Override toner low alarm on Brother laser printer

Laser printers have a lot of advantages. The biggest advantage is that they can print thousands of pages by using only one toner cartridge. If you are a user of Brother’s laser printer you can print thousands of pages even after low toner alarm displays on the panel. Let’s see how to override the alarm.

Open front door of the printer

Take the cartridge out of the printer.

Press green tab on left side of the cartridge and take the toner unit out.

On right side of the printer you’ll find a clear plastic lens. A laser beam shines through this lens and detected by a sensor on the other side. In case sufficient toner is present in the cartridge the beam is blocked and can’t hit the sensor. However if it successfully passes through the lens it means that toner is near to end. In this condition printer will display a message to replace the toner cartridge even some amount of toner is still there. You can consume the remaining toner if you prevent the laser beam to reach to the detector. Masking tape, a piece of paper or any other hard material can be used for this purpose. Some youtube videos suggest that you might print more than 3000 prints on MFC-7860DW, TN-450bcartridge and other models.