up vote 5 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I have a Brother HL 5340D printer. I have around 6-7000 pages to print.

I want to know how many pages I can print continuously. Will it heat up?

link|improve this question
69% accept rate
2  
You may want to consider a printing service. Once you consider the cost of toner, paper, time and wear-and-tare on the printer the service could be cheaper. They should be able to take care of the large page volume in a short time and even bind it for you. – Chris Nava Feb 17 '10 at 16:06
1  
In my country for printing and binding of 300pages ebook they cost 35$. so for 6000 pages the cost will be 700$. I got printer (349$ + BInder 300$ + Binding sheets,combs(50$) + paper(4*12 ~50$). Toner 400g(60$ prints 12000pages). Is'nt that good – Mirage Feb 17 '10 at 23:31
@Mirage So what was the state of your printer after the batch prints? – Pacerier May 19 at 17:16
feedback

4 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

You should be fine!

In general the main thing that heats up in a laser printer is called the fuser. The fuser usually accounts for the majority of a laser printer's power usage. The heat of the fuser, under substandard conditions, can definitely cause damage to interior parts, however newer printers will usually have a good ventilation system to aid in heat dissipation. Another feature of newer printers is a power saving feature which will turn off the fuser and let it cool down. The printer only starts up again after proper working temperature is reached. You'll know if you have this feature or not If you've ever printed 100 pages or so. The stops are very noticeable but at least you know it's for safety reasons.

The HL 5340D specifically is from early 2009 I believe. It more than likely has these features and then some. You can even see the abundance of ventilation area they've given it on the sides:

alt text

link|improve this answer
thanks for the info – Mirage Feb 17 '10 at 6:42
@John Do you mean to say printing continuously for 24 hours (unlimited paper and toner refills) is no problem because the printer is smart and does the rest thing, slowing down when it needs to? – Pacerier May 17 at 23:32
feedback
up vote 8 down vote

Something else: I would be leery of printing that many pages in one batch unless you have just installed a high yield toner cartridge. What happens when the toner runs out in the middle of the job? Can you reprint only the bad pages?

link|improve this answer
+1 Good one! Does anyone know what happens in such a scenario? – ssvarc Feb 17 '10 at 6:54
Most printers will just stop before quality deteriorates. Once new tone is install they start off from where they stopped unless they were turned off in the mean time. You can usually take out the toner cart and give it a shake to encourage a few more pages out of it (sometimes many extra pages, though at that point you may find the output dims and/or bands more then usual). The main problem here is if doing manual duplex - things might get out of sync if the printer decides to reprint the last page upon restarting or such - but I recommend manual duplex is only done for small jobs anyway. – David Spillett Feb 17 '10 at 10:29
1  
I've never had a laser simply stop before quality problems started to show up. – Loren Pechtel Feb 17 '10 at 16:47
feedback
up vote 4 down vote

It has these specs:

Max. Monthly Duty Cycle: 30,000 pages & Recommended Monthly Print Volume: 500 to 3,500 pages

So, I think you should be fine. It will get heated up, but that is normal for a laser printer. That is what fuses the toner to the paper. It should heat up to its normal operating temperature and stay there. It is kind of like miles on a car, it is wear and tear, but it doesn't matter that much if you put them all on it in a year or 10 years.

link|improve this answer
Shouldn't it be interpreted that max daily is 1500? – Pacerier May 17 at 23:35
feedback
up vote 4 down vote

You should take this amount of printing to a commercial printers - it would be cheaper and their equipment is designed to take the hit. You will probably get away with it on a SOHO laser printer but it's not the best tool for the job.

link|improve this answer
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.