Reducing TCO of an Inkjet Printer? 77
AtariDatacenter asks: "Everyone knows that inkjet printers are cheap, but the cartridges cost a bundle. I was trying to find one with the lowest total cost of ownership for a modest twenty or so pages a week. This PC Magazine article kind of takes this on, but with a small sample group. Are there any printers today that should be avoided? Is ink reducing software like inkSaver as good as they claim?" Inkjets have a lot of drawbacks when it comes to laser printers except one thing: the initial price. When it comes to printing lots of text that you intend to keep for an indefinite period of time, which works out better over the short-term and long-term? I've already had Inkjet printers die after a few years of normal usage, are laser printers any better?
Continuous ink systems (Score:3, Informative)
The ink becomes a lot cheaper. I'll be using the archival inks from inkjetmall.com [inkjetmall.com] as well as their continuous ink system.
Re:Continuous ink systems (Score:1)
Re:Continuous ink systems (Score:1)
Re:Continuous ink systems (Score:2)
The cheapest way??? (Score:3, Insightful)
First, find the cheapest printer [salescircular.com] you can...Circuit City has the Lexmark Z25 for $39.99 after rebate this week, but a better deal is at Office Max...Hewlett Packard DeskJet 825C for $49.99 (no rebate required), plus it's USB and it also comes with a free USB cable ($15 value).
And, don't worry about the speed of the printer, because if you wanted speed you'ld be buying a Laser Printer for much more $$$.
Then make sure you buy one of the InkJet refill kits...WalMart and CompUSA sell a Universal kit for Color and Black (seperately), but if you go to a Computer Show, you can buy a huge kit that should last you a while for the cost of both.
Now, sit back as the Printer pays for itself in saved cartridges. I don't know about you, but I'm reluctant to use refills on a $200 printer, but have no problems with doing it to a $50 printer. Most cartridges can be refilled 2 or 3 times before they go bad...this means that after only 6 refills, the printer should have paid for itself...
A few notes, in general, stay away from Lexmark and No-Name printers...try to stick with HP, Cannon, Epson, etc.
And don't worry about speed or resolution, if you wanted that, you'ld be buying a Laser Printer, and $$$ wouldn't be your first concern.
The whole idea of this is that Moore's Law works for you here...by the time you need to get a new printer, you can get something much better for the lower price...
Re:The cheapest way??? (Score:2)
It's worth mentioning that you should do your refill research before you pick the printer. A few of the cheaper printers (and many of the more expensive HP ones) have chips or fuses in a circuit on the print cartridge which tells it to expect no more than a certain amount of ink to thwart refills, or that the cart should be invalidated permanently.
Remember that printer manufacturers don't make money on low-end inkjets. They all but give them away, hoping to make their money back on expensive cartridges. And they're going to do all they can to try and prevent you from going elsewhere for 'em.
Re:The cheapest way??? (Score:2)
Re:The cheapest way??? (Score:2)
Re:The cheapest way??? (Score:2)
Re:The cheapest way??? (Score:2)
Exactly. So if you can find a color inkjet for $49.95, buy a couple of them. If its $24.95 for the black cartridge and $34.95 for the color cart, then you'll be saving money. Not to mention the fact being a cheap low-end printer its probably better to replace it every couple of months anyway.
Re:The cheapest way??? (Score:2)
Careful. The cartridges included with HP printers are only filled half way.
so? (Score:2)
And your point is what? It doesn't matter if the carts are filled half-way or filled entirely. When they run out you are still going to have to drop $50+ to replace them. So why bother buying full carts for over $50 when you can simply buy an entire printer for $50? I'd rather just keep replacing my printer. Personally I (and I suspect many people) don't print enough that it makes a difference how full the carts are. I pratically have to buy new ones everytime I need to print something since the ink has dried up.
Re:so? (Score:1)
Re:so? (Score:2)
Theft (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Theft (Score:1)
Re:Theft (Score:1)
Why Not Buy A New one Each Time (Score:1)
Re:Why Not Buy A New one Each Time (Score:1)
With cheap printers ( 200$), the cartridges are only 1/3 to 1/2 full. So you'd end up paying 40$ for a half full or one third full cartridge. That's not saving yourself some money.
Re:Why Not Buy A New one Each Time (Score:1)
Yeah, but since they're colour you get two cartridges, which evens it all out to zero benefit; Except, you do get a new printer rather than a worn out printer, and free electronics crap (like a bonus power supply) which can be useful for projects.
Not to mention these printers are often rediculously low priced -- I bought a crappy Apollo printer for $10 6 months ago at Future Shop (and them's $CDN). I wish I had gotten 10 just for the free cartidges and power supplies!
Lasers (Score:1)
Re:Lasers (Score:1)
Hidden Agenda? (Score:2)
Sometimes I wonder about PC Magazine. Sometimes I wonder if they have hidden agendas. Here's a quote from the article:
"We've added $25 for the cost of the USB printer cable..."
USB cables are less than $3.00 wholesale. If PC Magazine is helping us, why is it helping retailers make outrageous profits on cables?
Re:Hidden Agenda? (Score:2)
Same goes for their extended warrantees and a number of other "useful" accessories.
They could prepare their readers. (Score:1, Informative)
And that's a trick in which PC Magazine participates, rather than tell their readers to prepare for the attempted rip-off and tell them where to get cheap cables.
HP LJIII (Score:2)
While I swear by HP business printers in general for sheer rock solid stability and longevity (note the phrase "business printers" there), the one model that is starting to scare me is the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III. Those monsters are the size of several modern sedans, and the *will* *not* *stop*. I keep seeing them in offices - sometimes not in use, in a supply closet, whereupon I'll ask and be told "yeah, it works fine when we last plugged it in, we just got new printers". I swear that to stop one of these things, you have to freeze it and ship it to the Arctic.
--
Evan
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
It does need a new paper feed roller, but that should be cheap or easily salvaged from a surplus machine.
Re:HP LJIII (Score:1)
You can squeeze some more life out of a worn out LJII/III feed roller by scoring it in a cross-hatch pattern with a sharp knife. Add some rubber renew and you might get another year out of it (I know I have).
I love these printers. I would swear they are the most sturdiest and reliable printers ever made. I've never had a jam that's required more effort than opening the lid. Too bad the new HP laser printers absolutely suck (when they jam badly you'll need to dissassemble much of the printer. BLECH! Not to mention the new abundance of plastic were plastic doesn't belong)
Re:HP LJIII (Score:1)
Uh. On what model do you have to "dissassemble much of the printer" to remove a paper jam?
Re:HP LJIII (Score:1)
At my college, working for computer services, we would get up to 4,000 pages a day out of trusty laserjet 5s (which are still a little to plasticky for my liking) and I would remove a jam once a month (approximately). However, on the laserjet 5000s we would usually pump through about 1,000 - 2,000 pages a day and we'd be clearing jams once or twice a month, most of which were stuck inside the printer underneath the drum area (I wish I could be more specific, but I'm not the best printer repair guy
A poorly built printer, the HP 5000, IMHO. And it costs a hell of a lot to boot.
Re:HP LJIII (Score:1)
at least here..
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
A nexus (Score:2)
I killed it in 14 months. I did a lot of printing, and the print heads were completely shot by the very end.
I've thrown out that printer. I've used plenty of printers over the years, and I have to second JabberWokky's assertions. Essentially, LJIIIs render colour printing unnecessary, and my old objections have no relevance today.
LJIIIs *are* built like tanks, and the technologies behind them are very well understood now. The fact that HP supports Linux doesn't hurt, either. True, they don't print colour, and new cartridges can be expensive. However, refurbished cartridges aren't dear any longer, and if I had just found an old LJIII I'm sure it would still be in use. You can often find them at auction houses, or in the classifieds, or eBay.
Upshot, get a used LJIII and print a test page or two to check the quality. You probably will be satisfied.
Re:HP LJIII (Score:1)
You can fit the guts of an LJIII into an LJII (which I've found seems to survive surplus joints a little bit better). As a bonus, the "online" LED flashes as the printer receives data (at least when using the TCP/IP ethernet adapter -- YES, I do have one of these rare expensive beasts and I love it). Using LJIII guts gives you a slight quality improvement and about 5x more speed.
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
There is a computer recycling / used computer store in Seattle called RePC. [repc.com] They buy stuff from companies (or charge 'em to haul the crap away) dust it off, and then sell it.
While browsing through their printers, I found a HP 5si/MX with the printer test page taped to the top... the page count was over 500,000. When I remarked on its' long and presumably rough life, the reply was "Oh, that's a young one! They usually don't wear out until about 2 million pages."
DAMN.
I had the misfortune to have to install some of those monsters when they were new... they came in on a 1/4-size oak pallet, and had to be moved by (1) a pallet jack, or (2) two burly men or three IT geeks. (They weigh well over 300 pounds.)
Personally, I have a LaserJet 4+ upgraded to 16MB RAM, and a IIIP with 5MB. They've served me for... good Lord, almost 5 and 8 years, respectively! I bought the 4+ used, and I've never had to replace the toner cartridge... so for 5 years of use it has cost me $150. (I think that's what I paid for it...)
The only desire to upgrade that I have experienced is when I found HP's LaserJet 8550 series -- color, prints on 11x17 paper. The 8000 series is the replacement for the 5si, so these things put out something on the order of 25 pages/minute B&W, and perhaps 1/4 that when using color. The estimated cost per page? About 3 cents, not including the purchase price of the machine.
As for me, I'll be looking for a used one. (Probably about 3 years from now.)
8550 (Score:2)
Re:8550 (Score:1)
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
I'm confused--the two burly men weigh 300 pounds (not really all that much) or the three geeks weigh 300 pounds (just about right)?
Re:HP LJIII (Score:1)
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
Too bad all that's left of the company that built that is the brand name.
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
I would love to have one, but I wouldn't have any room in my house to put it. Besides, they're so old, they don't have USB ports for my Mac.
Re:HP LJIII (Score:1)
That is usually what goes wrong with most laser printers of any brand. Pickup rollers and fusers wear out. They make up 90% of the calls.
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
BTW, the HPLJ IIISi was M$'s printer of choice in the Win3.1/95 era, as evidenced by its driver being referenced in all the template files that shipped with Word.
And if you're having trouble with some off-brand laser printer, try one of those two drivers (HPLJ2 or 3Si) as most printers emulate one or the other.
Re:HP LJIII (Score:2)
Now, some months later my friendly neighborhood Linux users' group pointed me to:
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com [fixyourownprinter.com]
And apparently this is a very common problem with LJII/LJIII printers and is due to a failing AC power supply. Makes sense. It's not like this thing has ever seen nice clean UPS power.
Once I scrape up $70, that LJIII will be back and printing...
Reduce the TCO with a baseball bat (Score:2, Insightful)
Step 2. Beat the hell out of your inkjet while listening to gangsta rap.
Step 3. Find a decent used HP laserjet. Older 'office model' HPs are built like tanks. I've found a few with page counts into the 100-200 thousand range that still print fine. Look around and you can find refurbed IIs, IIIs, and 4Ps for about a hundred bucks. With a bit more effort you can pick up free IIs and IIIs from small offices cleaning their closets. They might need a fuser or rollers but the work is easy and the parts are usually cheap.
On a 4P (the personal sized version of the 4 series) the toner lasts about 4000 pages. At 20 pages a week you can get nearly four years out of a $70 toner cartrige. Since a lot of refurbs come with some toner, you might spend a hundred bucks for the printer and be printing for a couple of years.
Now that is a reduced TCO...
Re:Reduce the TCO with a baseball bat (Score:2)
oops - ignore this (Score:1)
I got nothing to add to this thread but the lesson here is, don't "moderate" when you're tired...
Re:oops - ignore this (Score:1)
Laser is superior. (Score:2)
The 2MB of onboard RAM isn't a lot, and it only has 3 fonts onboard, but the toner cartridge (While costing about $100) is good for between 10,000 and 15,000 pages.
I believe the printer cost $999 when new. It hasn't needed a single replacement part (not even new toner -- same toner it came with) since purchase. Of course, your mileage may vary. Older equipment seems to have been designed to last longer because it was more expensive -- you couldn't afford to replace a printer if it broke, you got it fixed, and they designed them not to break.
Now a days, everything is field replaceable -- which usually means swap the whole unit out for a working one. Cheaper that way.
Re:Laser is superior. (Score:1)
Re:Laser is superior. (Score:1)
Epson Stylus Color Original (Score:1)
However, the series is really old (1992 or so?) and mine really needs a new pickup roller. 720 dpi if you can wait...
I remember tests showing 100% coverage of over 125 pages in colour before the cartridge ran out. Black was more. And at just $25-$30 a cartridge, the price is right.
Basically, what I'm saying is look for a printer with BIG cartridges, and check the price of 'em. This printer had the largest cartridges I've ever seen for under $40 and I was happy to buy it, even if it was $700 or so at the time!
For some reason (greed, I suppose) cartridges have gotten punier and punier over time. I expect eventually they'll be the size of coins and cost $100.
Priorities? (Score:3, Informative)
20 pages a week? That's a resonably substansial amount of printing.
Really important point:
If you really need color, an inkjet is hard to beat.
There are some inkjets moving to pigment-based instead of dye-based inks. (It's a premium expense, though.) The output from these is supposed to be colorfast for much longer periods, but I haven't seen this first-hand.
Re:Priorities? (Score:2)
Office Depot sells 500 sheets on inkjet paper [officedepot.com] for $5 and copier paper [officedepot.com] for $4. I bought 75 sheets of Premium Kodak Photo Paper for $20 at Sam's. Lasers may give better quality, but you'll pay for it.
Re:Priorities? (Score:2)
The 2-to-3 dollar figure for 20 pages of printing isn't referring to the cost of paper. It refers to the cost of the consumables that are going on the paper. 10 cents a page, 20 pages... bang. $2. That's for some of the larger-capacity inkjets, too. For the (smaller | cheaper) printers, especially with HP's notorious "economy" refills (read: "screw you, we're selling you a printer with half-empty cartridges"), the cost can be as high as 15/page just for ink. 15 X 20 pages = $3.
"Lasers may give better quality, but you'll pay for it."
You get what you pay for. Yes, the cost of a new printer is higher. (Buy a used one, I did!) Yes, the cost to replace the toner cartridges is psychologically formidable. However, that $94 high-capacity cartridge for my LaserJet 4+ will last me for years, and is rated for (max) 8800 pages! (If I manage to get only half that many, that's still 2.1/page -- 4 to 5 times less than an inkjet!) Also, at 20 pages a week it will take you 4.2 years (!!!) to print 4400 pages.
With penny-a-page paper you get very nice results from a laser printer. Run the same stuff through an inkjet and you will get some bleeding. Not a lot, but it's there. Your photo-quality paper cost you 26.6 per page on sale, and it's required if you want your maximum resolution. Ouch.
Last thing: What happens when you need to print résumés? High-quality résumé paper contains cotton rag. I prefer one paper that's 75% rag, and it bleeds noticably when run through an inkjet. (Yes, I know the alternative -- find someone with a laser or go to Kinko's... but it's nice to have your own.)
Re:Priorities? (Score:1)
on the other hand, the Okidata performs like a charm and was well worth the money spent. It also is in the CDN$10,000 range.
Re:Priorities? (Score:1)
Re:Priorities? (Score:1)
Re: Minolta/QMS Color Laser (Score:2)
Well, it's good to know that printer sucks. I'd noticed them, but never really considered one. My reaction to seeing one was more of "Gee, would you look at that. Color laser for $1000. (I wonder what corners they had to cut?)" The features are moderately impressive, but (no surprise, really) they don't have 'em plugged in so you can get a demo page.
Personally, I'd love to have an HP 8550 (11x17, 24 PPM, ~$7000), but I'll have to wait until (1) they hit the used market, or (2) I win the lottery.
HP has a bunch of nice color lasers, and don't forget Xerox -- they've been doing the toner-on-paper thing for longer than I've been around. I imagine they have a few nice products as well.
Re: Minolta/QMS Color Laser (Score:1)
Re: Minolta/QMS Color Laser (Score:1)
Don't mix ink types in Epsons! (Score:4, Informative)
Epson's ink congeals on contact with most generic inks and jams up the ink path, often irreparably. This problem is mega, since Epsons have the printing unit built into the printer, not the cartridge as with HP carts.
I've not had a problem with mixing different kinds of generic ink however, so as long as an Epson never tastes an Epson cart, you're good to go.
It's also worth mentioning that there are replacement assemblies available for the epsons, which use tubes going from specially modified print heads to individual pint-sized ink reservoirs which sit in a box beside the printer. If you get one of these, you can print something like ten thousand pages of color without refilling.
Re:Don't mix ink types in Epsons! (Score:1)
Cheap cartridges for Epson Printers (Score:2)
http://www.lmcomp.com/printer-cartridges---generic -for-epson-inkjet-printers.html
[lmcomp.com]
Still, I only use this printer for low-volume printing, so costs are very low.
From the InkSaver FAQ (Score:2)
Lemme see:
Q. How does Bresenham's Algorithm work?
A. Bresenham's Algorithm uses technology to analyze and control line data. It uses an advanced algorithm, optimzing line data so that less floating point is used everytime you draw a line.
Oh, that answered my question.
Don't call it a FAQ when it's a press release!
Re:From the InkSaver FAQ (Score:2)
> printer data so that less ink is laid down on
> the page.
Yeah. That's why it is called InkSaver. It saves ink. Duh. Now HOW does it work?
PS: I have no relation, direct or indirect to that company. It caught my eye only because it came up in my research as a piece of software designed to meter ink. If there are some good competitors (open source included, of course), I'd love to have options!
Re:From the InkSaver FAQ (Score:1)
Is ink reducing software like inkSaver as good as they claim?
I hate would-be FAQ mongers in Ask Slashdot, when there isn't a FAQ at all.
Some notes on laser printers... (Score:2)
On the bad side, these things take a fair amount of power. I plugged the thing into my wife's office and the UPS in my home's server room clicked on. DON'T EVER PLUG ONE INTO A UPS! You may have to run an extra line of power into the room.
Laser printers last... (Score:1)
Find a Cheap Laser (Score:1)
Chris
continuous re-inking systems (Score:1)
http://www.getink.com [getink.com]
http://www.inkjetart.com/cis/index.html [inkjetart.com]
http://www.nomorecarts.com [nomorecarts.com]
http://mediastreet.com/n2 [mediastreet.com]
Reducing TCO for inkjets (Score:1)