Brother DR-3605 Genuine Drum Unit 45,000 Pages

The Drum, Not the Toner - and How Long It Lasts

The genuine Brother DR-3605 is a laser drum unit rated by Brother at approximately 45,000 pages at one page per job, or 75,000 pages at three pages per job.

A drum unit is not a toner cartridge. The toner cartridge holds the powder; the drum is the photosensitive cylinder the toner is laid onto before it transfers to the page. They are separate parts on separate replacement schedules, and a laser printer needs both. Brother Australia lists eight printers for this drum, including the HL-L5210DN, HL-L5210DW, HL-L6210DW and HL-L6415DW - the full list is below.

Brother quotes two figures because job length genuinely changes drum life: approximately 45,000 pages at one page per job, and approximately 75,000 pages when jobs run three pages. The drum cycles every time the printer spins up, so a hundred one-page jobs wear it far more than a single hundred-page job. An office printing mostly multi-page documents should expect the higher figure; a machine handling single-page dockets all day will sit nearer the lower one.

Telling the drum apart from the toner is the question we get asked most. Faded or washed-out print usually means toner. Marks, bands or ghosting that repeat at a regular interval down every page usually mean the drum. The printer also tracks drum life separately from toner level and will prompt you when the drum is due. This drum works with the TN-3605, TN-3605XL, TN-3605XXL, TN-3615 and TN-3615XL toner range. A genuine Brother drum holds the imaging geometry the printer was built around, which is what keeps streaks, ghosting and misregistration out of the output. Replacement is an end-user job - the old unit comes out the front and the new one goes in, with no tools and no service call.

Suits these Brother printers

• HL-L5210DN
• HL-L5210DW
• HL-L6210DW
• HL-L6415DW
• MFC-L5710DW
• MFC-L5915DW
• MFC-L6720DW
• MFC-L6915DW