We know that regular maintenance keeps equipment running smoothly, saves money on unexpected repairs and extends the service life. Imagine if you never changed the oil, tyres or brake pads on a car – eventually it would be need to be repaired or would fail completely leaving you stranded. Office printers are not much different. Though they require far less regular maintenance than a car they still benefit from being serviced consistently.

It’s important to point out that not all printers are designed for maintenance over and above being wiped down with a cloth. These are usually consumer level models that cost less than $400 and are not designed to print the high volumes found in office environments; here we are looking at models a small to medium sized office or workgroup would use that see volumes of several hundred or thousand pages per month, or wide format ink printers that an architect or graphics company would use.
In these situations it is common to find printers that cost anywhere from $2000 to $30,000 and thus are expected to be used a lot and last 10 years or more. While it may sound surprising that anything computer related could have a usable lifetime of anywhere near 10 years, many past and current models are perfectly capable of being suitable and reliable for this length of time provided they are maintained appropriately.

What does printer maintenance involve?

Just like with a car, to achieve reliable operation and a long life there are parts that need to be replaced at certain intervals. With laser printers these commonly include:

• Fuser - This assembly has rollers (one of which is heated to several hundred degrees Celsius) that paper and toner passes through, bonding them near the end of the printing cycle
• Pickup rollers and pads - These are the rollers that pick paper up from the trays and seperate it so only one sheet is picked up at a time
• Transfer and paper path rollers - These differ depending on the brand and size of printer, but they all ensure paper is fed through at the right speed through the printer

These parts constitute some of the most critical parts of a Laser printer, and as a result they are designed to be replaceable so the entire printer does not have to be replaced when they wear out. Replacement of these parts is generally done as one part (as a ‘maintenance kit’) that is priced lower than buying the parts individually, and is done at intervals of 100,000 to 250,000 pages depending on the model.

For a wide format inkjet printer, maintenance parts include:

• Carriage belt and Encoder strip - This is the main drive belt that moves the printhead carriage across the paper, and the encoder strip the printer uses to know where the carriage is
• Lubricant - This is a long life grease that lubricates the mounting rail the printhead carriage is attached to
• Service station and/or Spittoon - This cleans the printheads to keep them free of clogs and the ink flowing, so collects a lot of waste ink over time
• Ink tubes and Data cables - Depending on the model one or both of these require replacement, as they move with the printhead carriage and thus can develop cracks or bends

As with a Laser Printer these parts are those that experience the most wear and tear and are critical parts of the printing process. The replacement interval is measured in hours or inches printed rather than page count (as the page size depends on what is being printed).

When does maintenance need to be done?

As mentioned above, maintenance is usually done every few hundred thousand pages, or thousands of inches depending on the type of printer. In most cases the printer will display a warning that maintenance is due and keep printing until the page count is met. When this happens an option needs to be set to continue, or the continue button pressed with each job until maintenance is completed and the page count is reset.
Depending on the environment and characteristics of the paper being printed on maintenance may be required before this page count is reached.

What does maintenance cost?

The cost of a maintenance kit differs depending on the brand and model of printer, and can range from $150 to $700 plus labour to have it fitted. This may sound like a lot, so let’s consider an example:

Joe’s office prints 1400 pages on average each week of the year to a Hewlett Packard Laserjet P4014 laser printer that was purchased for $2,300 inc gst. This printer is designed to have a maintenance kit fitted every 225,000 pages, which equates to a around three years of use between each kit. The kit costs Joe $335, plus $110 in labour to have it fitted and the printer cleaned and thoroughly checked.

Toner cartridges cost Joe $389 and print about 19,000 pages each, and although they are not considered a maintenance part we’ll include them in the example to reflect the total cost (excluding paper and electricity which are not printer specific) of owning the printer over 10 years.

Over 10 years Joe can expect to average about 2.6 cents per printed page, which if you’ve read our Rethink Ink article is quite reasonable. This example assumes that Joe gets maintenance kits fitted every 2.5 years, but what about if he chose not to do regular maintenance?

We service a lot of printers, and most of the issues we see are those that arise from maintenance not being carried out, like paper jams, marks on pages or poor quality printouts. In many of these cases a maintenance kit is all that’s required to get the printer up and running again, but in some cases constant paper jams damage other components that are more expensive and difficult to replace.
Let’s assume Joe chooses to ignore the maintenance warning and keeps printing past the initial 225,000 pages. At 290,000 the printer starts occasionally picking up multiple sheets of paper and jamming on average once every 5 pages. Joe’s staff put up with this for a few days (costing a considerable sum in wasted paper and wages from staff having to travel to and from the printer multiple times for a print job), until the printer jams and won’t print again. After half an hour of hunting for the phantom jam Joe calls a technician, who visits, clears the issue and tells Joe a maintenance kit is needed. Joe balks at the price and asks if there’s a cheaper option. The tech advises a pickup roller, separation pad and transfer roller need to be replaced at a cost of $130 + $110 labour. Joe agrees, the tech fits the part and the issue is resolved. Three months pass without any further issues, until pages start printing with a faded stripe down one side. Joe calls the tech again who advises the fuser needs replacing, at a cost of $300 + $110 labour. Joe reluctantly agrees, and the tech visits the following day and resolves the issue. After another day of being unable to print his staff can get back to working properly.

Years and tens of thousands of pages pass without problem and the time rolls around for another maintenance kit. Having long since forgotten the fallout of last time, Joe clears the maintenance warning and the printer prints for several months until it starts jamming again. After a couple of days one of his frustrated staff member becomes increasingly forceful clearing jams until one time they are a little too enthusiastic and the sound of grating gears echos throughout the office as they rip a piece of paper out. The next print job reveals only the sound of skipping cogs and no printouts. The same friendly technician visits and after some disassembly reports that two important gears will need replacing, at a cost of $50 + $160 labour. He hesitantly advises Joe that the long overdue maintenance kit is also needed, at a cost of $335 + $110 labour. $625 later Joe learns his lesson and when the next interval rolls around he orders a maintenance kit without thinking twice.

Totalling the cost in this situation gives us:

Because we’re looking at a common real world scenario (rather than one tweaked for shock value), Joe only ends up spending $415 extra in the time before he starts doing regular maintenance, and the increase on a per page basis is pretty small. Had he not started doing regular maintenance it would be expected that other breakdowns would have occurred, with increasing costs as the damage from jam removal aggregated. The real cost is in the inconvenience and wasted time for his staff, who faced several days where their work was interrupted for no reason.

Does my printer need maintenance?

Most printers will prompt you when they’re due for maintenance, however if you’re getting jams or issues with printouts, or are unsure the easiest way is to give us a call on (06) 825 6208 or send us a message through our contact page.

With no obligation our friendly technicians can advise you when maintenance is due, or schedule an onsite visit (within 1 hour in Palmerston North if needed) to promptly resolve any issue. Remember we also provide a complete range of technology services so if you’re in need of assistance or advice with other aspects of your I.T. systems we’re here to help.