We do the repair services at the workshop every day and we learn about printers just as much as we learn about users' habits. We've talked about this often: compatible and refurbished cartridges lead to all sorts of problems related to repairs: adjustment, manual cleaning, part replacement. However, not only do they shorten the expected lifespan of the printer's components, compatible cartridges offer a yield that is much lower than that of OEM cartridges.
The maintenance report, which may be printed at all time from a printer's menu options, provides valuable information that we use to assess the actual yield of a cartridge set. Today, we would like to show you the maintenance report of a printer we repaired recently, and to use it to compare the compatible cartridges' yield with that of the OEM cartridges:
The toner cartridges are:
TN221BK; yield : 2 500 pages
TN225C; yield : 2 200 pages
TN225M; yield : 2 200 pages
TN225Y; yield : 2 200 pages
Let's have a further look at the report:
The OEM color cartridges provide 1,369 more pages than their compatible equivalent.
The black OEM cartridge provides 148 pages more than the compatible cartridge.
To obtain these numbers, we have included in our calculations the "remaining life" of the cartridges (the fact that they have been used to only 50% and 40% when the test was done), the user's average coverage, and the page count for each paper format. Here, the formats other than 'letter size' have been discarded because they correspond to only 12 prints out of the 5,435 total page count.
Those yields, displayed by manufacturers, are established by the ISO standards. They correspond to a 5% "coverage" on letter-size paper.
Thus, it's important to check one's average coverage. It may be under or above the 5% ISO standard, like for this user, who has an average coverage of 2,48% for their color cartridges, and 4,33% for their black cartridge.
The other factor to verify is the paper format used; it affects the numbers found on the maintenance report.
In this case, we notice that the color cartridges have, in average, a remaining life of 50%, and the black cartridge has a remaining life of 61%. This user makes colour more often than monochrome prints
For further advise on your cartridges options, please do not hesitate to communicate with our team.
