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

[Jack Brooks]

Exactly!

We have an older HP 4050-TN, which is fast, cheap and duplexes if needed,
for our grunt work printing (Realtor wife and kids).

We use one of those cartridge consuming inkjet color printers for Realtor
wife's brochures and very occasional kids printing.  Like Wayne, the inkjet
is set to default B&W only and in draft mode.  It works great.

Jack

-----Original Message-----
From: shop-talk-bounces+jibjib=att.net at autox.team.net
[mailto:shop-talk-bounces+jibjib=att.net at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Wayne
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 7:12 AM
To: 'Shop-Talk List'
Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] Printers (was MIG welder term)

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
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