On 26 Feb, 23:26, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Bob Eager wrote:
What's wrong with a cheapo inkket?

The same that's wrong with a cheap laser.

Proprietary drivers.

That's becoming less of a problem as more of them offer network
interfaces. If you can find something that works under Linux, it will
generally have a standard printer interface to it (PCL or PS) that any
sensible driver can deal with, you're not stuck with one of these
&deity;-forsaken "WinModem" printers that renders bitmaps on the host
PC.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:22 -0000, Peter Andrews wrote:

My £55 (PC Wo***) HP Laser Jet 1018 has printed 7237 pages (as of now)
in the past two years - albeit I'm now on my third refill - but it's
never missed a beat.

I'd have to check but I'm pretty sure that I've only just put the 3rd
toner cartridge (long life version) into my LJ1200 and the page count was
about 25,000 when I did that. Even if it's the 4th cartridge thats still
about 8,000 pages each.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:17:04 +0000, Stephen Howard wrote:

Assuming the nozzle is in the cartridge,

I think this is the case with HP and some Canon's but not Epson's.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:31:00 +0000 Tim Lamb wrote :
I confidently expected dot matrix printers to be dirt cheap by
now and half promised one as a birthday pressie. 150ukp they
must be joking!

Before I emigrated our little-used Epson LQ570+ fetched a whole
£2 on eBay. A manual for a Commodore PET floppy drive got £7!

--
Tony Bryer, 'Software to build on' from Greentram
www.superbeam.co.uk www.superbeam.com www.greentram.com

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:58:04 -0000, JDT2Q wrote:

When I want to print photos or colour it almost always needs head
cleaning and I can go through 2 new ink cartridges just to accomplish
that ( not to mention the time & frustration it takes ).

Tip, go throught the nozzle check/clean/nozzle check sequence once then
leave it 5 mins before doing it again. I find the "soak" means that the
next sequence nearly always produces a proper output.

Slight aside, but a few months ago I came to use my old Epson inkjet and
found all the LEDs on the front flashing, and the printer totally out of
action. Every permutation of powering down and pressing buttons I tried
had no effect.

According to Epson's support site:
"When all the lights flash, that indicates a maintenance request. If
your printer is under warranty contact the EPSON Connection Technical
Support or an authorized Epson servicer for assistance."
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&infoType=FAQ&oid= 14413&prodoid=8296&foid=36770

Bugger, I thought - it's a pretty old printer and there's no way it's
worth paying anyone to repair; so into the bin it was going.

However, I kept googling for a bit longer, and came up with the link
below. I described an incredibly convuluted procedure for pressing
buttins, switching on/off etc, which I tried. It did the trick and the
printer works as well as it did before.

Apparently the lock-up is a feature built in by Epson: they reckon that
by the time the printer has processed X number of pages or Y number of
ink carts or is Z months old, it needs servicing. So kindly they lock it
down for you until you acquiesce and take it to an Epson dealer.
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/12744#1

*******s! I *cannot* believe they can get away with that. Certainly the
last Epson I'm ever buying...

David

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:46:17 -0000, "Toby"
wrote:

Peter Parry wrote:

eBay 260293631150 HP 4050,

260293631150 is a 2300DN, not a 4050!

Damn :-) 280273676613

Tim Lamb wrote:

OK chaps.

Enough already:-)

Cheapo mono laser it is.

At one or two pages per week it still makes expensive copy but much less
aggravation.


But beware buying a new cheap mono laser that takes expensive toner
cartridges. I bought an HP LaserJet 1018 very cheaply on a special
offer at Staples - £49 against the usual street price of £79 to £99.

Genuine HP toner cartridges cost £72 at Staples and £63 at PC World. So
down to Cartridge World and I got a remanufactured toner cartridge for a
mere £29.

Wonderful, except that the toner is grey, not black, and it has the
consistency of sand. Not much of it will actually stay on the page, and
if you try printing half tones (photographs) as part of your documents
they suffer from severe banding.

Yes, I took the cartridge back and got a replacement from a different
batch. It was just as bad.

Having bought a genuine HP toner cartridge for £63 the printer again
works beautifully and copes well with text and photographs. The toner
is black rather than grey and it all adheres to the page rather than
needing to be vacuumed out of the printer and off the shelf that the
laser printer sits on.

I also have an older HP LaserJet 4 which has none of these problems. It
is totally reliable, accepts cheap off-brand toner cartridges and the
powerfully hot fuser roller makes sure that the toner sticks firmly to
the paper. As long as you don't mind the toner being slightly grey, the
results with cheap toner are just fine.

So I would recommend getting a good secondhand office laser printer if
you want to use cheap toner. If you really must buy a new cheap
personal laser printer, resign yourself to always having to use the
manufacturer's genuine (expensive) toner cartridges.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:31:00 +0000, Tim Lamb wrote:

For 70ukp I can get an entry level laser inc. usb cable. Is there
something I should know?

Yes monochrome lasers are very cheap these days. Been using an LJ1200 for
years now it just works and produces nice clean crisp text that doesn't
smudge or wash off in the rain.

Seriously looking at getting the HP Colour Laserjet CP1515n previously
mentioned as No.1 Daughter is now doing much more homework that needs
colour print outs and the Epson Stylus Photo 890 I have is very greedy on
expensive and occasionally hard to come by ink. Not to mention the quality
on ordinary paper is not that good.

I have exactly the same issue - the vast majority of output in my house
is B&W but we do have occasional need for colour. So binning my Epson
Stylus Photo 760 inkjet in favour of a monochrome laserjet isn't an
option; I wouldn't mind running them in parallel but for the fact that I
know the inkjet would always be bunged up every time I wanted to use it
if that was only fortnightly, say.

I don't know much about laser printers, especially colour ones - but if
I bought a colour laser printer as a replacement for the inkjet, and
continued using it 95% for monochrome work, would the consumables work
out far more expensive (for B&W output) than if I bought a monochrome
printer? Or does that depend on the printer? Are colour models
inherently any less reliable?

David

Adrian wrote:

You're forgetting the _really_ big drawback of an inkjet. They clog if
left unused, which results in the already expensive consumables becoming
VERY expensive.


That varies greatly according to brand. My Epson Stylus inkjets have
always suffered from some degree of clogging - they have fixed print
heads and interchangeable ink tanks, and cleaning the print heads is a
time consuming rigmarole that wastes expensive ink.

My HP DeskJet and Lexmark inkjets have an easy solution to clogging. If
the print heads clog, pop out the cartridges and wipe the ink jets with
a moist cloth. They work perfectly straight afterwards.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:02:25 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:31:00 +0000, Tim Lamb wrote:

For 70ukp I can get an entry level laser inc. usb cable. Is there
something I should know?

Yes monochrome lasers are very cheap these days. Been using an LJ1200 for
years now it just works and produces nice clean crisp text that doesn't
smudge or wash off in the rain.

Seriously looking at getting the HP Colour Laserjet CP1515n previously
mentioned as No.1 Daughter is now doing much more homework that needs
colour print outs and the Epson Stylus Photo 890 I have is very greedy on
expensive and occasionally hard to come by ink. Not to mention the quality
on ordinary paper is not that good.

Be aware that some of the cheaper end of the range printers are "host
based" ie they rely on the host computer to do the grunt work. This almost
invariably means that you must have it plugged into a windows machine.


Not necessarily. You can usually network them. The problems arise
finding suitable drivers for machines other than windows.

The HP CP1515n only officially supports windows & Mac OS X.

--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Owing to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking most articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.
See http://improve-usenet.org

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:23:13 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Adrian wrote:

You're forgetting the _really_ big drawback of an inkjet. They clog if
left unused, which results in the already expensive consumables becoming
VERY expensive.


That varies greatly according to brand. My Epson Stylus inkjets have
always suffered from some degree of clogging - they have fixed print
heads and interchangeable ink tanks, and cleaning the print heads is a
time consuming rigmarole that wastes expensive ink.

My HP DeskJet and Lexmark inkjets have an easy solution to clogging. If
the print heads clog, pop out the cartridges and wipe the ink jets with
a moist cloth. They work perfectly straight afterwards.

Not all. I've had to bin almost full HP cartridges.

--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Owing to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking most articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.
See http://improve-usenet.org

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:12:28 +0000, Lobster wrote:

*******s! I *cannot* believe they can get away with that. Certainly the
last Epson I'm ever buying...

I'm not over enamoured by Epson either with their "chipped" cartridges. OK
the HP LJ CP1515 also has chipped toner carts but there is a simple user
accessable over ride...

--
Cheers
Dave.

Mark wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:02:25 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:31:00 +0000, Tim Lamb wrote:

For 70ukp I can get an entry level laser inc. usb cable. Is there
something I should know?
Yes monochrome lasers are very cheap these days. Been using an LJ1200 for
years now it just works and produces nice clean crisp text that doesn't
smudge or wash off in the rain.

Seriously looking at getting the HP Colour Laserjet CP1515n previously
mentioned as No.1 Daughter is now doing much more homework that needs
colour print outs and the Epson Stylus Photo 890 I have is very greedy on
expensive and occasionally hard to come by ink. Not to mention the quality
on ordinary paper is not that good.

Be aware that some of the cheaper end of the range printers are "host
based" ie they rely on the host computer to do the grunt work. This almost
invariably means that you must have it plugged into a windows machine.

Not necessarily. You can usually network them. The problems arise
finding suitable drivers for machines other than windows.

The HP CP1515n only officially supports windows & Mac OS X.


No printer 'offically' supports Linux...but CUPS is very similar on
MACOSX and Linux... ;-)

Generally a bit of fiddling with the PPD files of something similar gets
things working.

Mark wrote:

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:23:13 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Adrian wrote:

You're forgetting the _really_ big drawback of an inkjet. They clog if
left unused, which results in the already expensive consumables becoming
VERY expensive.


That varies greatly according to brand. My Epson Stylus inkjets have
always suffered from some degree of clogging - they have fixed print
heads and interchangeable ink tanks, and cleaning the print heads is a
time consuming rigmarole that wastes expensive ink.

My HP DeskJet and Lexmark inkjets have an easy solution to clogging. If
the print heads clog, pop out the cartridges and wipe the ink jets with
a moist cloth. They work perfectly straight afterwards.

Not all. I've had to bin almost full HP cartridges.


I has some particularly stubborn ones in an HP 895Cxi, and they needed a
wipe over with a cloth dampened in meths. After a couple of hesitant
test pages, they worked fine.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote:

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:22 -0000, Peter Andrews wrote:

My £55 (PC Wo***) HP Laser Jet 1018 has printed 7237 pages (as of now)
in the past two years - albeit I'm now on my third refill - but it's
never missed a beat.

I'd have to check but I'm pretty sure that I've only just put the 3rd
toner cartridge (long life version) into my LJ1200 and the page count was
about 25,000 when I did that. Even if it's the 4th cartridge thats still
about 8,000 pages each.


Peter's LaserJet 1018 gives about the same number of pages per cartridge
as mine. The HP cartridge is quite compact and is claimed to give 2000
A4 pages at average coverage. My first full cartridge lasted slightly
longer than 2300.

What's annoying is that these cheap printers tend to come with a part
filled cartridge, so you have to buy an expensive replacement quite
quickly.

Lobster wrote:

I have exactly the same issue - the vast majority of output in my house
is B&W but we do have occasional need for colour. So binning my Epson
Stylus Photo 760 inkjet in favour of a monochrome laserjet isn't an
option; I wouldn't mind running them in parallel but for the fact that I
know the inkjet would always be bunged up every time I wanted to use it
if that was only fortnightly, say.


Why not run a test print every couple of days? I run an A3 photo
through my Epson printer twice a week just to keep it all fluid. The
last time I had to clean the nozzles was when I came back from three and
a half weeks in the Caribbean - a small price to pay. ;-)


I don't know much about laser printers, especially colour ones - but if
I bought a colour laser printer as a replacement for the inkjet, and
continued using it 95% for monochrome work, would the consumables work
out far more expensive (for B&W output) than if I bought a monochrome
printer? Or does that depend on the printer? Are colour models
inherently any less reliable?


If they have three or four times as many of the components that are
likely to fail, I think you can draw your own conclusions.

In article ,
Bruce writes:
Tim Lamb wrote:

OK chaps.

Enough already:-)

Cheapo mono laser it is.

At one or two pages per week it still makes expensive copy but much less
aggravation.

But beware buying a new cheap mono laser that takes expensive toner
cartridges. I bought an HP LaserJet 1018 very cheaply on a special
offer at Staples - £49 against the usual street price of £79 to £99.

Genuine HP toner cartridges cost £72 at Staples and £63 at PC World. So
down to Cartridge World and I got a remanufactured toner cartridge for a
mere £29.

I bought an HP1022n a couple of years ago, and ordered a couple
of toner cartridges with it. IIRC, they were £25 each direct
from HP. However, the original cartridge hasn't run out yet.
It's probably not the same cartridge as yours, although it lists
a number of printer numbers just adjacent to 1018.

However, I've noticed a number of HP inkjet cartridges have gone
up by about 50% as the pound has dropped over the last several
months. That's actually stopped me buying an HP printer I was
considering.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:37:45 +0000, Mark wrote:

The HP CP1515n only officially supports windows & Mac OS X.

But understands PS3 and PCL6, so (in theory!) anything that can talk those
languages can print on it.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:21:04 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Mark wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:02:25 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:31:00 +0000, Tim Lamb wrote:

For 70ukp I can get an entry level laser inc. usb cable. Is there
something I should know?
Yes monochrome lasers are very cheap these days. Been using an LJ1200 for
years now it just works and produces nice clean crisp text that doesn't
smudge or wash off in the rain.

Seriously looking at getting the HP Colour Laserjet CP1515n previously
mentioned as No.1 Daughter is now doing much more homework that needs
colour print outs and the Epson Stylus Photo 890 I have is very greedy on
expensive and occasionally hard to come by ink. Not to mention the quality
on ordinary paper is not that good.

Be aware that some of the cheaper end of the range printers are "host
based" ie they rely on the host computer to do the grunt work. This almost
invariably means that you must have it plugged into a windows machine.

Not necessarily. You can usually network them. The problems arise
finding suitable drivers for machines other than windows.

The HP CP1515n only officially supports windows & Mac OS X.


No printer 'offically' supports Linux...but CUPS is very similar on
MACOSX and Linux... ;-)

Some retailers list Linux in their system requirements. e.g. Misco
lists Slackware for the Xerox 6110N.

Generally a bit of fiddling with the PPD files of something similar gets
things working.

As usual with Linux then ;-)


--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Owing to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking most articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.
See http://improve-usenet.org

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:21:34 +0000, Lobster wrote:

I bought a colour laser printer as a replacement for the inkjet, and
continued using it 95% for monochrome work, would the consumables work
out far more expensive (for B&W output) than if I bought a monochrome
printer?

Colour lasers use 4 toner carts black, cyan, magenta and yellow. If you
tell it to print in moncochrome it only uses the black toner. Cost per
cartridge is much of a muchness though the ones for colour printers tend
to be lower capacity than those for a dedicated monochrome one.

Manufactures numbers: 2,200 pages for the black CP1515n cartridge, 2,500
for the normal LJ1200 toner or 3,500 for the extended life one. All cost
within £15 of each other. The CP1515 being in the middle and £6 cheaper
than extended LJ1200. The colour CP1515 ones are rated at 1,400 pages
each.

But balance the cost of colour and black ink cartridges which might do 100
pages for £50 (50p/page) against 2,000 or so from a set toner carts
costing £175 (8p/page). Or monochrome 2.5p/page...

Are colour models inherently any less reliable?

Well as there are 4 times the moving parts (4 toner carts, transfer
rollers etc and the drives for them) then it wouldn't be surprising to
find them less reliable but in normal domestic use I doubt that is an
issue. The CP1515n is rated up to 30,000 pages/month, that is 12 *boxes*
of paper/month.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:19:07 +0000, Bruce wrote:

But beware buying a new cheap mono laser that takes expensive toner
cartridges. I bought an HP LaserJet 1018 very cheaply on a special
offer at Staples - £49 against the usual street price of £79 to £99.

Genuine HP toner cartridges cost £72 at Staples and £63 at PC World. So
down to Cartridge World and I got a remanufactured toner cartridge for a
mere £29.

Online is cheaper genuine Q2612A £57.70 @ dabs (£61.12 delivered) only
2,000 pages though. The 15X (3,500 pages) for my LJ1200 is only 64.36 from
Dabs (+ delivery). So the warning to check the cost/page of the
consumables is valid one.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:31:06 +0000, Bruce wrote:

I know the inkjet would always be bunged up every time I wanted to use
it if that was only fortnightly, say.


Why not run a test print every couple of days? I run an A3 photo
through my Epson printer twice a week just to keep it all fluid.

Well we are talking domestic and A4 printers. If I was to do that I'd have
the towering stack of test prints and have run out of ink by the time I
wanted to do something in anger... Even with the increased home work load
the colour printer only does a few pages a week at roughly a week apart.
And it's still 50:50 as to if it will need a cleaning cycle before it
prints properly. Overall the inkjet is too much agro and expensive to run.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:19:07 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Tim Lamb wrote:

OK chaps.

Enough already:-)

Cheapo mono laser it is.

At one or two pages per week it still makes expensive copy but much less
aggravation.

But beware buying a new cheap mono laser that takes expensive toner
cartridges. I bought an HP LaserJet 1018 very cheaply on a special
offer at Staples - £49 against the usual street price of £79 to £99.

Genuine HP toner cartridges cost £72 at Staples and £63 at PC World. So
down to Cartridge World and I got a remanufactured toner cartridge for a
mere £29.

Wonderful, except that the toner is grey, not black, and it has the
consistency of sand. Not much of it will actually stay on the page, and
if you try printing half tones (photographs) as part of your documents
they suffer from severe banding.

Yes, I took the cartridge back and got a replacement from a different
batch. It was just as bad.

I used to refill cartridges on HP4P and 3 HP5Ns with toner from U Refill
Toner Ltd:

http://www.refilltoner.com/

and never had any trouble; buying 3 or 4 lots at a time came out to about
£15 each (about 3 years ago.
--
Peter.
You don't understand Newton's Third Law of Motion?
It's not rocket science, you know.

Mark wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:21:04 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Mark wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:02:25 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:31:00 +0000, Tim Lamb wrote:

For 70ukp I can get an entry level laser inc. usb cable. Is there
something I should know?
Yes monochrome lasers are very cheap these days. Been using an LJ1200 for
years now it just works and produces nice clean crisp text that doesn't
smudge or wash off in the rain.

Seriously looking at getting the HP Colour Laserjet CP1515n previously
mentioned as No.1 Daughter is now doing much more homework that needs
colour print outs and the Epson Stylus Photo 890 I have is very greedy on
expensive and occasionally hard to come by ink. Not to mention the quality
on ordinary paper is not that good.

Be aware that some of the cheaper end of the range printers are "host
based" ie they rely on the host computer to do the grunt work. This almost
invariably means that you must have it plugged into a windows machine.

Not necessarily. You can usually network them. The problems arise
finding suitable drivers for machines other than windows.
The HP CP1515n only officially supports windows & Mac OS X.

No printer 'offically' supports Linux...but CUPS is very similar on
MACOSX and Linux... ;-)

Some retailers list Linux in their system requirements. e.g. Misco
lists Slackware for the Xerox 6110N.

Generally a bit of fiddling with the PPD files of something similar gets
things working.

As usual with Linux then ;-)


As compared with windows, in which if there isn't a correct driver, you
are totally shagged..

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:21:04 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Mark wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:02:25 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:31:00 +0000, Tim Lamb wrote:

For 70ukp I can get an entry level laser inc. usb cable. Is there
something I should know?
Yes monochrome lasers are very cheap these days. Been using an LJ1200 for
years now it just works and produces nice clean crisp text that doesn't
smudge or wash off in the rain.

Seriously looking at getting the HP Colour Laserjet CP1515n previously
mentioned as No.1 Daughter is now doing much more homework that needs
colour print outs and the Epson Stylus Photo 890 I have is very greedy on
expensive and occasionally hard to come by ink. Not to mention the quality
on ordinary paper is not that good.

Be aware that some of the cheaper end of the range printers are "host
based" ie they rely on the host computer to do the grunt work. This almost
invariably means that you must have it plugged into a windows machine.

Not necessarily. You can usually network them. The problems arise
finding suitable drivers for machines other than windows.

The HP CP1515n only officially supports windows & Mac OS X.


No printer 'offically' supports Linux...but CUPS is very similar on
MACOSX and Linux... ;-)

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/index.html


Generally a bit of fiddling with the PPD files of something similar gets
things working.

Adrian wrote:

You're forgetting the _really_ big drawback of an inkjet. They clog if
left unused, which results in the already expensive consumables becoming
VERY expensive.

Depends. Having a laser printer to do most of my printing, my Canon
Pixma ip4300 Inkjet doesn't get used on more that a few occasions in a
month, or maybe zero.

However, it's never (me touches MDF) blocked up on me when required for
printing.

However, the previous Epson Photo 750 was kindly sent to the dump as
freecycling it would have been a waste (and needlessly annoying) for
someone to take it on and keep it fed with cartridges and the 'windolene
clear' needed to wash through and unclog it.

Inkjets can have some really nice output, this one is easily better than
my Panasonic KX-P7510 laser for grayscale printing - never mind that it
can do colour glossy photographs better than that printed in magazines.

--
Adrian C

On Feb 27, 12:01*am, (Steve Firth) wrote:
wrote:
Steve Firth wrote:
Bob Eager wrote:

What's wrong with a cheapo inkket?

The same that's wrong with a cheap laser. Expensive consumables.
Lightweight components. Poor paper handling options. Proprietary
drivers. Poor quality output.

Very few people will pay the price of a good printer. Nor will they
appreciate the difference between a good printer and ****e.

I've not had any of those troubles with a cheap laser.

As I said, "very few people will pay the price of a good printer" add
your name to the list of those that wont.

Do yourself a favour and avoid inkjets though, too much time wasted on
those.

And on "cheap" lasers.

My "inexpensive" £50 Samsung has given faultless service. The only
problem is the toner cartridges cost as much as the printer did, but
they are no more expensive than many other brands' cartridges.

MBQ

"Dave Liquorice" wrote:

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:19:07 +0000, Bruce wrote:

But beware buying a new cheap mono laser that takes expensive toner
cartridges. I bought an HP LaserJet 1018 very cheaply on a special
offer at Staples - £49 against the usual street price of £79 to £99.

Genuine HP toner cartridges cost £72 at Staples and £63 at PC World. So
down to Cartridge World and I got a remanufactured toner cartridge for a
mere £29.

Online is cheaper genuine Q2612A £57.70 @ dabs (£61.12 delivered) only
2,000 pages though. The 15X (3,500 pages) for my LJ1200 is only 64.36 from
Dabs (+ delivery). So the warning to check the cost/page of the
consumables is valid one.


Thanks for that. I'll remember DABS but I usually buy off eBay - my
last toner cartridge cost me £42 including p+p for genuine HP.

PeterC wrote:

I used to refill cartridges on HP4P and 3 HP5Ns with toner from U Refill
Toner Ltd:

http://www.refilltoner.com/

and never had any trouble; buying 3 or 4 lots at a time came out to about
£15 each (about 3 years ago.


You snipped the following from the posting of mine that you replied to:

"I also have an older HP LaserJet 4 which has none of these problems. It
is totally reliable, accepts cheap off-brand toner cartridges and the
powerfully hot fuser roller makes sure that the toner sticks firmly to
the paper. As long as you don't mind the toner being slightly grey, the
results with cheap toner are just fine."

Cheap toner doesn't seem to work in the 1018, I suspect because the
fuser element doesn't get hot enough.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:31:06 +0000, Bruce wrote:

I know the inkjet would always be bunged up every time I wanted to use
it if that was only fortnightly, say.


Why not run a test print every couple of days? I run an A3 photo
through my Epson printer twice a week just to keep it all fluid.

Well we are talking domestic and A4 printers. If I was to do that I'd have
the towering stack of test prints and have run out of ink by the time I
wanted to do something in anger... Even with the increased home work load
the colour printer only does a few pages a week at roughly a week apart.
And it's still 50:50 as to if it will need a cleaning cycle before it
prints properly. Overall the inkjet is too much agro and expensive to run.


Yes, I can see that.

"Man at B&Q" wrote:

My "inexpensive" £50 Samsung has given faultless service. The only
problem is the toner cartridges cost as much as the printer did, but
they are no more expensive than many other brands' cartridges.


Samsung seem to do pretty well in comparative reviews. I had to choose
between a Samsung and the HP1018 and chose the HP. I had nothing to go
on - at the time (2.5 years ago) I couldn't find good reviews on either,
so I mentally tossed a coin and HP won. It works fine on HP toner.

Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:17:04 +0000, Stephen Howard wrote:

Assuming the nozzle is in the cartridge,

I think this is the case with HP and some Canon's but not Epson's.


My experience with an Epson stylus color 1160 is to leave it on all the
time. Since I started doing that I've had no blockages at all. I'd say
the printer is not used more days than it is and even on a busy day
probably less than 30 sheets are printed. When I used to switch it off
blockages were frequent with similar usage.
I only use the clean button immediately after changing cartridges. And I
allow the machine stop out of ink before bothering to change the
cartridge.
I've no idea why this should happen but I'm very pleased it's so
reliable.

Edgar

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Tim Lamb
saying something like:

For 70ukp I can get an entry level laser inc. usb cable. Is there
something I should know?

Dot matrix have now moved into a specialist field, from being the main
desktop printer that everybody had, to only being used to print out
invoices on multiple part forms. Hence the reduction in market share and
the increase in price.

I rejuvenated an elderly Oki 4W laser(LED) printer recently after it had
been sitting unused for a couple of years. I discovered that spares for
it were dirt cheap now, so snatched up a new drum and three genuine
toner cartridges for about a tenner. It wasn't a particularly cheap
printer in its day, iirc the new price was £400 or so some ten years
ago. The output from it is as good as new now.

On the colour inkjet front; I had Epsons for years, but got sick of the
clogging and moved to an HP with a bulk ink system for colour output.

I'd recommend picking up an oldie but goodie office laser.

Steve Firth wrote:

Very few people will pay the price of a good printer. Nor will they
appreciate the difference between a good printer and ****e.

Most people do not need a good printer why pay for a decent printer when
all you need is a few representations of your work (there are very few
complete garbage printers these days).

Tony Bryer wrote:

Before I emigrated our little-used Epson LQ570+ fetched a whole
£2 on eBay. A manual for a Commodore PET floppy drive got £7!

Yep - my HP Laserjet 5P was £1 (plus £18 postage!) from eBay and is on
it's original toner some 2000 pages later.

--
Dave

Dave A wrote:
Tony Bryer wrote:

Before I emigrated our little-used Epson LQ570+ fetched a whole £2 on
eBay. A manual for a Commodore PET floppy drive got £7!

Yep - my HP Laserjet 5P was £1 (plus £18 postage!) from eBay and is on
it's original toner some 2000 pages later.

its original toner, even.

--
Dave

Tim Lamb explained :
I confidently expected dot matrix printers to be dirt cheap by now and half
promised one as a birthday pressie. 150ukp they must be joking!

For 70ukp I can get an entry level laser inc. usb cable. Is there something I
should know?

Yes, they are a precision technology only now needed for the printing
of multi-part forms and so are now very expensive. A laser is the way
to go now, for an irregularly used printer.

My current one is is an ex-commercial HP with a network card and
duplexer which I picked up ten years ago for £20. It had low mileage
and is is still running on its as it came toner cartridge. I did though
spend a £1 on some replacement pickup rollers which tend to perish.

That printer is on my network, able to be printed to from any of
several PC's, one of which is my grandson's PC who lives half a mile
away. I have just rigged up a wireless link to cover the half mile, so
he has access to our broadband connection. It's a bit of a bugger for
him when it needs paper to be added though :-)

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

Peter Parry submitted this idea :
eBay 260293631150 HP 4050, fast, reliable, built like the proverbial
brick outbuilding and designed for many thousands of copies a month.
One toner cartridge should last you a few years.

Indeed. I have a HP4000 with network card and duplexer. It cost me £20
ten years ago and is still on the cartridge it came with. Better
(cheaper) to see if an office is disposing of its old printers, rather
than going to one of the 'refurbed' suppliers. All they do is a quick
test print on them, then add 90% to the price.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

soup wrote:
Steve Firth wrote:

Very few people will pay the price of a good printer. Nor will they
appreciate the difference between a good printer and ****e.

Most people do not need a good printer why pay for a decent printer when
all you need is a few representations of your work (there are very few
complete garbage printers these days).

Speak for yourself.

It was very easy to spot the people whose smeared and smudged inkjet
CV's came through the post, compared with those who had taken teh
trouble to get to a decent crisp laserjet.

And you can get very good but old laserjets very cheap these days.

On Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:01:56 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

soup wrote:
Steve Firth wrote:

Very few people will pay the price of a good printer. Nor will they
appreciate the difference between a good printer and ****e.

Most people do not need a good printer why pay for a decent printer when
all you need is a few representations of your work (there are very few
complete garbage printers these days).

Speak for yourself.

It was very easy to spot the people whose smeared and smudged inkjet
CV's came through the post, compared with those who had taken teh
trouble to get to a decent crisp laserjet.

I don't think I'd ever be inclined to employ someone who couldn't
operate an inkjet printer properly.

Regards,


--
Steve ( out in the sticks )
Email: Take time to reply: timefrom_usenet{at}gmx.net