Color Laser Printer - Cartridge Rebuilds

I am not a big fan of getting ripped off on replacement color laser toner. On most major brand machines (HP, Lexmark, Dell), toner cartridges are encoded with a microchip, making them virtually impossible to rebuild or refill. As anyone who owns one of these brands knows, the cost of a new set of toner units often equals or exceeds the cost of a new printer.

Over the past few years, I have used OKI 5200/5300 series color LED printers. The toner cartridge is seperate from the drum (and therefore easily refillable) and the drum (although programmed to stop working at 15,000 pages) can be reset in about 15 minutes with minor disassembly and a 75 cent fuse, giving it another 15,000 pages of quality output. Using this system, I have reduced print costs by over 60% with no loss of print quality.

Although OKI still uses the seperate cartridges and drums in their newer (5400 and up) series color printers, I'm wondering if anyone has any feedback on if the drums can still be reset by replacing the fuse. Also, are there any other brands of color laser printers not using microchip encoded toner cartridges that can be refilled? (FYI, I've considered solid ink units made by Xerox; however I've read horror stories about entire ink blocks melting in the event of a temporary power loss/restart).

Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.