On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 09:30:25 +0000, Chris Green wrote:

wrote:
On Sunday, March 15, 1998 at 4:00:00 AM UTC-4, Tyler Melanson wrote:
I know the Duty Cycle is the max number of pages that a
laser printer can handle per month, but I don't understand
why a limit is set on the monthly print capacity allowable by
a laser printer. Does this max page capacity set reffering
to the max # of pages it can handle before it needs maintanance
or something?

Duty cycle for printers is the number of prints that a printer/copier can
produce in one month without a component failure or non customer replaceable
units like toner or imaging kits. All manufacturers calculate this differently
as there is no industry standard. This is not a figure that a home device
or even typically office mfp's are going to be printing (other than perhaps
a print shop or service bureau). Duty cycles can be anywhere from 7-10
times the recommended monthly maximum impressions. This figure should be
used rather than Duty cycle as it is a realistic monthly average and may
also factor in TCO

I never really understood either figure.

Why should limiting output to, say, 1000 sides per month, be better
for the printer?
Various possibilities:
1. pages/month is just a marketing thing so people have an idea of
how many pages/month they can print and get a reasonable
calendar lifetime for the computer and reasonable time between
replacements other than for toner or ink.

2. over heating: I don't know about printers, around 2000 I had
HP tape drives that were not rated for writing a full tape
and then reading it on the same day. HP support said didn't have
to wait a full day, but at least 8 hours. (HP also replaced the
drives each time they failed, but that was only 2 replacements
for the same unit before I went to disk backups anyhow.)

Depending on cool off times needed, 1000 pages continuously
might be a big problem; but 250 pages continuously then, say,
a two hour rest, 12 times a day might not result in a
reduced total page count for the printer.

3. This one probably doesn't apply for office printers, but might
apply for service bureaus:
In the old days, IBM or whoever, would do
preventive maintenance (PM) periodically.
(tightening up things, changing the oil in the
printer, cleaning or replacing filters, running extensive
diagnostics, etc.)


If the printer is going to wear out after 20000
sheets then why not just say so? I don't believe it's going to print
more sheets if limited to 1000 sheets per month (i.e. it dies after 20
months) than if one tries to print 20000 sheets in two months.