Tips for Looking After your Printer

Having access to a printer is incredibly advantageous. In both a domestic and commercial environment it is decidedly the most convenient way to work, offering the option to switch between hardcopy and digital at short notice. Printers can also be a big investment that you’ll want to look after. You don’t want your ink to dry up just when you need it to print out an important document, nor do you want it to jam halfway through printing. Repairing and replacing your printer can be costly and frustrating. So it’s best to take good care of your machine to avoid such a situation occurring.  

Here at Trade Your Toner, we know that eventually replacing your printer is inevitable and when you do, you’ll want to trade in your old toner cartridges in order to purchase new ones for your printer. We’re here to offer you the best prices for your toner, whether you have one cartridge or thousands. Despite this inevitability, we know that you’re prioritising keeping your printer running smoothly, so we have put together some tips to look after your printer.

Don’t use Poor Quality Paper

While the type of paper you use might seem like the least of your concerns, it can make all the difference to the health of your printer. We would recommend that you avoid using cheap paper, which can damage your rollers as it is responsible for the creation of paper dust. Paper dust can wreak havoc throughout your printer system and you’ll spend lots of money to replace the rollers in your printers. We would recommend you purchase high-quality paper and you should make sure to take care to protect your paper from dust and humidity, probably in a plastic container. 

Choose the Right Cartridges

There are all sorts of different cartridges available for your printer, both high and low-quality cartridges. While you can choose cheaper, unbranded cartridges, it is always best to choose high-quality ones. Though these cartridges might be a little more expensive, there is no denying that they will damage your printer. This ink is less likely to block up your system or dry out, which is frustrating and expensive to fix. Not only this, but good quality ink will make sure that the documents you print are even and without smudges or smeers. 

Use your Printer Often

This is perhaps the key to making sure that your printer lasts as long as possible. What your printer needs most of all is Regular use, which will help avoid clogged printer heads and drying ink cartridges. Even if you're not printing much, printing a few pages a week will make sure that your printer is running smoothly and will, surprisingly, save you money in the long run. If you're not spending money on new ink cartridges and not worrying about repairs for your printer, then you're saving money.

Clean your Printer

We mentioned earlier the problems that dust and debris can cause in your printer, and you can avoid these issues when making sure that you regularly clean your printer heads. Your printer heads are the parts of your printer that transfer the ink onto your page, so the heads must have no blockages, which could lower the quality of your print and cause issues for the printer itself. Most modern printers come with a self-cleaning function that makes it easy to keep your printer head clean. We would also recommend giving the casing dust every so often, just to avoid dust accumulation. 

If you have any questions about the work that we do or how Trade Your Toner can help you, then feel free to give us a call today on 01223 756442. We look forward to hearing from you.