback program. In this program, we take 100% of our green power and sell it to GA Power for $0.18 per KWH (about 4-5 cents per KWH than we pay for solar power). Right now GA Power's green energy buyback is closed to new energy providers. The program is capped 1.5 Megawatts per year, which isn't that much.

Increasing Efficiency

We are investigating a LED lighting project that would replace all of our existing florescent lights with new LED fixtures. Initial estimates indicate we would save about 15KW with the LED project. Empower is also consulting with us on the LED lighting project as well.

We are also replacing the largest two of our four HVAC units with new Trane High Efficiency units. We've also added rooftop motion detection and surveillance cameras. This will double to protect our solar array as well as our HVAC units from copper theft.

Installing a solar array has some exciting possibilities, but before you take the plunge, do the research. There is a lot to learn, especially about the tax code and what you can deduct and what you can't. But in the end, if you have a long term perspective, investing in a solar array makes sense. Imagine the energy savings and decrease in air pollution that would be possible if every business with a roof filled them with solar panels.

I'll be posting pictures of the array installation as I can. -Marvin Masson

New Product P3015 MICR Toner CE255A CE255X

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:45:00 +0000

MICR Toner Cartridges for the HP LaserJet P3015, P3015d, P3015dn laser printers are here! We released the CE255A MICR and CE255X MICR toner cartridges on 9/1/09. So far we haven't seen much action on this product as the supply of the P3015 is low. We were lucky to get an early release direct from HP. Once the supply opens up, we expect this to be a popular cartridge.

We also plan to sell a HP P3015 MICR Laser Printer once we can get our hands on a steady supply. This year, HP seems to have mis-timed the release of their new printers, as supply of the P4014n, P3005 were already exhausted before any replacement laser printers were available. We've been forced to find new suppliers to fulfill our orders for HP MICR Laser Printers.

We're planning on releasing the Lexmark T650, T652, T654 MICR toner cartridge hopefully by October 1st.

EcoFont - Save 20% Toner

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:18:00 +0000

Check out the ecofont! Ecofont claims to you will use 20% less toner / ink over other fonts. I haven't tested the claimed savings, but you can see the holes in the stroke of the font. I'm sure this would work great for internal documents, if nothing else. When you print the font, the characters have a hollow look. In the toner business we would call hollow looking characters dropouts.

HP has offered an economode with their laserjet printers for years, but you have to remember to turn it on and off at the driver level. I don't think I've ever known anyone to use it.

Here's a preview of what the font looks like. The smaller faces just look light, but you really have a hard time seeing the holes.

To download the eco font, click here, it's free!

Recycle toner and much more with "The Box"

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:36:00 +0000

The Box – What’s the big deal? What is so unique about a cardboard box used to package a toner cartridge and what does it have to do with recycling? Advantage Laser Products created The Box to package remanufactured MICR toner cartridges and standard toner cartridges for laser printers but wanted to add more value to the product. The Box can used kept and re-used for storage of documents or a myriad of other things from glassware to crafts. The Box design was kept simple without distracting artwork in the hopes that would encourage the customer to keep and reuse the box, perhaps looking neater on a storage shelf without a cluttered exterior.

The Box can also be used to return the empty toner to Advantage for proper recycling. Be assured the cartridge, packaging and The Box will be recycled. However, why not allow the customer to return some hard-to-recycle items if Advantage can easily recycle them or give them to others for re-use? Small items can be included with the toner cartridge and not add any extra shipping cost; Advantage will recycle all of the following items if returned with empties.

Batteries, eye glasses, worn American Flags, children’s books, cell phones, empty ink cartridges and more.

New HP Printer - HP P3015 MICR Toner?

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:31:00 +0000

HP has a new printer, the HP LaserJet P3015. It uses a hp CE255A and CE255X toner cartridge. We are already working on CE255A MICR and CE255X MICR toner cartridges for check printing. We don't have a release date on the printer. At first glance, the printer looks like a juiced up P2015. They've increased the speed from 27ppm to 40ppm. They've increased the paper tray from 250 sheets to 500 and they've increased the recommended monthly page volume from 3,000 to 5,000. Still from the looks of it there doesn't appear to be anything drastically different from the P2015. The printer does support PCL 5e and PCL 6, so it's not another mindless host based laser printer.

HP calls the P3015 an Enterprise class printer. So they've added some featuures including a 10-keypad to access stored or secure print jobs. The printer has already been released in Asia, New Zealand and Australia and should be released in the US this summer. No official date yet.

Here are some basic stats on the P3015

Speed: 40ppm
Recommended Monthly Volume: 1,500 - 5,000
Monthly Duty Cycle: 100,000
CE255A - 6,000 Pages
CE255X - 12,500 Pages

We'll keep you posted when we have P3015 MICR toner.

For more detailed specs check out the P3015 on hp.com

HP Toner - $40 Rebate

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:32:00 +0000

HP has a great rebate, buy two identical HP toner cartridges, get $40 cash. This is a great deal if you are already buying HP product anyway. This rebate does not apply to New HP MICR toner cartridges, just new non-micr toner cartridges. Rebate expires 8/31/2009.

Download the HP Toner Rebate PDF

Top 5 Reasons to Buy Remanufactured!

noreply@blogger.com (The Goldest) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:38:00 +0000

Top 5 Reasons to Buy Advantage Brand Remanufactured Toner Cartridges:

5) Dramatic decrease in oil consumption and toxic emissions. FACT: You have to burn 3 quarts of oil to produce the average toner cartridge.[1] Last year alone, our customers saved 10,985 gallons of oil from being emitted into the atmosphere by purchasing remanufactured toner cartridges.

4) Waste reduction. FACT: Last year, our customers collectively saved nearly 15,000 cartridges from ending up in landfills by choosing remanufactured products—that’s 45,000 lbs or the equivalent of 23 automobiles! Stacked on top of each other, these cartridges would reach the top of the empire state building nearly 4 times over!

3) Not all remanufactured cartridges are created equal. Some remanufactures simply “drill and fill” their cartridges and/ or use the same “empty” over and over. At Advantage, we only utilize “virgin” empties (cartridges that have only been through their original cycle) and replace all moveable parts to ensure superior performance. FACT: Advantage brand toner cartridges match or exceed OEM cartridges in terms of performance and warranty—we guarantee our cartridges 100%.

2) Remanufactured cartridges DO NOT void manufacturer’s warranties. FACT: Antitrust legislation prohibits copier and printer manufacturers from voiding their warranties when remanufactured cartridges are used in their machines. Therefore, it is illegal to void a printer warranty because of remanufactured cartridge usage.[2]

1) Going GREEN means saving $$$$$! FACT: Buying Advantage remanufactured cartridges instead of OEM saves 30-60% on toner costs! Last year our customers purchased nearly 15000 remanufactured toner cartridges. If they would have purchased OEM, they would have spent $1,501,864 collectively. Instead they collectively saved between $450,559 and $901,118—that’s the Advantage!

[1] Recharger Magazine, March 2002
[2] Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act United States Code Annotated Title 15, Commerce and Trade Chapter 50 Consumer Product Warranties 15 Section 2302. Sherman & Clayton Antitrust Acts. If you'd like more information you can contact the Federal Trade Commission at (202) 326-3128.

HP Toner / Free Gas Card Offer

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:53:00 +0000

Receive a $15 American Express^® Fill-it-Up Gas Card^® With The Purchase of TWO OF THE SAME HP LaserJet Toner Cartridges!
(limit 5 gas cards per order)

Valid through Friday June 12, or while supplies last, receive a $15 American Express Fill-it-Up Gas Card with the purchase of ANY two HP LaserJet Toner Cartridges. Limit five (5) gas cards per order. Offer valid for both color and monochrome HP toner cartridges.

Just place your order online or by phone and
receive 1 $15 Off Gas Card for every 2 HP brand toner cartridges you order.

Order online at www.advlaser.com or call us at 800-722-2804.

Economic Stimulus - Recycle Your Toner Cartridges

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:20:00 +0000

Times are tight and getting tighter for most people in the USA. One great way to help stimulate the US economy is to buy remanufactured cartridges that are remanufactured in the USA. Most new toner cartridges from HP, Canon, Lexmark and Dell are now manufactured in China. By buying remanufactured cartridges (from us of course!) you not only save money, but you employ manufacturing workers here in Atlanta, Georgia. Whether you are buying standard toner cartridges or MICR toner cartridges, you can save 30-40% by buying remanufactured.

Just because a cartridge is remanufactured that doesn't mean it's made in the USA either. More and more companies like Office Depot, Staples, etc are buying their "Replacement" cartridges from China. In addition to being made in another country and further exacerbating the trade deficit, our experience has shown the quality of remanufactured product from China is sub par.

There are a lot of misconceptions about remanufactured toner cartridges. One of the biggest ones is the perception that the quality is not as good as the OEM toner cartridges. In most cases, this is not true. While remanufactured toner cartridges do have a higher return/defect rate than OEM, it is still around 2%. Many businesses tried remanufactured cartridges in the 90's and got burned. Quality has improved by leaps and bounds.

While the quality of monochrome (black) toner cartridges is very good, the quality of remanufactured color toner cartridges has yet to reach that of the OEM. There are a lot of reasons, the main reason being, matching the OEM color balance is tricky. With a black toner cartridge, it's fairly easy to make a cartridge print as dark or darker than the OEM. But with a color toner cartridge it has to be identical to the OEM as color laser printers combine cyan, magenta, yellow and black to create your output. If any one color is off, then your printed page won't look as it should. So when deciding to buy remanufactured color cartridges, it really depends on how exact you want your color output to match the OEM.

No matter who you buy from, the key is to buy from a good company that has great customer support, so in the unlikely event that you get a defective toner cartridge, they take care of you - like we do!

Printer Tips from the Printer Tech. HP 9000 Series. Mystery 13.20.00 errors.

noreply@blogger.com (Andres) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:48:00 +0000

This post is a heads up to everyone out there with 9000 paper jams.

This is a fun service call we came across recently. On a 9000mfp one of our customers was having chronic paper jam errors which would lock down the machine. 13.20.00 is typically an error relating to some random piece of paper being stuck somewhere inside the 9000. Normally easy enough to remedy. (Open Doors, remove paper, print) Well in this case, there was no actual paper jam. 13.20.00 can also indicate a paper wrap error. Now typically that would mean that a piece of paper has actually wrapped itself around the Teflon sleeve inside the fuser. In this case it actually means that the fuser and DC controller both think that there is paper stuck in the fuser, and wont let you tell them otherwise. Oh yeah, and as this point both your fuser and DC controller are toast.

Translation?
Call a tech. You need a new Fuser & DC Controller. The trick is this, replace BOTH at the same time! Installing a new fuser into a 9000 with a bad DC controller may blow the new fuser, same deal replacing the DC and not changing the fuser.

Printer Tips from the Printer Tech. HP P4015 New Firmware Fix!

noreply@blogger.com (Andres) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 21:01:00 +0000

Since HP introduced us to the all new P4015 just a few months ago, 2, count em 2, firmware revisions have been released. The newest firmware is version 04.046.2A released in early September.

The P4015 is the newest reincarnation of the LaserJet 4000 series. The 4000 series has been the mainstay of savvy business's around the world for a decade and change. While these are not massive workgroup printers like the 8000 and 9000 series, they do well for medium workgroups of 2-15 users. The toner cartridges have a respectable page yield, which leads to a lower cost per page. (see this post to understand the correlation between printer cost and cost per page.)

But, back to the Firmware. As with any HP new release, the P4015 has had a few hiccups. The rapid firmware releases on the part of HP are a positive indication that HP is really staying on the ball with all the bug fixes.

Here is a list of the published bug fixes that this newest revision corrects. Even if the problem you are having is not listed here, go ahead and update your firmware, some fixes are not listed.
• ANY/ANY is not available for Tray2 or the Envelope Feeder
• 49.4C02 error when posting status messages from Chai SOE concurrently
• Bad string displayed when inputting PIN code for stored job
• IOFs using "Internal Page" causes Menu Map, Configuration Page, or File Directory to be corrupted
• Information on the “Show ME How Supported Paper” page is incorrect
• PIN Printing does not work when the EWS is password protected
• Help Message not descriptive enough for the Order Maintenance Kit warning
• 4015 does not report USB stick SN correctly when it is 20 digits long
• Unable to print fonts in Hebrew
Enhancements
• Adaptive Printing Solution – Quiet Mode
• Forms Edge to Edge

Density Settings and MICR Fonts for the HP P1005, P1006, P1505

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:31:00 +0000

If you have one of the newer HP LaserJet printers, one thing you'll notice is the TrueType MICR fonts can appear faint or have a thinner stroke than they should. This is not a toner problem, as as the image quality and density is fine, but rather a result in the way the newer printers render the font itself. If the MICR font doesn't have the proper stroke width the signal strength of the characters will decrease. Low signal strength may cause your bank's check scanners to reject them. This will result in your bank in having to manually encode each check. If this happens your bank will likely contact you about the problem. But you'll need to get the problem fixed or the bank may assess an additional processing charge.

Document Testing is the Key - There are a couple of ways to fix this problem. But whatever you do, you really should have your checks analyzed to make sure the documents are good. If you buy from us, we offer this as a free service, as we want to make sure all of our customers are producing good MICR documents. So if you are unsure about your documents, just send us some voided documents and we'll analyze them and call you back the day we receive them at no charge.

Increase Print Density - The easiest way to fix this problem is to adjust the print density of your laser printer. To do this, you'll need to open the properties of your printer (start->Printers->right-click (your printer)->select properties), then select the Device Settings tab. Set the print density to 5 (the darkest) and you should be fine. Click here for a screen shot

Replace MICR Font with a Bolder One - The second way is to replace the font with a bolder MICR font. If you are using the Advangtage TrueType MICR font and have the ability, you can just bold it. In our test the bold version works perfectly on these printers. If you don't have the ability to bold the font, another alternative is to replace the font with a bolder TrueType MICR Font. We only offer one version of our font, but if you need more flexibility here, try the ID Automation MICR font. It comes with 5 different boldnesses and 5 different widths, a total of 25 MICR font variations. Click here for the ID Automation MICR Font

So far we've observed these issues with the HP LaserJet P1005, P1006, P1505 laser printers. No matter what you do, be sure to send us a voided check so we can analyze it.

P2035 New MICR Toner Cartridge Release

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:56:00 +0000

New Product Release - the HP P2035 MICR toner cartridge (New). The standard yield MICR toner cartridge (CE505A) fits both the HP LaserJet P2035 and P2055 series laser printers and is rated for 2,300 pages.

HP released a high yield toner cartridge, the CE505X, but the high yield only fits the P2055 series and will not fit in the P2035. Based on this we decided to initially release only the standard yield toner cartridge. We still have plans to release the high yield MICR toner cartridge once the market shows some demand.

Our part number is RCCE505ANM and they sell for $140 (free shipping). They are in stock and ready to ship, and as always all orders received before 4:00pm EST ship same day.

The most toxic place on earth

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:35:00 +0000

Last night, 60 Minutes had a great report on e-recycling and the environmental impact e-recycling is having. E-recycling is the recycling of electronic items such as televisions, computers, monitors, laser printers and yes toner cartridges. One statistic that blew my mind was that each day we throw out 130,000 computers just in the United States.

Click here for the 60 Minutes Video

60 Minutes then goes on to follow the waste from an e-waste recycling event in Denver to a local e-waste recycling that recycled the materials "in-house". As it turns out 60 Minutes tracked one container of CRT's all the way to Hong Kong where it ended up in the village of Guiyu. Where literally acres of monitors are piled up waiting to be recycled. CRTs are loaded with nasty stuff like lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, polyvinyl chlorides, etc which are know to have numerous toxicological effects from brain damage to kidney disease and cancer. The conditions depicted were horrendous. Much of the plastic was just being burned. The water in the area is so polluted, they have to import drinking water. According to a recent study seven out ten kids have too much lead in their blood. They are using 16 century technology to recycle 20th century electronic goods. Not pretty!

Importing these items into Hong Kong is technically "illegal" but it's obvious this is big business and officials across the board are looking the other way. I hate seeing this because I realize that most people are trying to do the right think by taking their e-waste to these recycling events. The problem is these countries have very cheap labor and no regard to the health of the people who are actually doing the work. A couple of years ago 60 Minutes had a similar story about where ships go once they reach the end of their useful life. They ended up in India and the conditions were probably worse and definitely more dangerous.

I think when companies manufacture a product they should also provide a method to recycle the product. This will no doubt add to the cost, but it would theoretically insure the product is recycled properly in a healthy environment. I say theoretically because in our business we've see evidence of toner cartridges going overseas to be "recycled" in horrific conditions as well.

I wouldn't let this get you down on recycling. But I would ask and insist that your e-waste is recycled responsibly.

So you may be wondering what does Advantage Laser Products do with it's toner cartridges? We recycle our toner cartridges here in Atlanta, Georgia where our workers have benefits like health insurance, 401K and work in an air conditioned environment with a great dust collection system. We do get a number of cartridges that we do not recycle. Those cartridges we sell to brokers who then sell them on the empties market. I don't believe these cartridge make it to one of these Chinese hell holes, because these cartridges have value and will be sold to another remanufacturer that can use the cartridge. There is a third category of cartridge, the cartridge that has already been remanufactured and has no value. These cartridges we return to the original equipment manufacturer, in this case that is HP or Lexmark. Although some OEM's may be sending their cartridges to illegal recycling facilities overseas, I hope and believe HP is a reputable company and is doing the right thing.

Keep recycling and do the right thing!

Printer Tips from the Printer Tech. HP CP4005N CP4005DN Error: 49.4C02

noreply@blogger.com (Andres) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:38:00 +0000

One of these days someone at HP will explain to me why PDF files constantly anger printers into stalling out. For now here is your tip:

For the HP Laser jet CP4005N, CP4005DN etc.
If you are receiving the Error 49.4C02 it's a firmware issue.
Once again the almighty PDF is causing your printer to stall while translating the file into print.
Firmware version 20080128 46.034.0 is the newest thing from HP as of now.

If you have never updated firmware it's not rocket science. Download the firmware HERE make sure you download the correct version Mac, PC, or UNIX. (seriously UNIX?) Unzip the file and there are several ways to upload the new firmware.

NOTE: Normally when updating firmware the printer will receive the file, update it's firmware, then reboot. For some reason when I installed this firmware version the reboot did not happen. If this happens let the thing sit for a few hours, then manually power cycle the printer. (I let this customers machine sit overnight) I don't know if this is a problem with this firmware revision, or if the CP4005N I was working on was being simple. Regardless, this may happen to you. Be careful never reboot a printer during a firmware update if you can avoid it. It's like reprogramming it's brain half way, then expecting it to operate. Not going to happen and you will have to purchase a new firmware chip.

That's it for now.
Andres

Here is a list of fixes from the HP documentation on this firmware revision.
The following fixes or improvements are provided by this firmware release (20080128 46.034.0):

Corrected Processing Job Hang at 1000 pages
Improved PDF printing.
Corrected problems Printing Postscript Macros & Fonts.
49.4C02 error when printing PDFs.
WideA4 setting does not retain extended area after power cycle.
Garbage Display after update avter firmware update.
Corrected localization in Russion Language-"Overheated" where "Warming up" expected.

Google is amazing!

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:15:00 +0000

I'm amazed at how Google has come from nowhere to become an everyday household name and a verb. When Google came out, it wasn't long before people said, did you "Google" that? It was all over for yahoo. Even George Bush does "the Google".

Since Google search, Google has released hit after hit, the most recent Chrome a browser that will take on industry giant Microsoft IE8 head to head. Some of what Google has done has been expected, but they continue to think outside the box and come up with products that people never even knew they wanted or needed. I'm sure it helps that Google has more money than god, but still there are tons of huge corporations that never surprise us and never do anything unexpected. What makes Google different? Will they start selling Check Paper and MICR toner cartridges and put us out of business? Probably not, still one thing is for sure, I wouldn't want to be the target of Google, because if you are, you probably won't be in business for long.

Google continues to churn out industry leading Internet software at a dizzying pace.

Google Earth - amazing
Google Checkout - definitely a great way to buy products without disseminating your personal information.
Google Picasa - what a great way to share your pictures
Gmail - best web mail out there
Google Desktop - great for searching your computer. I'm not a huge fan because it can bog your computer down.
Google News - A collection of news from the net
Google Chrome - still new, but already it's replaced IE 7 and SlimBrowser for me
Google AdWords - The real money maker at google is the most effective way to reach targeted users out there. We spend 90% of our advertising on AdWords. And when someone searches for the key words we specify, they see our ads. Perfectly targeted!
Google Maps - again probably the best map software on the web, I love the new terrain feature.
Blogger - I'm using it right now, it's great.
YouTube - Obviously the most used video sharing on the web
Analytics - If you are a webmaster, this is great stuff if you want to know about where your visitors come from and how they got there.
800-Goog-411 - Great free 411 service that works better than regular 411.
The list goes on and on including Google Calendar, Orkut, Google Groups, etc...

In some cases like YouTube, where Google Video was not number one, Google just opened their wallet and bam, Google is number one once again.

Maybe its the environment that Google employees work in. Check out these pictures of the Google office in Europe. Nuts! But who wouldn't want to work there. Who knows why Google is so damn good at whatever they put their mind to, but one thing is for sure, they aren't done yet. Google is currently the 12th largest company in the world based on market capitizalization. With Apple Computer just ahead of them and Cisco just behind them. If google keeps it up, I won't be suprised to see Google in the #1 spot some day.

Weak dollar and high oil prices driving HP prices up

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:51:00 +0000

The weak dollar and high oil prices are conspiring to bring about price increased for HP toner cartridges. The weaker dollar automatically makes oil prices increase all on its own. You've seen inflation in everything at the grocery store from bread to beef, and now we are starting to see the results in our little corner of the world.

As I wrote a month ago, in the face of significant UPS fuel surcharges, we plan to continue to offer free shipping on our toner cartridges, but unfortunately it looks like HP is raising prices 5-6% on it's toner and inkjet cartridges. We'll have no choice but to pass the cost increase along to our customers. This will affect new HP Product as well as our Premium MICR Cartridges (New MICR). On the plus side, maybe this will be an incentive for our customers to switch to Advantage Brand toner cartridges (Remanufactured). Advantage Cartridges have the same quality and guarantee as new cartridges. And now there will be an even greater savings.

HP announced the price increase effective September 1st, but our suppliers have told us they will not actually increase the price until October 1st. So be warned, new pricing will be here by October 1. If you are a big HP toner user, I'd go ahead and make an extra big order before October comes around.

Here's the HP price increase letter:

Buying a Laser Printer... Do your homework!

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:49:00 +0000

These days, printer manufacturers are practically giving away printers. For instance you can buy an HP P1005 laser at Costco for $49.00 (This includes a $80 instant rebate from HP). They will sell you toner cartridge for about the same price.

The days of disposable laser printers has arrived. It used to be inkjets were disposable, not laser. Color laser printers are now dipping below the $400 level as well. But before you go out and buy a laser printer, you might want to do some research into how much it will cost to print per page.

Just like when Gillette send you the latest Mach 5 razor (now with 5 blades instead of 3) - better grab your wallet, because that free razor takes $4 blades. You get the point.

The good thing about HP monochrome printers is that the printers comes with an all-in-one cartridge, meaning there is only one cartridge. Some other manufacturers will tout how inexpensive their toner cartridges are, but neglect to mention that for every 3 toner cartridges, you'll have to buy a drum unit. Panasonic, Okidata, Brother all use this concept. So do the research and don't get burned. The printers that use multiple cartridges are not necessarily bad and sometime can be less expensive, but unless you do the research, you won't know. I've had customers call looking for a drum unit for a printer they only paid $200 for to find out the drum unit was $250 -they were not happy. All-in-one cartridges are easier to troubleshoot when you do have problems, and tend to make more sense to remanufacture.

Color laser printers are even more tricky to compare. At the bare minimum, your color printer will need 4 toner cartridges, and many of them will have a drum unit for each toner cartridge, so now you're looking at 8 cartridges.

Here's an average example an HP 3600n costs $399 (shopping.hp.com), a set of cartridges (4) costs $522.96. The 3600n with cartridges is less expensive than one set of toner cartridges for the unit. Crazy! and HP is actually better about this than most manufacturers. So you might think, each time my printer runs out of toner, I'll chunk it and buy a new one. From an environmental perspective, this would be just wrong, but HP also has another trick up their sleeve - the printer comes with a "starter" cartridge. Starter cartridges typically print only half as much as the cartridges that you would buy on the street. In reading about printers from HP, they don't mention this anywhere that I could find, but we see it all the time. Lexmark has been doing this for years, and HP only recently adopted this ploy.

Do your research before you buy. We always recommend HP printers over any other brand. We've found HP the most reliable and the easiest to source parts and supplies.

What is "The Box"?

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:44:00 +0000

If you've purchased any of our Advantage Brand toner cartridges recently, you may have noticed the cartridge was packaged in "The Box". The concept behind "The Box" was to create a more useful box; a box that is not covered with obnoxious graphics that can be reused for other applications. We put the company information on the bottom of the box and used took a minimalist approach for product identification. Hopefully we achieved our goal and many of you are finding other uses for "The Box".

Recycling the corrugated cardboard is preferable to chunking the box in the landfill. But better yet is using the box for storage especially if it keeps you from purchasing a new box.

In addition to using the box to return your toner cartridges for recycling, we plan to offer additional recycling services where you can use the box to recycle batteries, tennis shoes, etc.

We would love to include a free Advantage return label with each toner cartridge like HP does, but it's just not economically feasible. Especially with increased fuel costs, shipping costs have gone out of control. For certain cartridges that are high in demand, we will provide recycling labels to return the cartridges to Advantage. And we have a huge supply of HP recycling labels. So if you want to recycle your cartridges with HP, just let us know when you order and we'll include an HP recycling label. Or if you don't mind paying shipping, we are happy to recycle your cartridges for you, but you'll have to get the cartridge here on your dime.

We're pretty particular about the cartridges we remanufacture and for most cartridges we only use"virgin" cartridges, that is cartridges that have never been remanufactured before. We have outlets for non-virgin cartridges as well, so you can be assured any cartridges you send to us will be recycled.

One way or another, be sure to re-use "The Box". Thanks! -Marvin

Why don’t you make a MICR toner cartridge for my machine?

fromatlantatozurich@gmail.com (Kristi) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:34:00 +0000

This is one of the most common questions we are asked. Many times it is asked in frustration and many times our answers leave people feeling empty inside. Ok, maybe not empty inside but companies who want to print checks also want to use the printer they already have.

If you aren’t using a Hewlett Packard or Lexmark monochrome printer, chances are there isn’t a MICR toner available for your machine. Supply and demand dictates where production dollars will be allocated for both the toner cartridge and consumable (cartridge, parts and loose toner) manufacturers. Since HP and Lexmark have a stranglehold on the laser printer industry, companies such as ours will spend money to produce a MICR toner cartridge for those very machines that saturate the market. This trickles down to the loose toner vendors, they too will not create a MICR toner powder for machines that don’t saturate the market.

All you need to do is dump some MICR toner into a cartridge!

I have been quietly to very loudly told this by many customers who think they understand the toner manufacturing industry. We wish it were that simple because it would have saved us a lot of time and money. It is far more sophisticated of a process to make a MICR toner cartridge because not every cartridge takes the same MICR toner. The component parts of a HP 4200 toner cartridge will not work with the MICR toner used in a HP 1100 cartridge and vice-versa. The component parts may also need to be manufactured specifically for MICR printing. There are even more variables that need to be considered, but it would be silly and equally boring to list them all.

So what do you do if you can’t find a MICR toner for your laser printer?

1. Research what MICR toners are available and then buy that machine
2. Buy pre-printed checks
3. Find a company that claims they can produce it.

Buyer Beware- if a company claims to produce a MICR toner for machines other than HP and Lexmark, research that company’s return policy and make sure they have a money back guarantee. We carry some MICR toners for laser printers outside of HP and Lexmark lines however they either have the same engine as a HP/ Lexmark machine or the demand at one point substantiated producing it.

Good luck and Happy Check Printing!

HP Going Green?

noreply@blogger.com (Advantage Laser Products) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:25:00 +0000

HP recently announced a new initiative for green printing. The new initiative includes a new $40 DeskJet printer almost entirely made from recycled plastic and new company goals to make their printers 40% more efficient. HP also plans to triple the recycled materials that are current used in their toner cartridges, laser and inkjet printers. And lastly, HP plans to surpass the 250 million toner and ink cartridges that will be recycled in 2008.

I applaud HP for making the effort. If all business made this effort, the world would be a better place. Going "green" as we have done is not only "the right" thing to do, it's also good business. In our case we are not only conserving to help the environment, but we're saving money and feeling great about doing it. We're saving on everything from an advanced climate control system to analyzing and recycling every possible outflow we can find.

HP is a great business and when I see the enthusiasm about HP's green program, I just want to remind you, this is not 100% altruistic. When you read HP will recycle 250 million toner and inkjet cartridges, the real goal there is not to recycle them, but to take them out of circulation - again good business practice on HP's part.

For HP, recycling means separate the components and melt them down to raw materials. This takes energy - a much greener approach is to do what we do, which is to remanufacture the cartridge. In this way the cartridge keeps it's present form, the imaging system such as drum, developer, wiper blade, doctor blade are replaced (and recycled). But the rest of the cartridge stays intact. HP wants to take cartridges out of circulation, because HP knows that every cartridge they don't collect for recycling may potentially become a "competitor" in the form of a recycled or remanufactured cartridge.

HP is also releasing a carbon foot print calculator for your laser printer in June, so you can save the world buy upgrading your printer. More on this later. -Marvin