If you have a laser printer and you use it quite often for printing, you might be thinking about how long does printer toner last.
Every item you buy costs you some money. The same is the case with toners. Importantly, they don’t come cheap. So, you would want to ensure that they last longer or at least up until the stated expiry date.
Simply, the question arises that how long does printer toner last? The answer to this question varies from one user to another. Printer toners are expensive, and at times, more expensive than printers. Due to this price factor, users would naturally want the toner to last longer while maintaining the same printing quality.
The life of toner depends on its use and storage. Here are a few pointers as to how to make them work longer as well as some length on the typical life of printer toners.
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Life of a Printer Toner Cartridge
Generally, a toner outlives the life of a printer, but it depends on your approach. If you handle the printing process with care and ensure good quality printing, there are high chances that toner will last till the age you expect and even longer than it.
Manufacturing companies do assign expiry dates to printer toners, and they are important and the most relevant. But if you take care and work under some guidelines, your printer toner is set to last longer and print better.
Another important point about toners is that they work one or two years even after the expiry date if stored properly.
As told above, use is the most important factor in the life of a toner. If you use your laser printer frequently and for heavy toner-consuming pictures and documents, you would have to refill it with the same frequency as well. Similarly, if your prints are occasional, chances are that the toner will deplete sooner than expected.
A toner cartridge has a typical expiry of 2 years, but generally, they work for longer. Manufacturers do not give toner weights or some related measure for toner in printer cartridges, rather they give out the maximum number of pages you could print using an average toner cartridge.
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How many pages can I print using a toner cartridge?
This boils down in use. If you print black and white documents, the toner cartridge is set to last longer. In the case of color prints, more toner is consumed.
While answering this question, many other factors also come into play. You will get an estimated number of papers that you could print using a toner cartridge in the detailed information in the print shop, but whether your printer is old or new has a role to play here.
If your printer has been in operation for some time, it is expected to consume more toner than a new one. On similar grounds, printers use a larger amount of toner to print images as compared to other forms of print. With a number given, the prints that you could do using a toner cartridge depend on the age of your printer and the quality of your print as well.
The number of printable pages generally given is 3000. Moreover, printer toners have shelf lives as well. Afterward, the chemicals in the toner break down and then the quality of the print is impacted.
How Can I Calculate the Number of Pages My Printer Can Print Using One Toner Cartridge?
If you want to work out the maximum number of pages that can be printed by your printer using one toner carriage, here are the steps to do so:
1. First things First: Find Out the Printer Cartridge Capacity
Start by typing the manufacturing details of your toner cartridge on the google search bar or any credible toner website. With all the necessary information, you would easily find out the cartridge print capacity. For example, HP Q6000A Black Toner prints 2500 A4 size pages.
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2. Find Out the Percentage of an Average Page Covered in Toner: What is the Page Coverage of Your Prints?
Generally, when an A4 size page is printed, the page coverage of toner is 5%. This translates into 3 to 4 paragraphs of text. Taking some understanding from this measure, you could then figure out the typical toner coverage of your prints. If you print pictures or blocks of color, the page coverage would easily surpass 5%.
3. Doing the Maths: Figuring Out the Actual Pages That Could be Printed
- Divide the page coverage by 5. For example, for the page coverage of 30 percent, dividing 30 by 5, the number is 6.
- Now, divide 2500 pages (Cartridge Capacity) by 6. The answer is 416.666.
This means that given your use and cartridge capacity, an HP Q6000A Black Toner will print an actual 416 pages.
How to Make Toner Cartridge Work for a Day or Two More?
When you start to observe that the toner ink on your prints has started to fade, you could just make the cartridge work for longer by using a trick. Here’s how:
Open the printer cartridge part and take the toner cartridge outside. Rock the cartridge back and forth, to redistribute the toner inside. Once you have done so, install the cartridge back in the printer. This trick will help you get some good prints for one to two more days.
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The Bottom Line
A single printer toner cartridge costs a lot and you would naturally want it to work at least until its expiry. The printing capacities of toners differ from one printer to another and are generally in the number of prints before the toner starts fading or printing. In this article, we explained how long does printer toner lasts, the number of prints you could get per toner cartridge, as well as how to calculate the actual number of prints depending on your use, and some other details.
