The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #151858   Message #3548873
Posted By: Newport Boy
14-Aug-13 - 05:44 AM
Thread Name: Tech: My printer is a lying sack of excrement.
Subject: RE: Tech: My printer is a lying sack of excrement.
I've only ever had one inkjet - HP Deskjet 1220C, an A3 printer with excellent line quality. I can't complain about it; I've had it about 15 years but it's only printed about 1500 sheets. It lives in the workshop these days - 0C in winter, 20c in summer - and I get it out when I need it. The ink cartridges usually still work, once after 4 years, and I buy new if needed. I doubt I'll use it again - I've discovered a local print service that will print 1-off from a PDF I provide at only a little above the per-page cost of the HP.

I've bought 3 lasers in 18 years - HP Laserjet 4L (mono) still in regular use. Has printed at least 20,000 sheets (at 4pp/min, that's 83 hours printing). Been using 'compatible' supplies since the 3rd year.

Konica Minolta Magicolor 2450DL - finally retired this year after 12 years and over 100,000 pages. I used a mixture of compatible cartridges and refilling with toner. Also reset the 'out-of-toner' mechanisms to get 6000+ pages instead of 4500 and doubled the life of the drum by inserting a new fuse at 40,000 sheets.

Samsung CLX-3305 All-in-one, new this year. Printing a bit light, but seems OK so far (about 1500 sheets). It's still in warranty, so I haven't looked into lower cost toner or increasing the cartridge yields yet. I think it may be more of a problem than on the KM, but at less than £200 for a colour laser all-in-one I can't complain.

Phil