Re: What's a duty cycle?

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2 total messages Started by phil Wed, 11 Mar 1987 18:25

#716

Author: phil
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1987 18:25

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>Henry Spencer
> Be careful.  Experience with the Canon LBP-CX engine does not generalize
> to larger engines.  The LBP-CX is famous for tolerating gross violations
> of its duty-cycle rating.  (There are people at LBL using it at TEN TIMES
> the nominal 3000/month duty cycle.)...

Then I submit that the published duty cycle of the LBP/CX is wrong!  If
indeed a figure called "the duty cycle" actually has meaning for other
print engines, and if in fact that figure is pretty "spot on", then
someone miscalculated the duty cycle for the LBP/CX, because most
everyone seems to agree that these little guys can be pushed way beyond
3000 pages/month.  How do laser-printer/copier manuafacturers decide on
this mysterious figure?  Why was the LBP/CX given the rating it was?
Why does it appear to be so wrong?

			William LeFebvre
			Department of Computer Science
			Rice University
			<phil@Rice.edu>

Re: What's a duty cycle?

#743

Author: roy
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1987 15:17

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> How do laser-printer/copier manuafacturers decide on this mysterious
> figure?  Why was the LBP/CX given the rating it was?  Why does it appear
> to be so wrong?

	This is mostly conjecture, but guess it's mostly a marketing
decision.  I've heard 2 numbers for the LBP/CX -- 3k pages per month (duty
cycle) and 100k pages total expected lifetime.  Assuming the latter is
accurate and the former is bullshit, that's about 3 years of normal use.
But we put something like 5k pages a month on the machine so I only expect
it to last 2 years.  If we did 10k a month, I guess it would only last 1.

	I suspect that many people wouldn't buy a printer they knew would
only last a year so they fudge the numbers to make it look like it'll last
3 (a reasonable amount of time for a high-tech, moderate-cost item like the
Apple LW/LW+).  I personally think of LW's as disposable -- the BIC pens of
the laser printer industry.  I'd rather spend $3800 on a printer that I
know I'll have to throw out in a year than spend several times that on a
machine which will still be running strong long after it's obsolete.  Think
about it: 5 years from now won't you be wishing you had an excuse to trash
that stupid 300 dpi machine even if it still works?  Our current philosophy
is to always have one LW in perfect condition; as it gets beat up we buy a
new one and use the old ones for draft (we now have 3), putting brand new
cartridges in the best printer and rotating them to the draft machines as
they start to run down.

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