| 32,000
Plates From One Subtoner Cartridge
Yield from a toner cartridge is usually expressed as “1000
pages at 5% coverage,” which is pretty unsatisfying. So we
wanted to determine the actual yield of a 150 gram SubToner cartridge
in terms that make sense to people in the awards industry. We designed
a 3-inch x 2-inch plate with four lines of bold text, and put ten
on a page.
Then we printed and printed and printed. After 3,243 pages a white
streak developed along the right side. We removed the cartridge,
shook it side to side and it printed beautifully again. We probably
could have gotten another hundred pages or so, but we decided to
declare an end to the test. The cartridge was starting to fail.
It had printed more than 32,400 excellent quality transfers.
This is not theoretical. This is ACTUAL yield.
From a $225 SubToner cartridge this works out to about 2/3 of a
penny per transfer. And laser sublimation uses regular copy paper
- the cheapest paper available works just fine. Laser printers don’t
get clogged heads or need nozzle checks. They can sit for months,
then produce a perfect print first time.
For trophy plates, black text on gold metal is the standard. And
laser sublimation produces the richest, densest black on metal,
with the highest profit margin.
Laser sublimation is a real money maker.
The printer we used for this test was an HP LaserJet 1020. This
is a current model printer available new from office supply stores
for as little as $149. There are also models 3020 and 3022 which
have a scanner/copier built in. Unfortunately, you cannot flip an
image directly from the scanner. These printers are Windows only.
Want
to see the quality for yourself?
Call for samples!
Do the Math
- $225 SubToner cartridge yields more than
32,000 plates, about 2/3 of a penny per transfer.
- Use regular cheap copy paper.
- HP LaserJet 1020 costing under $160 new.
- Similar yields with other HP LaserJets.
- No clogging, no nozzle checks, no head cleanings.
- Fast and easy
This one SubToner cartridge printed
more than 32,000 transfers for trophy plates.
|
Hilton
Images, Inc.
Finest Quality Laser Sublimation Products