SPARCprinter maintenance - summary of responses

From: Bruce Tonkin (btonkin@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au)
Date: Wed Jan 13 1993 - 04:06:36 CST


Summary of replies to the following questions on SPARCprinter maintenance:

1. Is there a way of getting a count of the number of pages printed?
2. How does the printer decide when to replace the toner cartridge?
3. How does the printer decide when to replace the drum cartridge?

>1. Is there a way of getting a count of the number of pages printed?

Several people pointed out that you can print the test_page.ps
postscript document in the newsprint directory np/utils.
This prints out various statistics on the SPARCprinter configuration
including a current page count.

  From asb@kbs.citri.edu.au (Anthony Scott Botham):

  There are two buttons beneath the black membrane above the power switch.

  These can be used to interogate the printer to find out all sorts of useful
  information. About a year ago, Sun faxed me a cheat sheet explaining what
  all the codes means. I can't find my copy at the moment, ask Sun.

I found these buttons by pressing the black perspex under the LED
readout on the front panel - but did not experiment.

>2. How does the printer decide when to replace the toner cartridge?

The printer uses a sensor to determine when to replace the toner
cartridge. When the printer stops printing due to an empty toner
cartridge it is possible to shake the cartridge to get a few more
pages out, but eventually the sensor will prevent you from printing
any further. This prevents malfunctions from running the printer dry
of toner - as we did with a photocopier recently - not worth the hassle.

We got close to 20,000 pages from our first toner cartridge (the
manual says about 8,000 but it depends on how much text per page).

>3. How does the printer decide when to replace the drum cartridge?

The printer seems to use a counter that causes the printer to stop
printing at 20,000 pages. I reset the drum low indicator by
pushing the reset button on the side of the printer where the power cable
comes in while turning on the printer. This allows the printer to
continue printing with the old drum, which will give me time to get in
a new drum. Apparently the drum has a reservoir for unused toner that
can overflow if the cartridge is not replaced - the drum surface also
appears to wear with use hence the need to replace the drum cartridge.
Presumably this could be emptied to prolong the life of the cartridge,
I haven't experimented with this yet.
Thanks to Bill Unruh <unruh@physics.ubc.ca> for his comments on this.

Thanks to everyone who replied with helpful suggestions.

Bruce Tonkin
Monash University
Melbourne, Australia



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:07:21 CDT