speff wrote:
Unfortunately, you can't yet buy a tabloid/A3
color laser for anything resembling a reasonable price ($3K-$6K).


Heh heh! I saw a color laser sitting on our loading dock, next to the
dumpster. This is where people put stuff too good to trash, but no
longer needed. But, I figured something HAD to be wrong with it. It
was still there the 2nd day, so I reluctantly dragged it home, figurinbg
if it was seriously busted I'd just strip it for all the shafts, gears,
belts, bearings, etc. that the thing was FULL of. Way more than a
monochrome laser printer.

Anyway, I got it home and was astounded that it almost worked. It semed
to start printing in the middle of the page, and the output was smeared.
After two days of net research, I hit the mother lode, a site
(fixyourprinter.com) that descibed the exact symptom. There was a
little felt/rubber pad that absorbs the bump when a solenoid relaxes,
and it gets pushed out of position by operation. I had to tear the
whole thing apart to get to the solenoid, but it was just like they
said, I put the pad back where it belonged, and the printer produces
GREAT color images on ordinary paper. I have yet to try it on
clay-coated paper, but I suspect it will look even better.

I also found out on that site how to defeat the elaborate
refill-prevention scheme they use (blowable fuses in every cartridge)
that counts pages and kills your cartridges before they are actually empty.

The printer is a Minolta/QMS 2200, I looked up the street price and was
surprised it was so cheap, about $600 at office max.

Jon