Posted: 6/2/2007 12:57:13 AM EDT
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I'm sick of using old shitty printers. I have one that's broken, and one that is missing a power-adapter. I want a new printer that fits these criteria: 1) Prints quickly. The faster the better. This isn't a huge concern, but I'm planning on printing off a bunch of TM manuals and large documents. Also, I'd like to be able to print a paper quickly in case I need to leave for class in a hurry. Again, this isn't a grave concern, but I hate waiting a long time for large documents, 2) Scanning ability. To save and print backups of legal documents, SBR paperwork (hopefully sometime in the next decade  ), important school documents, etc.3) Price. As cheap as possible, including cost of cartridges and such. Quality is not that big of a concern, as I don't plan on printing many color images. Decent quality is fine, and I'd settle with it printing good black and white documents and photos (like TMs) but OK or even shoddy color photos. |
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In my opinion, if you're going to be printing lots of pages for manuals, technical papers, etc. laser printing is the only way to go. We use an HP LaserJet 4right now and have been very happy with it. I buy them for $2-5 apiece at surplus auctions so we have a good supply of parts and some spare toners for our home-based business. For scanning we use an old USB scanner that's thin enough to slide out of the way. I'm no fan of the integrated scan-print-fax machines because they feel insubstantial to me and tend to be ink/toner hogs. Our LJ 4 goes 3k+ pages on pretty cheap toner carts. If you decide to look for a used LJ, here are a couple of things to look for: 1. If at all possible, power it up before you buy and see if it runs through its self-test. 2. Again, if possible, run a test print or two while powered-up. Streaking or banding patterns often indicate a bad toner cartridge, and these do cost a few dollars if you buy them new or remanufactured. 3. Flip open the back cover and lift the wide black door on the back of the fuser. Look inside at the grey teflon-coated fuser roller. It should be clean and grey with no burn marks, scratches, bands, text, browning, etc. If any of that is present you'll need a new fuser. I pretty much ignore page count on these. We've had LJ 4s with 1 million+ pages on them and they worked fine. The most common repair we make is to clean the feed roller and the rollers in the output assembly (on top of the printer) with denatured alcohol (not rubbing alcohol). This cleans and resurfaces them for another few thousand pages. Fixyourownprinter.com is a great site with a good forum and searchable archives. I'm no expert, but you're welcome to bounce questions off of me via IM if you get one to work on. |
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+1 on the laser recommendation. I can't stand the 3in1 combo printers. They might do all those functions, but they seldom do any one of them well. I got a Canon Pixma 4300 at Staples for $99. It was a PC Mag editor's choice. Prints very quickly and makes a great picture print on Canon photo paper. Ink isn't too pricey either, with the most expensive cartridge for mine to date being $15.99. All colors carts are seperate so you only buy the one you need, not a whole all in one because only one color is low. I still use my old HP LJ6 for high copy count print jobs in monochrome. The $60 toner cartridge is good for thousands of pages, and the thing still prints pretty quickly. If you can get one of the earlier HP 4+ in good to excellent condition you should be happy, as it's a genuine workhorse. A decent enough scanner, with fax software, should still be available for under $100. How often do you really need one of these though, unless you're using it for copies. my ยข2, Matthew Leland,NC |