Samsung CLX-6260 - High toner consumption

[Julien]

We've got this printer as a replacement from a another Samsung Color (CLX-6250) and we noticed a very high toner consumption that we did not have previously.

 

The three colour toners have to be changed all at the same time and their usage percentage diminishes at the exact same rate whether we print mainly in B&W or not.

 

We contacted Samsung, they did some firmware upgrade, changed one of the board, updated the driver but we still have issues and they seem to not really care and say this is normal behavior.

 

They also told us that CMY toners are used to produce black: I quote "If the printer is printing mainly in black an white then yes the colours will be used equally. The reason being is that all colours combined with the black toner produce a true black."

 

It seems very odd to me considering there is black toner as well (it looks like the old time of the Inkjet with only CMY cartridges available) and I really wonder what is "true black" and what kind of black produces a B&W only printer.

 

Considering the cost of toner cartridges, if no solution is found, we will ditch this printer and say good by to Samsung printers, but before, we would like to know if some of you have experienced similar behavior whether with a Samsung printer or not?

[3s-gtech]

Well, we have plenty of Samsung mono printers, and they'd don't produce a murkey grey when printing black, which would suggest to me that they're talking bunk. No idea where the toner is actually going though!

[Ian_Cooper_Printware]

This is a little known 'thing' with colour laser printers... almost all of them produce what they call 'composite black', which is where they use the colour toners in low quantities as part of standard black and white printing.

 

I'm not sure if there are any that specify that they don't do this, though IIRC the Ricoh C430/431 models are a real rarity in that they will continue to continue to print in mono when one or more of the CMY toners are empty.

 

If I can think of any that you can 100% shut off use of the CMY when printing in mono I will post again, but I'm far from sure there are any.

[localzuk]

Yup, we have a couple of CLX-6260s and, compared to our HP cp3505s they absolutely chew through toner. I've just bought 2 of the HP OfficeJet Pro X series machines to see what they are like - with an eye to rolling them out site-wide if they are efficient enough!

[Julien]

To keep you updated, we still have the same issue even after many hours spent with Samsung helpdesk and new tweaks, upgrades etc.. so I am now looking for a new colour laser printer.

 

I am looking a estimated cost per page per toner and HP seems still quite expensive comparing to competition (~£130-150 for a 6K pages toner cartridge).

The best ones are the ColorQube (although not the same technology) but reviews are mixed for the current models and initial costs for the device has to be considered as well in the overall running costs.

[spadam]

Our printers have 3 colour modes for print jobs: Colour - Black and White - Auto. I was advised by our reseller that if jobs are sent as Colour then a composite of the colour toners will be used to produce the black, even for B+W (usually text) only documents whereas if B+W is selected then only the Black toner is used to produce Black. If auto is selected then the copier determines which of these settings to use on a page by page basis. I'm thinking you've probably already looked at this but just thought it worth mentioning.

 

Also if my understanding is not correct please anyone feel free to correct me.

[Ian_Cooper_Printware]

spadam. As I understand it that is only true with a small minority of printers on the market nowadays. I've certainly had calls from customers unhappy with the gradual use of CMY when just printing in black, and it's never been a situation with an easy fix.

[elsiegee40]

We double install our colour printers (in fact I have done it at home too). A printer appears twice on the printer list: as a mono (the default for users) and as a colour. It works well, saves colour toner and saves users messing with print settings. Theoretically, I suppose you could set a printer up as, say, a label printer to make use of the specific label settings on a printer example, but I haven't bothered with that.

[spadam]

it's never been a situation with an easy fix.

 

That's not entirely true actually as shown in the first 15 seconds of this video:

[Julien]

spadam> I just double checked the settings following your suggestion about "auto" mode (your never know, may have been missed): unfortunately there is no "auto" option, it's either Colour or B&W

 

elsiegee40> Yes, that's what we do as well, always have the colour also doubled with a defaulted to B&W duplicate

 

I am awaiting for a quote for a Kyocera P6030cdn from our regular supplier.

 

The toner cost per page (with the theoretical values) is a bit more that 1p cheaper comparing to the other printers I considered and almost 2p cheaper than the Samsung it will replace (that is, if the Samsung worked properly).

2p does not sound a lot said like that but a 2p saving per page is a lot when you multiply by tens of thousandths of prints (actually that represents the cost of the Kyocera printer after 25K prints)

[Ian_Cooper_Printware]

That's not entirely true actually as shown in the first 15 seconds of this video:

 

That works! I'm a bit disappointed that he didn't get more distance on it myself.

 

Julien, the I've never heard a bad word about the P6030... as I commented in another thread yesterday it uses the same toners as the older FS-C5350 and even the FS-C5300 series, which means if you've been using the older models it's wonderful for keeping the different number of toners to a minimum.

[Julien]

Ian_Cooper_Printware> I browsed a lot the forum before seeking for a replacement printer and must say that I would not have considered Kyocera printers if not for the good feedback seen here.

 

I must admit I don't have much time to participate, unfortunately, but this place is a valuable source of information and I can't thank enough all the contributors.