Question on Toner

Discussion in '8 ½ x 11 Color Laser Printers' started by saint, Dec 22, 2007.

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  1. saint

    saint New Member

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    Was wondering if it is possible to use mica powder as toner???

    Thanks,

    saint.
     
  2. xpquickprint

    xpquickprint Senior Member

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    I have never heard of anyone successfully manufacturing their own toner. The charging properties, flow, and melting/adhesion would all be critical. I'm not a chemist though. The toner refill companies reverse-engineer OEM toners, but they only do so for the most common printers and usually don't offer new options (e.g. different gloss levels, etc.) but rather stick as close to OEM properties as possible, suggesting to me that it's quite a difficult process to come up with something new that will work in an existing machine. I would love to be proven wrong though. It would open up a world of possibilities to have many different qualities of toner available for existing machines. E.g. in a color laser I'd like to be able to come up with something that looked metallic but didn't ruin the charging of the toner. I'd love to have quadratone b/w toners (black, charcoal, gray, light gray) to produce really rich black and white prints. Or different warm/cool blacks. I'd love to have really bright toners to do fluorescent prints. Opalescent. The list could be almost infinite, especially for smaller/modular printers where you could load specialty toners cartridges/drums per job. I've not seen any of this though.
     
  3. Jeff

    Jeff Senior Member

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    I'd even like opaque white toner for laser printing reverse text on dark colored or black stocks. Xeikon has such a solution for their web lasers
    http://www.xeikon.com/web/page.asp?cust=1&lang=e&L1ID=1&L2ID=33&TID=176
    But I haven't seen something similar for a canon/xerox/ricoh/xante/etc. desktop/sheet fed smaller laser printer.
     
  4. xpquickprint

    xpquickprint Senior Member

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    Close: White Sublimation Laser Toner: http://www.atttransfer.com/whitetoner.html

    Can the white toner be adapted for a non sublimation use through different fusing temperature? I don't know.
     
  5. zippy123

    zippy123 New Member

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    Toner

    Why not use Laser Toners from Island Ink-Jet and Laser Toners instead?

    May be what your looking for.
     
  6. xpquickprint

    xpquickprint Senior Member

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    The Island Ink-Jet and Laser Toners pricing seems pretty high.
     

  7. kingpd@businessprints.net

    kingpd@businessprints.net Senior Member

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    Not Likely

    Considering mica has crystal properties it would most likely not bond with the waxing agent in toner.

    Second, you'd have to create specific developer to "carry" the mica toner to the drum. You probably wouldn't get the charge to work properly to put the toner on the drum.

    It would probably be better to develop a synthetic material with a mica-like appearance. It would be cool though and should be tried.

    ~Patrick
     
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