Printer duty cycle is a simple concept to understand. It’s the largest number of pages a printer can put out before quality starts to degrade and/or the machine needs maintenance. Most printers have standard printer duty cycles, so you have an idea of what to expect. Think of it as a timer tic-tic-ticking toward a deadline. You know it’s coming, and you can adjust your schedule and work habits accordingly. Why is printer duty cycle important? Here are a few details to help you understand the concept and what you can do to make it work for you rather than against you.
Printer Duty Cycle’s Duty
When you know the time when your printer’s quality will decline, you can prepare for it. That means saving time and money to complete jobs on time and satisfy customers. Think of it as a way to keep pace rather than doomsday. You can schedule your work around it for quality prints.
Pace Yourself… and Your Printer
Some people incorrectly assume that the printer duty cycle is a desirable metric to hit. Pushing your printer to and past the duty cycle isn’t wise, even if you have a new machine ready to replace it. Suppose your printer has a duty cycle of 200,000 pages a month. Pushing it to do those numbers only makes it wear out prematurely. A good rule of thumb is to produce no more than 10 percent of the duty cycle. This sort of monthly print volume helps you stay on schedule and removes the negative effects of lost time through printer maintenance.
Pick a Peck of Printers
There are a lot of printers out there, and you likely have a good idea of the type of printer you need to do your job. Whether you need one that works well with 24 lb bond paper or something that creates wide-format printouts, keep the printer duty cycle in mind. Choose a printer duty cycle you know can handle your workload.
Perhaps you choose a machine that exceeds your current expectations. In that case, you’re ready to meet greater demand in the future. Knowing your printer’s duty cycle also helps you project costs for upkeep and maintenance.
Use and Abuse
If you need a better idea of the printer duty cycle and monthly print volume to look for in a printer, crunch the numbers. Most medium-sized businesses create prints in the low thousands. Insurance companies and other places that float on paper might need to quadruple that number. Designing, advertising, and engineering firms may not need to print as many documents but require higher-quality prints. Do a basic survey of the number of prints you make in a month, and decide what printer works best for you!
Now you understand the printer duty cycle, what it is, and why it is important. Contact us if you have further questions!