How long does a cartridge last in an inkjet printer?
When purchasing a printer, users first of all pay attention to print quality and functionality. During operation, when ink runs out, the question often arises: “How many sheets can be printed before the ink in the cartridge runs out?”
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Parameters affecting cartridge consumption
You may have been surprised when your printer ran out of ink much faster than the manufacturer stated. Consumption is influenced by many factors, let's look at the main ones.
Layer saturation and page fill
When calculating the number of sheets, the manufacturer takes only 5% of the page coverage. If you print full-length texts, the cartridge resource is consumed twice as fast. In addition, when printing images with deep, saturated colors, ink consumption will also increase.
IMPORTANT! To save money, you can use specialized fonts. For example, Ecofont was designed for exactly this purpose. And when switching from Times New Roman to Ecofont, toner savings are approximately 20%. Which ultimately amounts to several dozen pages.
Technical condition of the cartridge
After prolonged use, the internal elements wear out.This is especially critical for the photodrum. The longer the cartridge runs, the less light-sensitive the image drum becomes. Namely, the inner layer of toner, which ensures printing, depends on this indicator.
The larger the inner layer, the more toner goes into waste, which is already difficult. With severe wear, consumption increases up to 3 times. This can only be noticed by physical inspection or by increased toner consumption.
Printer technical condition
During operation, not only consumables wear out, but also the structural parts of the device itself. The majority of breakdowns occur with the following parts:
- Thermal unit is a heating element that prepares ink for printing.
- The optical system is a design responsible for monitoring print quality and adjusting the amount of pigment.
- Moving parts are a set of elements that ensure the movement of the printing nozzle and sheet inside the device.
If any of the listed printer parts operate incorrectly, ink consumption increases noticeably. The thermal unit may overheat and do its job “too well,” increasing the amount of toner spent per point.
If the optical system malfunctions, it will incorrectly control the printing process and either underestimate the amount of pigment or overestimate it. You should take such malfunctions especially seriously - starting with minor inconveniences, a breakdown can completely damage the printer.
How many pages does an inkjet printer cartridge last?
It is impossible to give an exact answer as to how many sheets a cartridge will last for. The average is 250–350 sheets, but this number may vary due to different conditions. The main thing, perhaps, will be filling out the sheet.Also, when printing color images, one of the shades may run out earlier than others and you will need to replace or refill consumable ink.
The saturation of the colors also affects the consumption - the deeper and darker the color, the more pigment you need to spend on it. The average deviation from the number of sheets declared by the manufacturer will be 15%, most likely downward. Which is not so critical, but it should still be taken into account.
Cartridge life after refilling
Due to the high cost of new cartridges, it is more profitable to simply refill them. And it is impossible to say for sure that the resource will remain the same as that of a new cartridge. It will depend not only on the type and quality of the print object itself, but also on such things as:
- quality of ink or pigment toner;
- technical condition of printer parts;
- number of previous cartridge refills.
In addition, the built-in sensor reads the number of missing sheets and limits operation when a certain value is reached.
It is worth saying that laser cartridges have a significantly higher resource. But they also have to replace not only the toner, but also the photodrum, which becomes unusable after 3-4 refills. But the number of refills that the cartridge of such a device can withstand is several times greater. On average, the number of sheets is reduced by 5% after each refill.
