Gawd I hate printers

Dom Sinclair

Colour Lasers can be remarkably cheap to run these days subject to the usual proviso that you don't use manufacturer branded toner refills. I have an Oki that has and continues to do Stirling work. The other half though is very much into photography and whilst a colour laser will produce modestly good printed images they can't compare to a good inkjet. Now having said that these days if there are images that she wants printed so that they can be framed and placed on a wall somewhere we take them to a 'professional' print house. I have been more than pleasantly surprised at just how reasonable the costs are. So we now have a colour laser for all the everyday printing needs (I still hanker after the paperless office that we were promised decades ago) which is capable of producing colour output at less than a penny a page, although mostly its plain black text at substantially less than a penny a page, and any specialist print jobs we have done elsewhere which, when taking into account the costs of maintaining inkjets, seems to work out cheaper in the long run.

Ron Anders

hp? At one time, printers did what they were told. Then, like laptops were hard to make a buck off of because of competition so the manufacturing went overseas and the quality suffered as well. Don't hate printers. Turn your ire to the manufactures. If it's HP, get in line.

CPallini

I love my laser printer. :-D

OriginalGriff

Epson. Means you don't replace the print head each time, just the ink colour that has run out - so if Cyan expires, you don't have to chuck the Magenta and Yellow when you replace it. But ... they do like to reject cartridges for no obvious reason, particularly if you buy non-Epson replacements.

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OriginalGriff

What is it, and what kind of gsm can it handle? I regularly use 220 to 250, and it'd be nice to go above 300 gsm and use "proper" card stock sometimes. My BX305 inkjet handles 250 (just, with a little help to get started) but jams above that. A nice straight paper path helps as well so HP are right out the window! :laugh:

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dandy72

OriginalGriff wrote:

How much do colour lasers cost to run these days?

I paid $100 for my HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw a few years ago. A coworker bought 3 at a time, since replacing the cartridges is more expensive than replacing the printer altogether. He then Ebays the printer on the cheap (being upfront about it being out of toner) and lets the buyer worry about getting the cartridges. Myself, I still haven't printed enough color pages to look into replacing the starter cartridges (which are only good for--what, 50 pages?)...

CPallini

It is an ancient Epson EPL-6100 (B&W I don't need to print anything but documents). I have to switch ON my old 32 bit PC to use it because Epson doesn't provide a 64 bit driver for it. :laugh:

wout de zeeuw

Life pro tip: don't get a inkjet printer, it's a scam. These things flush their heads at regular intervals WITH INK so they don't get clogged. Even if you're never printing, the thing will use ink. I guess in a way it's always printing (printing money for the printer company).

Wout

Lost User

lasers can fool you too. for the home user OK, but a client I knew bought up to date business grade color laser printers a few years back, "on special" yes they handled the workload, (all day Mon- Fri, few boxes (10-20 reams) per week) but - use a lot of toner - monthly, (luckily individually changeable, but 4 colors) - occasionally need something a "toner waste cartridge" (- 1 for all colors) - occasionally need new "print drums" (one per color) I'd imagine most home users never reach those other-parts limits, but in business those are even more consumables do come up - each about the same price as a toner cartridge. another gotya: "business" models go "out of production" real fast - already the limited supply for consumables if you can get 3 years before having to replace the whole thing you've done real well. (the printer will be fine, the consumables just cease to be available unless you can wait 2-3 weeks for the compatable items from China - actually quality not that bad these days but it's that lead time that doesn't work for business users.).

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an0ther1

I have an Epson at home, specifically one of the EcoTank models. Ink refills are literally just ink not a cartridge and are cheap - $17 to $24 AUD each. At work we have a few Fuji Xerox laser printers (DocuPrint CM305's) & they are not expensive to buy but the toners are expensive, around 80% of the cost of the printer for a full set. We have gotten rid of a few of them due to the cost Cheers

Brady Kelly

My Epson only flushes the heads when I tell it to, like when I need to print colour, and it just prints a few pencil thin coloured stripes.

"'Do what thou wilt...' is to bid Stars to shine, Vines to bear grapes, Water to seek its level; man is the only being in Nature that has striven to set himself at odds with himself." —Aleister Crowley

wout de zeeuw

That's pretty neat. If the software was transparent about it and gave you some control and indication of how much ink it's flushing with that would make the printer manufacturers a lot less shady. No so much with HP: my HP deskjet never gave me a hint that this was happening, and every time I needed to print (like once every half year), there was somehow no ink. I was so pissed off when I found out what was happening that I got some Lexmark full duplex laser for around €100. I make sure to never turn it on when I'm not printing, so they're not elephanting me. When it runs out of toner in 5-10 years at this rate, I'll just get another (non-HP) laser printer!

Wout

Brady Kelly

I've never even owned one yet never want to see another HP printer for all eternity.

"'Do what thou wilt...' is to bid Stars to shine, Vines to bear grapes, Water to seek its level; man is the only being in Nature that has striven to set himself at odds with himself." —Aleister Crowley

wout de zeeuw

Thanks for the tip, I'll keep those in mind for my next printer. It's good to see there are still developments towards less wasteful practises, and it's not all profit maximalization.

Wout

Fueled By Decaff

Have you tried running a virtual 32 bit OS on your 64 bit machine? That might make things a little easier. (and might make things a lot harder too...)

CPallini

That's a good idea. Unfortunately all my VM are Linux boxes and they don't support that particular printer (and I am too lazy to install Windows 32 bit on a VM just for printing :-)). Maybe someday I'll change my mind.

Dan Neely

OriginalGriff wrote:

But ... they do like to reject cartridges for no obvious reason, particularly if you buy non-Epson replacements.

I suspect the latter is your core issue. I've had an Epson injet for the last decade, never had a single problem with it. Which puts it well above the HP that died a month out of warranty, and a "free" Lexmark (100% rebate with the laptop I bought) that I recycled after using up its included ink cartridge because replacements were so insanely expensive (and oddly enough only available from the store that gave it away).

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt

Bassam Abdul Baki

For manipulating multiple images off the scanner, try [autosplitter](https://autosplitter.com/).

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