A photosensitive drum is composed of a basic substrate made of aluminum and a photosensitive material coated on the substrate.

According to the different photosensitive materials, it can be divided into three types: OPC drum (organic photoconductive material), Se drum (selenium) and ceramic drum (a-si ceramic).

image of 3 OPC Drums

Since Se drums are more harmful to the environment, they have been basically eliminated. At present, the mainstream photosensitive drum materials are OPC drums and ceramic drums. Most of the mid-to-low-end printers on the market are mainly OPC drums.

image of C3300 OPC Drum

OPC drums have three layers, the first layer is an aluminum tube, the second layer is an insulating layer, and the third layer is a photosensitive layer. This is the type of photosensitive drum with the highest market share. Mainstream brands such as: HP, Canon, Brother, Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Toshiba, Fuji Xerox, and Sharp all use OPC drums.

The life of OPC photosensitive drums is relatively short. They are generally used for home laser printers, and the life is only a few thousand sheets. The lifespan of high-quality OPC photosensitive drums is also very long, ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 sheets, but they are still much shorter than ceramic drums.

image of a Kyocera drum

The surface of ceramic drum is composed of four to five layers of materials, so ceramic drums have a long lifespan. However, they are expensive and are generally suitable for high-end laser printers, mainly used by Kyocera.

Ceramic photosensitive drums mostly with a lifespan of hundreds of thousands of sheets. Of course, the requirements for toner are very high, and inferior toner can easily cause ceramic drums to malfunction.

In general:

The lifespan of ceramic photosensitive drums is far longer than that of OPC drums, and they basically start with hundreds of thousands of sheets, but they have high requirements for toner, and must use original or high-quality compatible toner.

OPC drums have a short lifespan, but they have low requirements for toner, and the low cost can effectively reduce the cost of use.