Many small jobs on a laser

[Rui Sá]

I have a mono laser printer (KonicaMinolta PagePro 1300W) which I use
at home mostly to print small jobs: just a few pages or often a single
page (e.g., printing selected pages out of a long document).

I've read here a while back that doing many small jobs wears out the
drum faster (this printer has separate toner and drum): is this true
and how big is this effect? The drum has a rating of 20,000 pages but
there's no info on how many "printing jobs" it's good for...

Also, my "start up" toner is starting to run low and I'm considering
replacing it: there are options for 3000- and 6000-pages toners, the
later being better value: as 6000 pages would last me maybe 4-5 years,
is there a problem with degrading quality over time due to low usage?

I'm asking this as with my previous LJ III this was a real problem:
after a few years, printing quality significantly degraded, even with
plenty of toner left on the cartridge. Do I understand correctly that
this was a problem with the drum and not the toner itself?

So is it safe for me get a 6000-pages toner with a planned life of up
to 5 years? Or does toner quality degrade over time?

Or will the "small job" effect kill the drum before I can use all the
toner and would I be better off with the 3000-pages toner?

Any help on understanding better these issues is greatly appreciated.

 

[Alan]

So is it safe for me get a 6000-pages toner with a planned life of up
to 5 years? Or does toner quality degrade over time?

I live in a hot humid climate, and here I think once opened the toner
deteriorates after a year or less. If you have a dry climate (or
constant air conditioning) it should last longer. Personally I think
unless there is a huge cost penalty, use the smaller cartridge, two
years is already a long time to commit to using it. Otherwise you can
end up having to write off most of the toner either due to
deterioration, or if the printer has to be replaced for any reason.

I bought a new refill for my HPIII last year, then after using a few
hundred pages at most found it constantly jamming; the cost and hassle
of repair made replacing it with an HP4, much more capable, the best
choice. But the carts aren't compatible so the HPIII cart is just a
waste (I'm looking for someone lovcal to gift it to).

 

[Alan]

I have a mono laser printer (KonicaMinolta PagePro 1300W) which I use
at home mostly to print small jobs: just a few pages or often a single
page (e.g., printing selected pages out of a long document).

I've read here a while back that doing many small jobs wears out the
drum faster (this printer has separate toner and drum): is this true
and how big is this effect? The drum has a rating of 20,000 pages but
there's no info on how many "printing jobs" it's good for...

As to this point, printing lots of short documents is what most
printers do in office environments, most correspondence is one or two
pages.

However, if you want to batch jobs up, one way is to use FinePrint,
<http://www.fineprint.com/>, which can do that and has a lot of other
uses too (such as 2, 4, 8 ip printing, etc. Runs in demo mode with a
footer on the page.

 

[Elmo P. Shagnasty]

I've read here a while back that doing many small jobs wears out the
drum faster (this printer has separate toner and drum): is this true

No.

(What made you think that?)

 

[Rui Sá]

No.

(What made you think that?)

After some search, I found the post I was refering to. So you say Al
is wrong and there's no difference in printing small or long jobs on a
laser?

--------------------------------

 

[Dave]

After some search, I found the post I was refering to. So you say Al
is wrong and there's no difference in printing small or long jobs on a
laser?

I suppose, in theory, that the life of the printer and possibly the drum
mechanics may be shortened by doing lots of small print runs if the motors
have to start/stop between each job. The motors may be more likely to
fail and there may be more wear on any mechanical linkages/gears.

Dave

 

[John Beardmore]

However, if you want to batch jobs up, one way is to use FinePrint,
<http://www.fineprint.com/>, which can do that and has a lot of other
uses too (such as 2, 4, 8 ip printing, etc. Runs in demo mode with a
footer on the page.

Can't you just use 'pause printer' in the MS printer manager ?


Cheers, J/.

 

[Dave Null Sr.]

I suppose, in theory, that the life of the printer and possibly the drum
mechanics may be shortened by doing lots of small print runs if the
motors have to start/stop between each job. The motors may be more
likely to fail and there may be more wear on any mechanical
linkages/gears.

The difference between small jobs and large jobs is that the printer
(OKI in my case) does one turn of the drum before printing.
For a 1 page job the drum wear is 2 versus a 10 page where
the drum wear is 11 or a 100 page job = 101.

So if your drum is rated for 20,000 pages you'll get the following
amounts of paper out:

1 page jobs: 10,000
10 page jobs: 18,181
100 page jobs: 19,801

But it is probably not even that simple. The printer may do one
or more cycles of cleaning during a large print job, and it
may not cycle if you do 1 page jobs within X minutes while
the printer is still on. This cycling may be factored in to
the effective life of the drum and the number of pages they
tell you it can produce.

 

[Dave]

The difference between small jobs and large jobs is that the printer
(OKI in my case) does one turn of the drum before printing.
For a 1 page job the drum wear is 2 versus a 10 page where
the drum wear is 11 or a 100 page job = 101.

So if your drum is rated for 20,000 pages you'll get the following
amounts of paper out:

1 page jobs: 10,000
10 page jobs: 18,181
100 page jobs: 19,801

But it is probably not even that simple. The printer may do one
or more cycles of cleaning during a large print job, and it
may not cycle if you do 1 page jobs within X minutes while
the printer is still on. This cycling may be factored in to
the effective life of the drum and the number of pages they
tell you it can produce.

So the physical page count bears no relation to the drum life? It depends
on what and how much you print?

Dave