print unit/drum life

[woodse]

My Minolta Magicolor 7300 says the expected print life of the drum/print units is only about 32,500 pages, and they're expensive to replace. The printer even warns me when the life is getting low. Right now i have 4% remaining on the C M and Y print units... do i really need to replace them, or only if the print quality starts to deteriorate?

thanks.

 

[xeroxvendor]

Drum life is a funny thing, Let me give you an example.

Most toner cartriges today say they have a 5% density rating when calculating page counts. So if you only print 10-15 lines of text per page, your most likely going to get close to the page count on the box.

On the other hand, if you print detail photos, pictures, tons of text, etc.. your page count goes considerably lower.

The company that I work for has had to descripe this concept a dozen times because we reman toner all the time. People think that they are not getting their page counts.

Part of the OEM cartriges are Drums that are rated for exact amount of page counts the cartrige is stated for, but not much over.

As far as your Magic color drums, the machine probably counts the pages and figures its time to replace them. I would see if the print quality starts to deteriorate before switching them. Now I am not totally familar with that machine, but I hear that some machines stop working unless you replace the Drum, or reset the counter.



David Drury
Northeast Laser Image

http://www.northeastlaserimage.com

 

[VividUK]

The Magicolor 7300 will stop working after the Print Units expire. Im convinced the Unit first shipped have a lower life. The unit is suppose to expire when it gets to its life end and the toner cart runs out to avoid a full cart being installed then the print unit expiring. My unit was printing ok and as you I now have 3 print units gone down a the same time. 5 pages previous I had toner in all 3 Toner Carts. Some had atleast 50% toner. so I am a little annoyed at the unit stopping dead until I replace print units. Would love to know if it is possible to enter service mode and reset.

 

[woodse]

VividUK, funny, when my print units got down to 0, they just kept going... but started to look poor, so i replaced them. before i did, i recorded the % of toner remaining in each toner cart, then removed the toner cart. after i installed the new drum, i installed the partially used toner carts... printer reports them as 100% full, but i know the truth, and i'll know when to replace them... when they are down the % that was remining before the new drums... seesm to be working fine. funnny yours stopped working but mine did not. (the serial number on mine is "4")...

 

[Jomama46]

Most manuf set the replacement value on "percent of page fill" typically 4 ~ 11 %, Toshiba for instance has a "Selerex Letter" which is a business letter from the Selerex Corp, comprising 3 short paragraphs + letterhead. It is 4%.
Generally if can keep using carts until the machine stops. I think it is a good thing too. My ink jet has no such warning and in the middle of a big job, it starts running out of ink and keeps on printin'. Usually have to reprint from page 2!

Jomama