Toner Cartridges and Imaging Drums Are Essential To Laser Printers

Most laser printers require two types of consumables particular the cartridge and drum. Although there are some machines that can work even with just the toner tank alone, and without the imaging unit. Conventionally, laserjet units are using a pair of replacements as mentioned earlier. It just so happen that some were able to operate with a consumable that is designed to serve as the cartridge and drum in one.

Let’s take two consumables from Brother as an example. A black TN210 laser toner cartridge won’t work without its corresponding black DR210CL imaging drum unit right? Well if you’re not aware, then yes it won’t work well without its pair. Actually, the TN210 cartridge is a set of four color toners such as black, cyan, yellow and magenta. Hence, there are also four drum units that you have to purchase but as often as you need to install new toners. Basically, you only replace an item once it is already consumed or empty. It isn’t necessary to remove even the ones in good condition and install new replacements. Anyway the point here is that each color toner should have a pair of imaging unit. If it’s a monochrome printer then it only needs a single pair, while a color laserjet requires four pairs.

Here are the product specifications or details about these two replacements, just so you know:

TN210 Cartridges – Can yield up to 2200 (black) and 1400 (color) pages, these are standard capacity toners. 

DR210CL Drums – Each yields up to 15,000 pages per drum unit, should be purchased separately.

Can you see the difference of their page capacities? That’s actually the reason why it is not a requirement to replace the drum of a toner cartridge that is empty. Once a cartridge runs out of toner, as long as the imaging drum can still last for a couple of prints and it still hasn’t reached its limit, there’s no need to replace it. You see the relationship between these two consumables isn’t that too complicated to understand.

Even other printer brand manufacturers use the same technology with their laser units. LED types on the other hand may not use laser lights to create images, yet still they require cartridges and drums.