[Misc] Ricoh SP3600sf drum life

[Leebs14]

We have a bunch of these machines onsite at a customers as well as some larger MPC's.

Ricoh state the drum life at 20k but we're having to change Drums after 7-9k the most was 12k??

Ok I know they base their figures on " average usage " but how can we not even be getting 50% of expected
Life, it blows all the profit!!

Can these Drums be reset and used again?

Are we missing something here?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Gary Bowen]

Re: Ricoh SP3600sf drum life

Are you replacing the drums because the machine has triggered the PM counter or are you replacing the drums because of CQ? The PM counter cannot be turned OFF in SP Mode (from what I can tell) but can be reset. According to the Product Support Guide the machine will stop printing at 23K if the PM warning is ignored.

[Leebs14]

Re: Ricoh SP3600sf drum life

Hi, are you able to advise how to reset this as I cannot see any reference to this is the service manual?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[zed255]

Re: Ricoh SP3600sf drum life

We have a bunch of these machines onsite at a customers as well as some larger MPC's.

Ricoh state the drum life at 20k but we're having to change Drums after 7-9k the most was 12k??

Ok I know they base their figures on " average usage " but how can we not even be getting 50% of expected
Life, it blows all the profit!!

Can these Drums be reset and used again?

Are we missing something here?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The 20k yield only applies for print jobs with at least 3 pages. The yield drops to 11k when the jobs only contain 1 page per job. Unless you are having image quality issues you should be getting somewhere between 11k and 20k on the PCU. There are however two different replacement toner cartridges with 3k and 6k yields (ISO) that also show varying yield based on the job. Check the Product Support Guide for the details.

This is because Ricoh uses linear distance (or rotational distance - 'rotations') and NOT printed pages to determine PM yields. When you account for pre-print PDCU conditioning and post-job cleaning, smaller jobs 'waste' rotations resulting in smaller yields.

Another point of reference is the maintenance kits. 120k @3page/Job and only 53k @1page/Job.

AFAIK, there is no reset you can perform. The RFID chip is logged and won't be accepted in the future. I have noted that the log only seems to hold 6 entries and have with other products been able to set enough different cartridges to 'bump' the earlier cartridge off the log (FIFO) and have it accepted by the machine.

[Gary Bowen]

Re: Ricoh SP3600sf drum life

SP 7804-002 will reset the PCDU counter.