OKI Printing Solutions develops and makes its own consumables to ensure the best performance from our printers. While there seems to be many choices of replacement consumable for OKI® toner-based printers—including some from non-printer companies—only one brand is recommended for use in our machines: genuine OKI Printing Solutions toner.

In the mid 1990s, OKI Printing Solutions introduced a revolutionary new type of toner for their monochrome page printer engines.

Traditionally, a crushing/grinding process was used to produce the fine toner powder to be used in the electrophotographic printing process (see image at right). OKI Printing Solutions understood that this process led to some disadvantages to the printer user:

• Jagged edges of the toner particles allowed the toner to form on the paper in poor image quality (creating a "dusting" effect)
• Scattering effect that was visible at edges of lines and characters, due to the movement of the rough edged toner during the process

To overcome these deficiencies, OKI Printing Solutions developed Microfine Spherical Toner. A chemical process is used, producing smooth round particles about one-tenth the size of traditional toner (see image at right).

The advantages were immediately clear.

• Virtually no toner scatter
• Sharper, crisper characters (even visible to the naked eye)

As users' printing demands increase and printers are required to print at higher speeds, the toner must be heat/pressure fused to the paper in ever shortening times. This means fusing at higher temperatures and therefore higher printer power consumption.

OKI Printing Solutions' commitment to preserving the environment dictated that OKI engineering should develop a low melting temperature toner to overcome this problem. A unique special toner was created. To stop the low temperature toner surface fusing and coagulating during storage, each individual toner particle is encapsulated in a polymer shell to preserve the integrity and free-flow characteristics of the compound. OKI Printing Solutions can now continue to produce printers that use no extra power to fuse the toner to the paper thus preserving the environment.

As a by-product of this development, the user gets:

• Faster printing as the printer takes less time to warm up
• No additional/less energy consumption - more environmentally friendly
• Noise reduction in some of our printers due to absence of a fan