ah

ECOSYS is an interesting approach to printer design. Instead of having very complex cartridges containing dozens of parts (as is common with HP and Canon), they make stuff like the imaging drum and developer unit last as long as possible, and the toner cartridges as mechanically simple as possible.

The idea is to keep cost per page and environmental impact to a minimum. The only supplies you'd normally need to worry about are the toner cartridges.

But that also makes them extremely picky about toner. Genuine Kyocera toner has abrasive cleaning beads in it to keep the drum in good shape, so third-party supplies can cause premature failure.

That said, they do tend to have substantially better cost per page than competing machines in their classes.

What I like about the C405 is that all the major wear items are readily replaceable by the end user. The drum units (which include developer), waste cartridge, transfer belt, transfer roller, paper feed rollers, and even fuser are very easy to swap out.

I can't imagine hitting the rated 100,000 impressions for the latter few parts and having to get a maintenance kit to replace them, but it's reassuring to know I can swap them out in minutes without calling for service.

The C405 is built around a nearly decade-old Fuji Xerox print engine design (dating back to the WorkCentre 6605), and it's exceptionally well-proven.

But Xerox machines often suffer from above-average running costs.

Anyhoo, got stuff to do, so ttyl.

Well, the traditional model with high-end business printers/copiers is that you leased them from a local vendor and paid for each page you printed, rather than buying the machine and cartridges yourself. This covers maintenance and repairs as well, so costs are predictable.

This arrangement remains common today. While local copier dealers are still the name of the game with A3 MFPs, you now have a choice of leasing of buying; buying means lower monthly maintenance plan costs, while leasing obviates the need for a large upfront investment.

Treating copiers like cars helps ensure that business-critical equipment isn't down for long periods of time.

And you have a single point of contact to manage the equipment so you can focus on your business instead of worrying about having to maintain and service it yourself.

Indeed, this whole service model has trickled down to consumer printing, in the form of services like HP Instant Ink (metered supplies) and Epson ReadyPrint (printer lease with ink and support included)

@forest I don't know about other laser printer, but I can assure you that certain consumer level brand (eg: HP laserjet etc) have obvious planned obscelescence. Although it's true one of the main cause of the "planned" part is because of the ink waste filing up and what not, the other reason is because, in certain series/model, they have a count of how many times pages were printed. Some people who mod their own printer manage to usually remove the limitation or just reset it

here I only know it's relatively true for consumer brand/level printer. For industrial/or the really big one you see in company's office...that I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if there something something similar

@NordineLotfi I know printers keep track of the number of pages printed (common sense metric, like total mileage on a car), but an actual firmware imposed printing limit? Do you have any documentation on past or present models that would have this?

@MiG seen that on cartridges

Yeah, when they were trying to counter people refilling them, starting mid to late nineties iirc... But entire printers having a lifespan based on a firmware counter?

@MiG this happened a lot on inkjet printer, and also on a couple laserjet ones. I'm sorry but I don't have "official" proof for this, given most of that is either 1. personal experience or 2. people's blogpost or videos about their own printer

I can link to a couple relevant blog and what not, but I don't know if you'll see them as good enough proof or not

@JourneymanGeek yeah, they also have those "easily removable" chip on the cartridge, both to identify them when you insert them in their respective printer and also to see the level of ink/how much is left inside

I'm saying "easily" here because it can easily fall off or break if you're unlucky or not careful

and when they do, sometimes the cartridge won't work anymore depending on how the chip was placed, but that kind of depend

I wish I could find a printer that work fine with just black ink cartridge inside, especially since I sometimes only print very specific document that only have that as color...

somehow I'm actually here

unlikely as it is

Lol. Yes that does seem to be the case

@MiG The counter is based on the amount of ink deposited into the ink servicing station or waste ink container. Printhead cleaning and purging is a normal part of inkjet printer operation.

The limit isn't directly based on impression count.

@bwDraco I see, I guess I misunderstood when I heard about the printer counter thinking it was for printing instead of counter for the ink cartridge :o

@bwDraco That was what I meant, @NordineLotfi seemed to suggest there was a hard coded limit from the printer itself (i.e. total number of prints) based on that count - the cartridge based shenanigans I'm well aware of

How fast do inkjets dry out these days? Wondering if it's worth getting a quality photo printer next to the home office laser based brick I have right now :)

@MiG yeah, I guess I was wrongly interpreting the naming of the limit (I was mostly talking out of experience anyway, but I never really tried to see how it work under the hood or anything)

@allquixotic a wild quix appears!