On 15.07.14 21:50, Rod Speed wrote:


"Michael Black" wrote in message
news:alpine.LNX.2.02.1407150928360.29153@darkstar. example.org...
On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, tim..... wrote:


"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Fredxxx wrote
William Sommerwerck wrote
Jabba wrote

Vote with your wallet, don't buy inkjets.

If you want color, there's no inexpensive alternative. Is there?

Boots and other online printing services. Even cheaper.

Not when you include the cost of driving to pick it up.

If quantity requires then get a colour laser with an eye on the cost
of replacing toner cartridges.

Ink-jets are remarkably unreliable.

Mine arent.

I have to say that hasn't been my experience, either. All of the HPs
that I've owned over the years have been remarkably reliable given the
level of use and abuse that they get.

I've stuck with Canons myself and have only ever had the one failure
just recently, of the main logic card.
Mate of mine has gone thru 3 Canons now, all with some sort of
electronics failure.

I've had 2 printers in my lifetime

what do you guys do to get through so many?

1982, my first printer, a dot matrix, cost five hundred dollars Canadian.
It was horribly slow, didn't do descenders properly, and was about as
cheap as I could get.

1984, a daisy wheel printer, spent about four hundred dollars on it.
Needed it because the dot matrix was no good for anything but rough drafts
and program listings. It was like a typewriter with the keyboard removed
and a serial interface added. It was slow too, fast enough that I
couldn't go and do anything before I had to roll another sheet of paper
in, but slow enough that I'd just wait for that next sheet of paper.

1989 a second dot matrix, only about $300. This one was much faster, and
could do "near letter quality" that was good enough for me. So it
replaced both of the previous printers, the daisy wheel had failed anyway
because some plastic gear had worn out.

1994 about. A used Apple Imagewriter dot matrix printer, paid about $20
for it. I think I still have it, it's the sort of thing (like the first
dot matrix) that would jsut keep running and running. Cost a lot new, you
see that in it's lack of flimsiness. I needed it because I was using a
Mac at the time.

2001, my first inkjet. Paid about $15 at a garage sale, the seller even
warned me that the cartridge needed refilling. So I got a refill kid,
spent about as much as the printer for two fillings. This was an Apple
Stylewriter, still a sturdy printer (and people paid lots for them
originally). I used up the first refill within a month, the novelty of
being able to print graphics fast and easily taking control. But then I
saw that when the ink got wet, it smeared, which meant the second refill
was barely used, and I never used an inkjet since.

2001, that fall. I got a TI I think it was laser printer for $20 at a
school rummage sale. I used it until the toner ran out, more novelty of
laser printing. But, it was an off-brand and old, and since there seemed
to be some printing problem (I wasn't sure if refilling the toner would
fix that or not), I decided not to spend money on refilling it.

About 2003. An HP 4P laser printer, $15 at a Rotary Club "garage sale".
It had a very short page count, the door over the ram expansion slots was
missing and the toner cartridge was a generic (as if the original had been
swapped before the printer was donated to the sale). I used up what was
left of the toner cartridge, and over the next few years was printing
quite a bit, because it was cheap, so I bought two refilled cartridges,
though the second one is still in use a decade or so later. I see no sign
that this is going to die, especially since that period of peak printing
is in the past.

If the laser printer dies, I'd just poke around until I found another one.
Those too are being tossed, I assume in many cases because they are now
cheap and so nobody is fussing over the waste. Since I can find one lying
on the sidewalk, the cost of a refilled cartridge isn't so bad, since
someone else has paid for the printer.

There was a period when I kept bringing home inkjet printers found on the
sidewalk, the plan had been to put one into use for color, but I just
couldn't be bothered. The cost of the cartridges, the reality that I
don't print enough color to use up the cartridges before they dry out,

I don't print much at all and don't find the Canon BCI3 carts dry out at
all.

the fact that the ink smears, even free the inkjet printers aren't
appealing.

I don't see it smearing as long as you let it dry after printing.

I don't bother to print photos at all and if I did, I'd use a commercial
printer.

Though, one time when I needed something like 24Vdc power supply, I found
just what I needed when I opened up one of those inkjet printers.

Generally PC power supplies are better for that
sort of thing because they are packaged properly.

Please tell us how to get 24 volts out of PC power supplies..........