# Printer surprise.



## Astro Pen (Apr 15, 2020)

Whilst I use my 20 year old laserjet 2100 for manusripts letters etc' It's a high miler now and I really need to overhaul it but it does the job with the odd jam. That was from the era when HP were top dog 

 Relatively recently I made the mistake of buying an HP inkjet for photos. thinking the 6 ink thing would give pro results. It has always been a disaster. Any thing more than a week between prints and it is a tale of blocked nozzle and striped woe. Then there is the whole "expired cartridge" racket. 
In desperation I pulled out the old Canon Pixma unused for 8 months I fully expected major disappointment. 
To my delight a perfect A4 photo, straight out of the gate! Well done Canon. 

What printers have you had good or bad service from?


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## Foxbat (Apr 15, 2020)

I have an HP inkjet and have similar problems with blockages.

The printer before that was a brother and worked perfectly. Then they decided to stop making ink cartridges for that model so  I decided never to buy another Brother printer (and I never have). I think every printer is a rip off of some sort so there is no reason for me to show any brand loyalty to any company. If HP does something similar to Brother then they too will be entered into my book of mortal enemies.


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## HareBrain (Apr 15, 2020)

I still use a Laserjet 4000, which I was given as part of an office clearance by a friend in about 2005. He told me at the time that the toner would need replacing soon, but I've never had to. Admittedly I hardly use it now, but it has printed out several thousand pages of text since I got it.

Annoyingly though, I can only now get it to work without jamming if it has a single sheet in the paper tray, so printing out a multi-page document is a real faff. But I just don't need to do enough printing to justify a new one. (I never edit hard-copy any more.)


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## Astro Pen (Apr 15, 2020)

HareBrain said:


> Annoyingly though, I can only now get it to work without jamming if it has a single sheet in the paper tray, so printing out a multi-page document is a real faff.


Yes, that is the same problem I am developing. Sometimes days  will print 30 in row just fine, others I keep the tray full but I have to print 1,2,3,4...  as separate instructions. Once you get a rhythm it's not too bad. It may be a paper/humidity thing.


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## -K2- (Apr 15, 2020)

I'd have to check on the make, but I still have a commercial dot-matrix printer my spouse used to print multi-layer invoices that still works fine. It just needs an older PC with a serial port to hook it up, and a 4' sheet width 'pen plotter' (serial port as well), and ammonia based print machines. The pen plotter could go, but the rest will stay.

K2


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## Foxbat (Apr 15, 2020)

Instead of printing a document nowadays, I just either copy it across to my kindle  if it’s PDF or simply convert it to PDF and then copy it across. I think it’s been about a year since I actually printed anything so, no doubt, the printer will be blocked again.


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## Elckerlyc (Apr 15, 2020)

I have a Brother which I use primarily to print photos on A4 or A3 format to decorate my walls with. Or simple b/w documents when needed (not for decorations purposes  )
So far without major hiccups, not counting the mind-boggling frequency at which the ink cartridges need replaced. I tried alternative cartridges for a while. Unfortunately, my Brother is a very bright printer. It has learned to recognize these cartridges and now refuses to operate when I insert one.


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## -K2- (Apr 15, 2020)

Elckerlyc said:


> I have a Brother which I use primarily to print photos on A4 or A3 format to decorate my walls with. Or simple b/w documents when needed (not for decorations purposes  )
> So far without major hiccups, not counting the mind-boggling frequency at which the ink cartridges need replaced. I tried alternative cartridges for a while. Unfortunately, my Brother is a very bright printer. It has learned to recognize these cartridges and now refuses to operate when I insert one.



Using alternate cartridges used to work until they started adding chips to them. That's why if you just print in black, when it runs dry the others--though full--also must be replaced (and you can't trick it by removing then reinserting them). Higher end printers give you a little extra leeway in that regard, but not much.

K2


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## hitmouse (Apr 15, 2020)

At work I have used an old Kyocera b&w laser printer for at least 10 years without any complaint. I think I have changed the cartridge  twice. 
At home I have an HP inkjet which was fairly cheap to buy but which is annoyingly expensive to run. Going to trade it in for another inkjet.


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## tinkerdan (Apr 16, 2020)

I have an HP inkjet 932 that is really old now and I never have had trouble with the ink cartridges though it can sit for a month with no use.

I tried a Brothers ink jet--never again--that one had major alignment problems and the ink is separate from the heads, not worth the trouble.

I own  two Cannon Pixima that have really worked well for me. They print color photos with no border up to 8 and a half by 11; which is why I use those. Haven't had problems with those cartridges either and the printers go from overused to once every couple weeks--all depending on where I am in my writing. 
.
You still can't beat the HP laser-jet color printers that we use at work; however the cartridges are expensive and if you use those third party cartridges you can really mess things up with too much ink getting inside the works. I have one at home[ LaserJet 450 ]because work tossed it when it was massively corrupted. It  would print five pages fine then start smearing cyan all over the edges. After I got it home and put standard cartridges in it took about 600 pages of printed material before I got it to straighten up and print right But my beta readers got a few smeared pages while I was doing that.

[I pulled every panel off of the 450 that I could, to see if I could get into the belt area that seemed to be loaded with ink; however I reached a point where It would require way too much work[I downloaded the assembly diagram at this point]and it would add major time to pull things apart further and enough to clean things and there were stronger possibilities of really messing things up. So I backed out at that point and plugged everything back in and shut the panels.  Then ran some near card-stock sheets through and the 600 pages before the ink smears stopped.]

Then there is the Xerox(they rent) at work that prints up to 17 by 22 inch and has very high quality color prints. Would love to have that at home.


As to jamming paper:
I've found little trouble with jamming if you buy the higher quality paper(Thicker 24 lb or above and usually higher whiteness number).
I discovered this at work, because the office supply person is often tempted to go cheap and every time they did that they ended up calling me to un-jam their paper feeder. Once I convinced them that a few dollars more would buy better quality paper there were fewer jams.

I still have to pull the back panel off the Pixima's on occasion--but mostly I just have to worry about running out of paper in the tray.

Also humidity can cause pages to stick and feed together.  Humid days and humid environments. Printers like cool dry places.

The paper tray should be the flat on the bottom not the kind that feed by gravity into the back.


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## HareBrain (Apr 16, 2020)

tinkerdan said:


> As to jamming paper:
> I've found little trouble with jamming if you buy the higher quality paper(Thicker 24 lb or above and usually higher whiteness number).
> I discovered this at work, because the office supply person is often tempted to go cheap and every time they did that they ended up calling me to un-jam their paper feeder. Once I convinced them that a few dollars more would buy better quality paper there were fewer jams.



Interesting. 24lb equates to 90gsm. I've been using 80gsm, but I've just tried half-filling the tray with some 100gsm I had lying around and printing two sheets, and both fed through fine. So it looks like great advice.


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