Does anyone know truth about color laser toner cartridge page count?

[3dron]

Does anyone know if a toner cartridges page count is an estimate and actual toner is measured. Or if it is the exact number a cartridge is forced to last (by micro-chip) even if you print pages with one dot of toner on them?

For example I have a Minolta 2430DL and black toner states 4,500 page count. If I print 4,500 pages with one black dot will the cartridge say it needs replacing?

If this is the case, that really sucks. But also I have made sure to put two printer icons (profiles) of the same Minolta, one set to black output only for B/W and color. Because I am not sure if you tell it to print B/W on standard setting if it uses all colors together to produce black and thus killing the life of those color cartridges also.

Anyone have all the answers?

Ron

 

[HDTVMan]

google for toner refill kits for your unit and see if they also sell page count resetters. That should tell you.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

The rule I have seen is 5% coverage.

 

[wseyller]

Pages are calculated by actual toner using 5% coverage. I know with hp colors the printer is able to determine how much toner is applied and calculated the value on the chip. This may not be the most accurate though. You also must realize that advertized page yield you may never get. Normally with hp oem it's a little under depending on the testing standard used. Most good remanufacturers go by a test standard referred to as STM using ASTM F 1856 and ASTM F 2036. These standards are used to measure toner usage and reflection density. In fact HP has agreed that this testing standard is reliable. It's hard to determine actual page yield, and it must be estimated. No cartridge is the same and result vary by printer as well, but averages can be obtained. With this yield test the cartridge is ran with 5% (+-0.5% tolerance). Only 80% of the cartridge is used. Cartridge is ran 2 or 3 intervals at 1000 pages within the 80%. Cartridge is weight before and after the intervals to find how many grams of toner is used per pages. Then intervals are averaged and with that and knowing how much toner is in the toner hopper we can figure estimated page yield. This is very brief explanation. Many other things are important to remanufactures such as transfer efficiency (basically the toner going to waste instead of being transfered to the paper) which can be horrible due to low quality components and inconsistance toner particle size.

Also density is a huge factor. When density is high page yield will fall. With some components you may see this vary throughout the life, so density test are done while running the test. I normally like to see density slightly better than oem. Using some better component as well to increase transfer efficiency and sometimes you can have better yield and density.