Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mcnc!decvax!ucbvax!UUNET.UU.NET!roy%phri From: roy%phri@UUNET.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.laser-printers Subject: Re: LW fuser problems? Message-ID: <8712172323.AA16192@brillig.umd.edu> Date: 25 Nov 87 15:54:00 GMT References: <8711242034.AA21602@brillig.umd.edu> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY) Lines: 62 Approved: laser-lovers@brillig.umd.edu In <8711242034.AA21602@brillig.umd.edu> chuq@SUN.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: > I was amused by [Mactutor's claim of fuser roller damage in LaserWriters > from contact with the rubber guides]. Here at Sun we tend to beat LW's > into the ground [...] I've never seen this on the machines here, and I > think if this was a 'common' problem it would have shown up by now. We have exactly the same problem on one of our LW's. It's got 70k copies on it and has developed scratches in the fuser roller where the red rubber stripper fingers contact it. These scratches come out as vertical lines down the length of the paper. We're a bit peeved that we only got 70k copies out of it, but still think the LW's are fine machines. We're not sure what to do with the printer now. We could just keep it for throw-away output (other than the vertical lines, the print quality is still fine), or we could invest the money to get it overhauled. > Mactutor's well known for barking up trees before getting the facts, > especially when it looks like they can get some publicity or make Apple > look bad. [...] For all we know, they're refilling their cartridges with > bad toner or something, and it's corroding their rollers. I've never seen a Mactutor, so for all I know, they may or may not be the sleazy rag Chuq says they are. On the other hand, I think in this case they are 100% correct. We've seen the problem ourselves, and have heard mention of it several times in the past (on Laser-Lovers, I think). It appears to be a well-documented fact that the stripper fingers will indeed scratch the fuser roller after a while (fastidious cleaning of the fingers when you change the cartridge is supposed to help). Also, the other day, a Cannon repair person was here to fix one of our "xerox" machines (a fairly new Cannon NP-4035). The repair person showed me how the (surprise!) fuser roller was getting messed up by the stripper fingers. Maybe there is something endemic in the way Cannon designs fuser roller mechanisms? Chuq may be right about the low-grade tonor being a factor. The particular LW I have in mind has used genuine Apple or HP virgin cartridges for the first 50k or so pages of its life; we've recently switched to refills because we can get them for as low as $45 each, instead of the $100 (or more!) new ones cost. We now have 4 LW's of various ages, all of which use only refilled cartridges, but we don't really have enough experience to say for sure one way or another if refills are the proper way to go. A little math (rough numbers, based on our local experience). A LW costs $3800; if you get the rated 100k papges, that's 3.8 cents per page in capital costs. New cartridges cost $100; if you get the rated 5k pages, that's 2 cents per page in operating costs. Refilled cartridges cost $45 and claim to be overfilled, giving 20% more pages (who knows?, let's assume that's true); if you get the rated 6k pages, that's 0.75 cents per page in operating costs, or a savings of about 1.25 cents per page, or about 1/3 the capital cost per page. So, even if using refills does cut down the life of your printer, as long as it cuts it down by less than a third, you still come out ahead. Your mileage may vary. Final result depends heavily on local prices, depreciation, relative value of capital and operating dollars to your organization, cost to rebuild after fuser roller damage, etc. Print quality from refills varies. Most of the time, it's just as good as new ones. Sometimes, it's a disaster, in which case we return for replacement, but still it's an added hassle. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016