The Canon FC 120 is quite a neat little copier, for most offices and home use that just want a neat little fast copying machine it’s a great choice. It’s not expensive either you can pick one up for a couple of hundred dollars, and possibly less as newer models hit the market.

When you read the marketing information, I see yet again the usual rubbish designed to pretend to the customer that they’re using technology to help the customer and reduce costs. Whereas the reality is that the Canon FC 120 is designed to maximise profits, what do you think ?

Neat Little Copier - Canon FC120

When you are checking through the specifications of this copier, you might read the section about teh innovative new toner cartridges. The marketing pitch goes something like this,

Canon’s unique All-in-One cartridge includes the core copying elements (toner, drum, cleaner unit) making your copier virtually maintenance-free

They are trying to tell you that replacing all the core components of a toner cartridge each time it’s run out of ink, makes it easy to maintain. I guess there is some truth to that, but what it fails to take into account is that this means that the cost of each printer toner cartridges for the Canon FC 120 is significantly more expensive. Each time your copier runs out of ink you are forced to replace not only the toner but the drum and cleaner unit as well and of course this costs.

Two Canon FC 120 Cartridges = New Printer

That’s it buy a couple of FC120 cartridges and you’ll have spent nearly the same money as the cost of the printer. Does technology really need us to be producing such disposable, one use and wasteful products. Is there not a better way of doing this?

Well I’ll tell you there is, this Canon printer cartridge is actually easily refilled. When the toner runs out, the components are fine, they are not so badly manufactured that they can only last one print run !! Most laser toner cartridges are fine for several runs despite what the manufacturers would have you to believe.

The Canon FC120 takes a couple of minutes to refill, of course your not replacing the other components in the cartridge you are simply refilling it. Look for a toner refilling company who will sell you some toner and ideally initially a small kit which makes the process childs play.

Check that they sell specific compatible toner for your Canon FC 120 and not the cheap universal toner that some companies sell. It literally takes a few minutes and each refill will be saving you about 80-90 % of the cost of a new cartridge, that’s potentially hundreds of dollars. Of course the other components in the Toner cartridge will eventually run out and you’ll notice the difference in quality and then it’s time to buy a new cartridge and repeat the process. Just to give you an idea of the savings, the company I use is here and they charge about $13/£9 for a bottle of toner for the FC120, after which it prints perfectly.  There are many good companies doing the same though.

YOU WILL SAVE A FORTUNE and each time you do this, you are making an environmental saving and reducing the amount of landfill required for each toner cartridge. The printer companies could easily make cartridges like the Canon FC120 easily refillable out of the box, saving the customers money and the environmental costs would plummet, of course so would their profits, so I guess we will never see this happen.

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