Make laser printer drum last longer by rotating page?

[Circlotron]

I have to add a small amount of text across the long edge of 10,000 pre-printed sheets. This would be using only a small part of the end of the printer drum. Would I get more life out of the drum if I rotated half of the sheets so the other end of the drum was also used?

[Gyro]

Typically the drum makes several rotations per sheet (its circumference is a lot smaller than the length of the sheet).

[Nusa]

He said the long edge of the paper, which means all the printing is on one side of the roller.

I'd say yes, doing two runs of 5000 with the second run flipping the page would be helpful in maximizing drum life.

On the other hand, for 10000 copies you might be better off having a print shop do it for you. If your printer can do 30 ppm (a respectable speed for a desktop type printer), that's going to take 6 hours, during which you'll probably have to add paper quite a few times.

Also, one doesn't need to use your laser printer for this task. A fast high-end office copier with huge input/output trays could likely do this job better and faster.

[tooki]

I don't think drum life has much to do with where toner is applied. I wouldn't worry about it. But I'm with Nusa on this: doing this at a print shop probably makes more sense.

[Halcyon]

Is the cost of a new drum over 10,000 prints really that important? What kind of printer is it? For a small workgroup printer, you'd be probably looking at AUD$150-$200 per drum and that's at retail prices. For dealer pricing, you're probably looking at half that cost.

In any case, wouldn't the printer have enough "smarts" to evenly distribute a large print job over the surface area of the drum?

Alternatively, do you have access to a dot matrix printer?

[tooki]

In any case, wouldn't the printer have enough "smarts" to evenly distribute a large print job over the surface area of the drum?

No. Drums rotate in gear-driven lockstep with the whole paper path, other than the pickup rollers.

But either way, the OP said the printing is along the long edge, so assuming it’s A4/letter paper in an A4/letter printer, all the printing will happen on a narrow band of the drum, which is why they are worrying about the drum.

IMHO, drum wear has nothing to do with where the toner is placed; drum wear happens primarily from abrasion with the toner roller, doctor blade, and the transfer roller or paper itself (depending on the engine). This wear is thus dependent on the page count, regardless of page coverage. (I doubt there’s much difference in the durability of the drum surface between low and high volume printers. But since low volume printers use much smaller drums, their drums need to make many more revolutions per page, meaning much more wear per page, compared to the large drums of high volume models.)

[Brumby]

IMHO, drum wear has nothing to do with where the toner is placed; drum wear happens primarily from abrasion with the toner roller, doctor blade, and the transfer roller or paper itself (depending on the engine). This wear is thus dependent on the page count, regardless of page coverage.

This was my thinking as well ... and if you want to add any optical effects from the laser - just remember the laser is used to remove the charge from the drum.  Thus a small print area would mean the drum is almost completely scanned by the laser.

[tooki]

just remember the laser is used to remove the charge from the drum.

FYI, though I have no clue which is more prevalent, laser printers exist in both polarities, if you will. The laser removes the charge, but in some it’s a negative charge being removed, in others positive. I think this means some printers draw a negative image with the laser, while others draw a positive image.

[Brumby]

That little detail was niggling at me when I posted what I did - but the ones I have dealt with remove charge.  I concede my comment was experience biased.

[Halcyon]

Thanks tooki for the clarification. I learned something. 

[nali]

just remember the laser is used to remove the charge from the drum.

FYI, though I have no clue which is more prevalent, laser printers exist in both polarities, if you will. The laser removes the charge, but in some it’s a negative charge being removed, in others positive. I think this means some printers draw a negative image with the laser, while others draw a positive image.

I think you're referring to "white-writing" versus "black-writing". I believe most laser printers use black-writing now, i.e. the laser only writes the areas where toner is to be deposited on the paper. It doesn't really matter about the actual polarity of the charge; the process is the same.

In the printers I worked with it goes something like this:

• Drum surface & toner are both charged to the same polarity
• Laser causes the drum surface to conduct & dissipate charge to metal substrate
• There is now a charge difference between toner and written areas, so toner is attracted to the drum
• An opposite charge on the back of the paper transfers the toner to the paper

[tooki]

Thanks! I couldn't remember the terminology, but yes, that's exactly what I was thinking of!!

P.S. Why'd you add so much whitespace to the end of your post??

[nali]

I didn't notice... just sloppiness on my part 

[SeanB]

Important is what printer it is, and how was the previous info put on the paper. If the old was laser printed you will probably have some slight issues with fuser spotting as it remelts the toner, especially if it is an older fuser with high page count. However the drum wear will be the same as if you were doing full page prints, so simply use a cartridge if it is low during the job. If it was printed using a offset printer then you might have some slight paper path extra debris from the ink particles, but in both cases you will just have to refer to the manual and manually clean out the paper path fully before and after, and it will be fine. If it has a separate toner assembly and toner tank then no worries, drums used there are hard wearing and will survive. Refill cartridges with a new toner drum as well are hard surfaced, they last a lot longer in use.

I generally, with a HP M101dn, get 4000 pages plus out of a refilled cartridge, as opposed to the "Genuine HP" which does 1500 pages before empty, though with the refilled one for the last 2k pages the printer is kind of gently complaining that toner is "very low, approximately -- pages remaining" on every print job. Probably will get 5k pages before it runs out totally or starts getting streaks of light.

[Circlotron]

Printer is a Fuji Xerox DocuPrint M225 dw.
Original printing was done with an offset printer.

Got about 500 sheets into it and the printer said nuh, toner cartridge is empty. Went to YouTube printer school for a few minutes and found out how to reset a few plastic gears in the toner cartridge that reset the page counter in the printer when the first page passes through a new toner cartridge. Proceeded to get a further 3500 pages out of it. Plenty more still in it so it would seem. Towards the end the page was getting a few streaks through the printed area so I rotated the text 180 deg and put the paper in around the opposite direction so it would use the other end of the drum. After about 150 sheets this end would also get streaky so reversed it back to the original way and that was good for another 100 or so. Then back to rotated direction for another 100 but the results are starting to decline despite the drum having supposedly 57% life left. Ordered new one and we’ll see how that goes.

[Old Don]

A cheaper method could be to use a local print shop to over print what you need or find a copy center that has newer digital Gestetner machine. The newest one of those that I saw was networked and would cut a stencil automatically that was good for 5,000 copies. Do it twice and you're at 10,000. Both would use ink and not toner.

[jmelson]

I have to add a small amount of text across the long edge of 10,000 pre-printed sheets. This would be using only a small part of the end of the printer drum. Would I get more life out of the drum if I rotated half of the sheets so the other end of the drum was also used?

Go to FedEx office and see what they can do.  It is CRAZY to run 10K pages through a home laser printer.

Jon