The American brand HP and the Japanese corporation Canon are two world-famous companies that have been delighting their customers with high-quality office equipment and consumables for many years. And throughout its existence, many have noticed some similarities between the products of these organizations. But not many people dare to combine two different products. Since there is a lot of unconfirmed information on the Internet regarding the compatibility of Canon cartridges with Hewlett-Packard peripheral devices, and vice versa. However, this is all the pure truth. This possibility actually exists.
Why are HP and Canon cartridges compatible?
Fortunately, the answer to this question is much simpler than many people think. The fact is that the factories of the Japanese brand “Canon” produce about 70% of the parts from which HP printers, MFPs and other copiers are created. Thus, these two powerful firms entered into an innovation agreement between themselves. Which says that Canon can use the same technologies as HP only a year after its announcement. As a result, some of the consumables are suitable for office equipment from both manufacturers. See the table below for details.
Cartridge compatibility table
|
Printer model |
Cartridge models |
Printer model |
|
|
LBP 3010/3020/3100 |
|||
|
M 1120/1120n/1522/1522n/1522nf, P 1505/1505n |
|||
|
M 1132/1210/1212/1214/1217, P 1102/1102w |
LBP 6000/6020, MF 3010 |
||
|
M 1530/1536, P 1560/1566/1600/1606 |
MF 4400/4410/4430/4450/4550/4570/ 4580/4730/4780/4870/4890, FAX L170 |
||
|
1010/1012/1015/1018/1020/1022/ 3010/3015/3020/3030/3050/3052/3055, M1005/1319 |
|||
|
1160/1320/3390/3392 |
|||
|
P 2014/2015, M 2727 |
|||
|
P 2030/2035/2050/2055 |
LBP 6650/6680/6300/6310, MF 5840/5880/5940/5980 |
||
|
P 3010/3011/3015, Pro 500 M 521/525 |
|||
|
LBP 800/810/1120 |
|||
|
LBP 32/470/1000/1310 |
|||
|
1000/1005/1200/1220/3300/3320/ |
|||
|
LBP 5200, MF 8180 |
|||
|
1600/2600/2605, CM 1015/1017 |
|||
|
3600/3800, CP 3505 |
|||
|
CM 1312, CP 1210/1215/1515/1518 |
LBP 5050, MF 8030/8050 |
||
|
CM 2320, CP 2025 |
LBP 7200/7680, MF8330/8380 |
||
|
CP 3525, CM 3530 |
|||
|
Pro 200 color M 251/276 |
LBP 7100/7110, MF8230/8280 |
||
Attention: At the moment, the American company Hewlett-Packard is actively fighting to ensure that their peripheral devices do not accept analog consumables and cartridges of other models. It is also worth considering that not all cartridges are 100% suitable for office equipment of another brand. Some printing accessories require modification or minor design changes, for example, such as the HP C4096A and CANON cartridge M. Therefore, in order to exclude possible incompatibility, before purchasing this or that consumable, carefully discuss all aspects with the consultants of our company.
In contact with
Classmates
These days, a set of original laser cartridges costs almost as much as the laser printer itself. The cost of purchasing consumables can be reduced several times if you use compatible cartridges instead of original ones, but OEM manufacturers claim that non-original consumables have a short lifespan and poor print quality, moreover, their use causes printer breakdowns and leads to the termination of warranty service printer maintenance. In this review we will try to prove that this is not entirely true.
Let's start with the fact that the fact of using non-original cartridges cannot be established and proven by any service center, unless, of course, you yourself inform its staff about this. Therefore, with a light heart, forget that the use of compatible consumables may void the warranty on the printing device.
Second. It is impossible to damage a laser printer with compatible toner. Unless, after a long search, you buy an insidious printer-killer toner in a remote Chinese province, made by the naughty hands of a drunken Uncle Liao. But to find such an artifact in Russia you need to work hard. So we reject the second myth just as decisively.
Only the last two myths remain - about the inflated resource of compatible consumables and their low quality. To confirm or debunk these myths, we decided to conduct comparative testing of X80 cartridges released under the brands NV Print, Cactus and Solution Print.
Packaging of cartridges that participated in our testing
Package
The least profitable from a logistics point of view are Solution Print cartridges, which have the largest packaging and take up more space during transportation than their competitors. NV Print cartridges in compact packaging are the most profitable from a logistics standpoint.
Inside the packaging for Cactus, NV Print and T2 cartridges there are convenient inflatable polyethylene inserts that protect consumables from mechanical damage and in which you can store empty printing cassettes. HP, Cactus and Solution Print included paper instructions in their boxes on the topic “How to prepare the cartridge for use.”
Inflatable polyethylene packaging that protects the cartridge from mechanical damage
Frame
Externally, the cartridges are similar to each other as drops of water, with the exception of some minor details. It seems that their cases were manufactured on the same assembly line. The plastic from which the bodies of consumables are made has no roughness, unevenness or foreign inclusions.
Instructions on the surface of the Cactus cartridge
Same instructions, close-up
On the surface of the cartridges there are step-by-step instructions that will tell you how to use this product. Plastic instructions, unlike paper ones, will not be lost or torn; they will always be in front of the operator’s eyes at the moment of installing the cartridge into the printing device.
Structural elements
Gears, photodrum drives and other structural elements of all cartridges are identical to the original ones, with the exception of Cactus consumables. Cactus has improved the drum drive design and patented it.
Cactus cartridge with patented drum drive
Another difference between Cactus cartridges and original HP cartridges is the presence of a plastic cap, which is not found on original consumables. The following photo shows an original HP cartridge.
Original HP cartridge
Please note that the original HP cartridge has a loose toner roller, while in Cactus cartridges it is fixed in a fixed position. Other cartridge manufacturers did not bother and copied the original design exactly. Therefore, all compatible cartridge manufacturers except Cactus may have legal problems with Hewlett-Packard because they stole its legally protected intellectual property. Cactus, in turn, can provide documents confirming that its products are different from the original ones. This is a very important point for both sellers and buyers of consumables, since not a single check can convict the user of purchasing illegal products, which means he will not have to defend his rights in court.
Resource testing
The resource of the original HP X80 cartridge, declared by the manufacturer, is 6900 standard pages. In this case, the manufacturer refers to the international standard ISO/IEC 19752, developed to evaluate the life of black and white laser printers. Having carefully studied the requirements of this standard, we came to the conclusion that the testing conditions prescribed by it can only be reproduced in special testing laboratories. For example, the standard requires testing to be carried out in a room with a relative humidity of 40% to 60% and a temperature of 21 degrees Celsius to 25 degrees Celsius. The developers of the standard indicate that without a reflective densitometer it is impossible to determine the difference between the filling density from 1.45 to 1.50. Consequently, any claims about the life of the cartridge or the quality of its printing cannot be considered objective without examination with special instruments under special conditions, and therefore it makes no sense to print 6,900 test pages, trying to expose unscrupulous manufacturers. Below is an image of the ISO recommended test page.
We went the other way and took a reference copy, which allowed us not only to evaluate the print quality, but also to compare the resources of compatible and original products.
Test page that was used during testing
The page we selected has various graphics and fills, so it will require significantly more toner to print than the previous version of the ISO-recommended test page. Therefore, we won't have to waste 35,000 sheets of paper to empty all the cartridges during testing.
During testing, we printed test pages until the first signs appeared indicating that the toner cartridge was low. We then removed the cartridge, gave it a good shake, and continued printing. When shaking the cartridge did not help, and the sheets came out with streaks or defects, we recognized that the toner was low and proceeded to test the next sample.
To evaluate the resource, we used the HP LaserJet Pro 400 M401dn laser printer with default settings.
HP LaserJet Pro 400 M401dn
Resource testing results
First place. The absolute record of 1280 pages belongs to the Solution Print cartridge. After printing defects appeared and the first shake, the cartridge printed another 23 high-quality test pages, and after shaking again, another 4 pages. The fly in the ointment was the spillage of powder, which was discovered while shaking the cartridge. In addition, fresh sheets coming out of the printer were glued together, and after they were separated from each other, the ink remained on the back of the page, and in some cases even completely came off the surface of the sheet. Having discovered this unpleasant defect, we were forced to disqualify the Solution Print cartridge as a consumable product that poses a threat to the human body. The fact is that toner is harmful to the lungs because it settles on the mucous membrane of the internal organs and covers them with an impenetrable black film. Therefore, we do not recommend using cartridges from Solution Print.
Second place. In second place was the original HP cartridge, which printed the same 1280 pages, plus another 18 pages after the first shake and 3 pages after the second. At the same time, the toner did not spill out of the cartridge, and the pages that came out of the printer did not stick together, although in terms of the total number of printed pages, taking into account all shaking (1301 pages), the original cartridge lost the palm to the consumable from Solution Print (1307 pages).
Third place. An honorable third place rightfully belongs to the Cactus cartridge, which was enough to print 1170 pages before shaking and as many as 40 pages after. Repeated shaking allowed 3 more sheets to be squeezed out of the printer, after which permanent defects appeared on the prints. Thus, the total Cactus total is 1213 sheets.
Fourth place. In fourth place is the cartridge from T2 with very modest results: 900 pages at the first stage of testing, then another 9 pages and 2 pages at subsequent stages after shaking. At the same time, T2 did not experience any problems with the cartridge spilling or sheets sticking together.
Fifth place. The last place is occupied by the NT Print product, which printed only 780 pages in the first stage of testing. The first shake allowed us to get another 23 pages, the second one added as many as 18 pages to the resource. But this did not save him from a crushing defeat in our “battle of cartridges.”
Print quality
All cartridges, with the exception of the adhesive and loose Solution Print, showed exactly the same results as the standard of our testing - the original HP cartridge. We assessed the quality of printing by eye, without the use of special instruments and equipment. This is exactly how the consumer sees and evaluates the printed pages, who, by and large, must judge the properties of the product.
Cost of printing
The following table presents data on the cost of printing of our competitors. We made calculations based on average prices obtained on Yandex Market.
Cost of printing cartridges that took part in testing
Indicators |
NV Print |
Solution Print |
|||
Full resource, p. |
|||||
Cartridge cost, rub. |
|||||
Page cost, rub. |
The HP LaserJet Pro 400 M401dn printer, according to the same Yandex Market, costs 12 thousand rubles. And the manufacturer valued the original cartridge for this model at 5,500 rubles, that is, 45.8% of the cost of the printer itself. For comparison: NV Print cartridges can be purchased for 590 rubles, their price is only 4.9% of the cost of the printing device. Comments are unnecessary here. On the other hand, if we take the resource of an HP cartridge as a reference, then it turns out that the resource of NV Print and T2 consumables is only 35% of its value. Not too much, right?
Conclusion
In our independent testing, the CS-CF280X printing cassette, released under the Cactus brand, performed best. This cartridge is not very inferior to the original in terms of print resource, and is quite comparable to the latter in terms of print quality. Unlike other cartridges, the Cacuts CS-CF280X has a patented drum drive, the presence of which saves the buyer and seller from accusations of violating HP's licensing rights. In addition, the cost of prints produced using Cactus cartridges is five times lower than the original, and is not much different from other competitors.
Cartridge Cactus CS-CF280X
With a feeling of complete satisfaction, we give the Cactus CS-CF280X cartridge first place for the optimal combination of price and quality and recommend it for use in HP laser printers.
In contact with
When one or another equipment breaks down, many wonder which service center to choose. Now the list of companies that do repairs is quite large and does not stop growing. Therefore, the choice is quite large.
In this article I will try to give some tips on what you should (or shouldn’t) pay attention to when sending your equipment in for repair. After all, the amount of money, time and nerves you spend directly depends on the right choice.
1. You should not pay attention to the respectability of the premises for receiving equipment, the number of staff and other little things. You have to pay rent for the extra square meters, and the reception girls have to be paid a salary. So the prices for services need to be raised somewhat. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are few. I do not encourage you to give your favorite laptop or printer to a semi-basement room to an incomprehensible person who is a foreman, a receptionist, and the director of a company. But a small company, in which one, but intelligent person works at the reception, should not be dismissed outright.
2. Check whether you pay for diagnostics if the technician was unable to repair the device or if you refused repairs. The requirement to pay for diagnostics in case of failure is quite normal; the technician spent his time working with your equipment. For example, I only do not charge diagnostic fees if I cannot repair the device or the repair costs more than half the price of a new one.
3. Check whether you pay for spare parts ordered by the technician if the item could not be repaired. If yes, run away from this service. You should not pay for the technician’s mistakes just because he did not correctly identify the breakdown and ordered the wrong spare part.
4. It would be a good idea to inquire about the maximum repair time. Also make sure that they contact you and give you the full cost before the repairs begin. Otherwise, you risk receiving a bill, for example, 80% of the price of a new device. And, since the repairs are completed, it will be very difficult to prove anything.
5. Read the repair receipt carefully. If you have agreed on some conditions, but others are indicated on the receipt, your verbal agreements have no force. Also pay attention to the description of the defect, appearance and configuration of the device. If something indicated is incorrect, this will enable the service center to return the device in a different configuration than in which you delivered it, with mechanical damage or with another defect. For example, you delivered a laptop with the defect “No sound”, but the receipt states “Does not work”. The service center may give you your laptop, which no longer turns on.
6. It wouldn’t hurt to ask for a list of spare parts and their costs before starting repairs and compare them with prices on the Internet. In this case, a markup of up to 40 percent is allowed. Many parts come without a warranty or may be damaged during installation. You also need to take into account the cost of delivery. Therefore, the SC should leave some reserve in terms of cost. But if the prices differ by 2-3 times, it’s worth considering.
You can also look at reviews on the Internet about a specific service or find out what service centers are in your region. For example, enter “Printer repair in Minsk” into the search. Just don’t forget, there will definitely be negativity. It is necessary to evaluate not the presence of negativity, but its quantity.
In any case, make the right choice and good luck to you!
Greetings, dear visitors. Quite often I am asked how to extend the life of a Canon cartridge or print head.
Let me make a reservation right away: first of all, we are talking about ink cartridges for Canon printers. Such as CL-511, PG-510, CL-446, PG-445, CL-441, PG-440 and others. That is, we are talking about ordinary inkjet printers and MFPs that have two cartridges. For example MP280, MP230, MG2440, E404, MG3540 and others. But this also applies to Canon printers that use a print head and ink tanks.
Let's figure out how printing occurs with these printers. I warn you right away that I will present the principle of printing in a very simplified manner.
The cartridge has an absorber - a sponge that contains ink. From this sponge they are fed into the nozzles (nozzles). Nozzles are tubes of very small diameter. Each tube contains one or more thermoelements. During printing, the thermal elements heat up, the ink boils (an air bubble is formed) and “shoots” onto the paper. I repeat, I described it very simply.
What happens if there is no ink in the nozzles? The thermoelements will still heat up. And the ink in the nozzles is also used as a coolant. Overheating will occur - the tubes (nozzles) will become deformed and/or some of the thermoelements will fail.
After which the cartridge will print poorly in some colors, or will not print at all.
I think the answer to the question “How to extend the life of a cartridge?” obvious - you need to make sure that there is always ink in it.
What about those who refill cartridges? After all, after the first refill, it no longer shows the ink level. There is a simple rule. If you need to print something, but you are not sure that you have enough ink - . It will not be worse. And perhaps this will save him.
If you expect that thanks to this advice, your cartridge will work forever, then you are mistaken. It will definitely burn. Why? Yes, because, according to the manufacturer, it is disposable (the statement does not apply to print heads using ink tanks). The main task of the manufacturer is to ensure that it is guaranteed to print the ink poured in from the factory, and then fail as quickly as possible. Yes, the manufacturer wants to do business with consumables, he also wants to eat :)
But I hope this article will help your cartridge last longer :)
