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emailaddress
We have a Lexmark C770n color laser printer that seems to terribly
waste toner.
http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/product/home/957/0,6970,204816596_653399446_801075133_en,00.html
It keeps track of % coverage per page and # of pages for B&W, and a
separate % coverage and # of pages count for color (if it prints a
single blue dot on a page, that is considered one cumulative color
page) in total. Based on our use which is mostly black text (this is
not a scenario where someone might be sneakily printing big pictures,
we are certain of what has been printed), looking at what we have
printed, the stats it displays seem accurate.
The stats for this ~18 month old printer are 5,500 pages printed black
at 3% coverage, 540 pages color at < 2% coverage. This is a typical
office, temperature and humidity controlled environment using regular
20lb copy/multipurpose paper and printing an address on laser
envelopes about once per 500 pages. Another laser printer, different
model a few feet away performs as expected without the issues this
printer has.
We accept that the first black cartridge may have been used up at
5,500 pages as it was only rated for 6,000 pages. However the Lexmark
C770n has wasted an entire 6K page yellow cartridge, it is now empty
without having printed even 100 pages worth of color text. The other
cartridges are also reporting low at 20% remaining toner without
having printed much at all. The printouts having color on them at
all are few and far inbetween, not only because it was printing plain
text documents, but obviously looking at the printouts they are only
B&W with rare small amounts of color.
What we have printed looks fine, the printer displays no errors or
warnings and seems to monitor itself in several ways. Only one
operational issue exists that we are aware of, that it seems whenever
the printer goes into sleep mode (currently set for a 20 minute
interval), it requires over a minute wait while the "heating" message
is on-screen, or over 90 seconds while a calibration message is on-
screen. Is this now typical for color lasers? How can they advertise
a 15 second time to _FIRST_ page when the first page always takes in
excess of 70 seconds, only subsequent pages print within 15 seconds?
We could accept 30 seconds, even a bit longer but this seems an
unreasonable period when it takes over 70 seconds for even a single
line of black text to print. None of our other laser printers take
1/2 this long even from a complete power-down, power up.
This is only a secondary concern, mentioned in case it is significant
to the main problem of massive toner waste. Most often when we print
a color page the only color is a handful of blue email links, perhaps
0.1% coverage for color. It has a separate toner waste container
rated to be good for 180,000 pages black, and 50,000 pages color.
That waste container is now roughly half full of wasted toner after
only 5,500 B&W pages printed at 3% coverage, 540 color pages at < 2%
coverage. We have not set it to print dark, nor in high quality mode,
it's the normal default print settings (which we have checked in it's
setup menus to be sure) and almost entirely small font black text. We
have compared the estimates to ISO 19752, 24712 test pages upon which
the cartridges were supposedly rated.
What can be done? The printer has now wasted hundreds of dollars
worth of toner. Unfortunately it is over a year old, outside of it's
warranty period? It's a shame we print low enough volume that it took
over a year for the color cartridges to empty themselves. We are
certain these are 6K page cartridges, not the "starter" underfilled
cartridges that come with some lower-cost printers today. We have
upgraded the firmware to the latest version several months ago, before
we were aware the toner was being wasted so fast, in an attempt to
combat the aforementioned issue of excessive heating/calibration
waits. We have contacted someone with Lexmark but have yet to receive
anything further from them.
I'm concerned that their reply will be something like "blah blah blah
% coverage, usage, average ratings", as if their product shouldn't
have to achieve anywhere near the 6K pages that we've paid hundreds of
dollars for in toner. We can accept it may not exceed 5999.999 pages,
that it's just a ball-park estimate or average, but not a mere 540
pages at < 2% coverage. This is not a case of the printer
misreporting that toner is low, the fading print and amount of toner
remaining visible when the toner refill cap is removed show the toner
is gone, as well as the amount of waste toner in the waste container.
We hope for a resolution, or at least a recommendation for a
replacement printer that doesn't take over a minute to warm up and
attains near it's ratings for toner. Being able to refill the toner
ourselves or buy remanufactured cartridges would be a plus, ultimate
photo-realistic quality output is not necessary, nor does it need to
be as high a duty cycle as the C770n though cartridges capable of 4K
pages or more are desired. I often hear good things about Brother and
HP, are any of those especially good or bad?
waste toner.
http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/product/home/957/0,6970,204816596_653399446_801075133_en,00.html
It keeps track of % coverage per page and # of pages for B&W, and a
separate % coverage and # of pages count for color (if it prints a
single blue dot on a page, that is considered one cumulative color
page) in total. Based on our use which is mostly black text (this is
not a scenario where someone might be sneakily printing big pictures,
we are certain of what has been printed), looking at what we have
printed, the stats it displays seem accurate.
The stats for this ~18 month old printer are 5,500 pages printed black
at 3% coverage, 540 pages color at < 2% coverage. This is a typical
office, temperature and humidity controlled environment using regular
20lb copy/multipurpose paper and printing an address on laser
envelopes about once per 500 pages. Another laser printer, different
model a few feet away performs as expected without the issues this
printer has.
We accept that the first black cartridge may have been used up at
5,500 pages as it was only rated for 6,000 pages. However the Lexmark
C770n has wasted an entire 6K page yellow cartridge, it is now empty
without having printed even 100 pages worth of color text. The other
cartridges are also reporting low at 20% remaining toner without
having printed much at all. The printouts having color on them at
all are few and far inbetween, not only because it was printing plain
text documents, but obviously looking at the printouts they are only
B&W with rare small amounts of color.
What we have printed looks fine, the printer displays no errors or
warnings and seems to monitor itself in several ways. Only one
operational issue exists that we are aware of, that it seems whenever
the printer goes into sleep mode (currently set for a 20 minute
interval), it requires over a minute wait while the "heating" message
is on-screen, or over 90 seconds while a calibration message is on-
screen. Is this now typical for color lasers? How can they advertise
a 15 second time to _FIRST_ page when the first page always takes in
excess of 70 seconds, only subsequent pages print within 15 seconds?
We could accept 30 seconds, even a bit longer but this seems an
unreasonable period when it takes over 70 seconds for even a single
line of black text to print. None of our other laser printers take
1/2 this long even from a complete power-down, power up.
This is only a secondary concern, mentioned in case it is significant
to the main problem of massive toner waste. Most often when we print
a color page the only color is a handful of blue email links, perhaps
0.1% coverage for color. It has a separate toner waste container
rated to be good for 180,000 pages black, and 50,000 pages color.
That waste container is now roughly half full of wasted toner after
only 5,500 B&W pages printed at 3% coverage, 540 color pages at < 2%
coverage. We have not set it to print dark, nor in high quality mode,
it's the normal default print settings (which we have checked in it's
setup menus to be sure) and almost entirely small font black text. We
have compared the estimates to ISO 19752, 24712 test pages upon which
the cartridges were supposedly rated.
What can be done? The printer has now wasted hundreds of dollars
worth of toner. Unfortunately it is over a year old, outside of it's
warranty period? It's a shame we print low enough volume that it took
over a year for the color cartridges to empty themselves. We are
certain these are 6K page cartridges, not the "starter" underfilled
cartridges that come with some lower-cost printers today. We have
upgraded the firmware to the latest version several months ago, before
we were aware the toner was being wasted so fast, in an attempt to
combat the aforementioned issue of excessive heating/calibration
waits. We have contacted someone with Lexmark but have yet to receive
anything further from them.
I'm concerned that their reply will be something like "blah blah blah
% coverage, usage, average ratings", as if their product shouldn't
have to achieve anywhere near the 6K pages that we've paid hundreds of
dollars for in toner. We can accept it may not exceed 5999.999 pages,
that it's just a ball-park estimate or average, but not a mere 540
pages at < 2% coverage. This is not a case of the printer
misreporting that toner is low, the fading print and amount of toner
remaining visible when the toner refill cap is removed show the toner
is gone, as well as the amount of waste toner in the waste container.
We hope for a resolution, or at least a recommendation for a
replacement printer that doesn't take over a minute to warm up and
attains near it's ratings for toner. Being able to refill the toner
ourselves or buy remanufactured cartridges would be a plus, ultimate
photo-realistic quality output is not necessary, nor does it need to
be as high a duty cycle as the C770n though cartridges capable of 4K
pages or more are desired. I often hear good things about Brother and
HP, are any of those especially good or bad?