Printing decals with white toner

[Scottl]

I've been using a white toner cartridge on my laser printer for decals.  It was an inexpensive product from Aliexpress and the quality has been as good as any OEM toner cartridge.

I wondered, could I incorporate white into color printing?  Most printers have Yellow, magenta, cyan and black toner, so if I could replace one of the colors with white, it might be useful.  My initial idea was to replace yellow with white so that I can print white first.  For my purposes, I want to make a yellow decal with black lettering, so I need white for background, yellow and then black. 

I have an HP laser and all four toner cartridges are the same.  When I replaced magenta with yellow and yellow with white, it wouldn't print and told me the cartridges were out of order.  After some research, I learned the cartridges have a chip in them that the printer uses.  I simply switched the chip in the yellow cartridge with the magenta, and similarly yellow chip in the white.  You just have to pop the chips out.  You can see the chip contacts on the bottom side of the image.



Ok, now the printer works!  But it thinks white is yellow and yellow is magenta so the graphics need to be prepared with this in mind.

In the simple examples from the screen, I did two things.  First, everything was converted to pure yellow for first pass of the printer.  This gave white printed rectangles.  I carefully put the paper back in the printer, and then changed the elements I wanted to be yellow to pure magenta in the file, and the blacks pure black.  I then printed this over the white to get the final composite. I printed on blue paper, BTW.






So not super simple, but now I can print white with other colors.   Obviously,  I have limitations with the magenta cartridge out, but I'm now experimenting with taking the black out and making black out of the three primary colors and white.  It is promising, but converting real colors into the modified toner set up will have some limitations.

Some ideas to make better use of a tool many of us have available.

[James Costello]

Really, really clever @Scottl - opens up a few opportunities for sure!

[bbussey]

I have a dedicated b&w Canon printer with white toner. I use Sunnyscopa decal paper, which is super thin, so I print the backgrounds in white and use the HP for color and overlay the color over the white.

[CNscale]

Hey Scott, thanks for posting this. A while back I tried searching AliExpress for an HP white toner cartridge, but the only results I got were ordinary CMYK cartridges along with results for white toner powder refills. Do you have a link you can share?
 

[Scottl]

I bought it a long time ago, I'll see if I can find a link in my order history.

[Scottl]

This is the brand but my toner cartridge is not longer available.  Hopefully this search might lead to you specific type. 

Civoprint M254 M254dw 254nw 203A CF540A transfer white toner cartridge compatible for HP laser printer toner cartridge

[CNscale]

Thanks - I think that's my problem; the cartridge type I need just isn't available.

So I guess I'll try to work up the courage to try the powder option and see if I can get that to work. (I never had much success with those inkjet refill kits).

[Scottl]

I have a dedicated b&w Canon printer with white toner. I use Sunnyscopa decal paper, which is super thin, so I print the backgrounds in white and use the HP for color and overlay the color over the white.

I have also been using the Sunyscopa decal paper and agree, it is fantastic on models.  I tried it after you mentioned it here some time ago.  Hard to get but worth the effort.  I just acquired some with blue paper backing for printing white.

[bbussey]

I have also been using the Sunyscopa decal paper and agree, it is fantastic on models.  I tried it after you mentioned it here some time ago.  Hard to get but worth the effort.  I just acquired some with blue paper backing for printing white.

Scott — definitely hard to get Sunnyscopa in the States. But if you order direct from the company, it’s actually cheaper and they have a wider selection of what’s available here and they ship it economically and lightning fast. It arrives almost as quickly as if ordering domestically. I discovered that accidentally when I contacted them to ask why their blue-backed paper was so difficult to find, and they suggested to order directly.

Regarding white toner, I got mine from Ghost. https://www.ghost-white-toner.com/landingpage-us/
They make cartridges for a number of printers and the toner is very opaque. To the printer, it appears to be the black toner cartridge. I don’t know if they make cartridges for color lasers because I think they lay down the black toner last. When I was using Alps, I had to print two layers to get the same opacity. It’s not stark white, but it’s perfect for railroad decals. All the models I’ve finished the last three years that have white lettering have been done with my Canon printer and the Ghost toner.

[Scottl]

I was able to get Sunyscopa white backing paper through Amazon, so free shipping.   The blue backing I ordered directly from them in Korea, but shipping to Canada was $50.  It did come in 4 days, probably in a pouch on a KAL flight first class.

The ghost cartridges are a good option, but I found them very expensive, about $250 for my particular cartridge.  My Aliexpress OEM was $84.  So there are options if your printer cartridge is available from China.  Searching last night indicates my cartridge is no longer available from Aliexpress  but there were a few others so still some potential there.  But if a person does a lot of decals, even $250 is probably worth it for the ability to do white.

My prices are in Canadian pesos, so USD are likely to be about 40% less.

[haasmarc]

Bryan, which Canon printer are you using to print white?

[JeffB]

Bryan, which Canon printer are you using to print white?

I second that question...  When I go to the website, I type in "Canon" and there's no model number that matches my basic home laser printer.

Jeff

[bbussey]

Canon LBP622Cdw. It’s a color printer but I never use the color as the quality of the HP 452dn is much better. I picked up the Canon specifically for the Ghost toner as it was the least expensive option.

[Sokramiketes]

This sounds intriguing Bryan.  Presumably the registration is good enough on both machines to line up white backgrounds with color overlays? 

[JeffB]

Canon LBP622Cdw. It’s a color printer but I never use the color as the quality of the HP 452dn is much better. I picked up the Canon specifically for the Ghost toner as it was the least expensive option.

Thanks Brian...  Though for anyone interested, Canon has replaced Bryan's printer model with the LBP632Cdw.  Supposedly, it's an upgraded direct replacement.

Not sure if the white toner cartridge is compatible.

Jeff