Printer toner drum life vs page coverage - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2023, 11:17:45 pm
content: Say we have two situations, one where our printer is putting heaps of toner on the page printing graphics and most of the page area has something on it. The second situation is we are simply printing a few lines of text and so the vast majority of the page is blank.In the high coverage situation most of the toner is left on the drum and rolled onto the paper. In the low coverage situation only a tiny bit of toner is left on the drum to be rolled onto the paper and the vast majority is removed by the laser discharging the electric field on the drum.So in which situation would the drum last longest? What actually wears the drum surface out?

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2023, 11:50:20 pm
content: The type of toner itself is more important to the drum's life than anything else.If you use a cheap third party toner, one not from the manufacturer, the micro-plastic bead size will most likely be wrong permanently damaging the drum. This is a special case with color laser/led printers where buying a third party toner will kill your drum after the first few prints go through the last of the good toner and all of a sudden you get streaks and spots over every print you make. Once this happens, you have no choice but to replace everything or live with garbage prints the rest of your life.Also, bad gritty or dirty dusty paper also plays a role. So do envelopes. But only in cases where you use a sensitive color printer where consistent half-tones are a requirement. My method is use a a cheap 75$ BW laser for my junk printing and treat my expensive color laser/LED printer like a pampered child and never worry about print quality issues there.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2023, 11:53:26 pm
content: Note than in the late 80s / early 90's, I did re-polish my Apple Laser Writer II's drum with 2 different grit polishes designed for audio CD scratches and it did improve things after I went through a bad batch of trying out photocopier toner because of price. It took another try to find compatible toner.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 12:25:08 am
content: Quote from: BrianHG on March 04, 2023, 11:53:26 pmI'm surprised that worked, isn't the photosensitive coating extremely thin?

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 12:41:02 am
content: Quote from: james_s on March 05, 2023, 12:25:08 amIn the 80's, laser printer drums were a thick green plastic tube with a thin inner metal tube. (Thick being a relative term...) I guess the material was optically sensitive to the IR laser diode. Photo copiers of the time used optical white light.Today, it may be a super thin coating. Perhaps it helps with resolution and shorter wavelengths of light like red, maybe blue.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 12:47:15 am
content: Interesting, I have only a small sample size that I've been inside, but the drums I've seen looked like a translucent green coating on an aluminum drum.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 12:52:55 am
content: The Apple Laserwriter and old Nec Silentwriter II & III I owned weren't translucent at all. It was completely opaque as if it were all plastic. Though, the polish finish was shiny like glass when new.