Some toners have iron because the process uses a magnetic brush to deposit it on the drum . some others don’t because the iron filings are in the unit and you just coat them with toner. I tried different toner in an empty Epson cartridge and none was picked up.i believe HP uses the brush. I have a gestetner copier and it has non magnetic toner. The toner is deposited into a tray of iron filings which then puts it on the drum. I believe the Xerox process also works this way with the iron filings,at least in the machine I have,
From: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2016 2:42 AM
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Homebrew_PCBs] Re: Pantum 2500 hack to direct print toner
In reference to the idea of the toner having iron in it, I believe it's fairly common to find toner with iron. I saw an instructable (Or maybe it was a video on YT) that explained how to make your own "ferrorfluid" using toner and some sort of light oil. --Seemed to work perfectly. I bought some generic toner (In a bottle) for this very purpose, and it does appear to be magnetic. Looks like it's quite common for HP toner to have iron in it, check out this rather long list of toner carts that have iron:
iron oxide in current laser toner cartridges?
| iron oxide in current laser toner cartridges? I have an HP laser jet P1102W laser jet. I would like to be able to print decals onto ceramic decal paper for firing onto enamel. To do this, I need a toner cartri... | ||||
Preview by Yahoo | |||||
![\"image\"](\"https://ec.yimg.com/ec?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsg.i.lithium.com%2Fhtml%2Fassets%2Ffb_large.png&t=1572567549&sig=R4Md8OS42XZV7QtG4jGeEg--~E\")
The person who asked about it was also told to just check the MSDS, which sounds like a perfect idea to determine whether other toner contains iron. Since it's so common to have iron in toner it doesn't seem like it would be a problem for toner-transfer/direct printing. If we could get someone who has modded a printer for direct PCB printing (And it works well) to see if their toner is magnetic that would be really helpful. I'm guessing you'd need a NdFeB magnetic to see the effect, as weaker magnets are unlikely to show as much attraction since the iron (As iron oxide or ferrite) isn't likely to be over around 40-50%. I tried looking up any MSDS sheets for Pantum toner and haven't found a single one. HP, Brother, Cano! n... They all have easy links to MSDS for their toner, here's one for Canon that specifically details it containing 40-50% ferrite, and I found several others (Canon) that contained that or iron oxide at the same concentration:
-Larry