[Shop-talk] Printers (was MIG welder term)

[Wayne]

Bob Kegel wrote:
> In practice they last as long as the original ink cartridges, at which point
> you find it's cheaper to buy a new printer than to buy new ones.

Sorry, but that's not true.  The greedy bums have taken to putting "starter" cartridges in the printers with only a fraction of the capacity (well, maybe 25%) of a new cartridge.  The pricing is all structured so the printer package is at or below cost, and they make a killing on the refill carts'.  Still, if you're stuck with an ink-jet, carts' are a better deal than a whole new unit.

For color ink-jets, I always suggest you go into the printer's default settings (eg: ControlPanel -> Printers).  The options you select there usually stick as the defaults.  Set it to draft or economy mode and gray-scale or B&W only.  The quality is OK for most stuff you do.  When you really need quality or color, go into printer properties while in the application and bump up the settings;  those should only stick for what you're currently working on.

Most estimates for ink-jets is $0.10 - $0.25 page for B&W, and $0.80 - $1.00 for color, which is friggin' crazy.

The best solution, if you can live with B&W is a small laser printer.  I bought an HP 1200 4.5 years ago that the wife & I use quite a bit -- 9,500+ pages in that time.  That would be way over $1,000 of ink, but the laser toner comes in at about $0.023 (just over 2 cents) per page.  I'm on its 3rd toner cart at ~$60.00/ea.

The HP 1200 or 1300 can be had on ebay for < $100 used.

  -Wayne