Laser Printing Without the Hassles?

yeremein asks: "After yet another black ink cartridge has fizzled out, I've decided that it's time to stop giving money to a known DMCA abuser and buy a new printer. Since I'm fed up with the clogged jets and drifting print head misalignment, not to mention the exorbitant cost of ink cartridges, I'd like to go with a laser printer this time around. It doesn't have to be a high duty cycle one, since it's for home use and I only print maybe 100 pages per month. And black only is fine. Any suggestions for an inexpensive laser that is Linux friendly, and does not employ any 'smart chip' technology that would prevent the toner cartridge from being refilled or cause it to 'expire' and stop working at a certain date regardless of the toner level?"

Samsung 1710 or 1750

[dcstimm]

They can be found for $150 and $250, they have no smart chips, they are fast and they work with Linux, Mac, oh an Windows. It even says Linux compatable on the box and it comes with linux drivers on the cd! (which are opensource).. I would also think the latest cheap HP laser would be a good choice too.

Samsung

[Bruha]

For less than 100 Dollars a Samsung ML-1710 should do the trick for you.. Sold at most compusa's, best buy's, or Fry's.

I've had one for almost a year and it's still running great.. Even under Linux using the foomatic Samsung 4500 drivers.

A used HP Laserjet

[duffbeer703]

Look for a LJ 4/5 'M' model. These printers support Postscript 2 and are ideal for any unix.

HP LaserJet

[justanyone]

My wife brought an HP [compaq.com] LaserJet 6P into my life and it works fine with my Linux box (Redhat 7 onwards).

It's been very reliable and we haven't changed toner in about 2 years. Of course, we don't print that much.

They have 3 printers priced at $200, $400, and $600, information is here. [hp.com]

HP LaserJet

[adb]

Every time I've tried something else, for myself or the company I work for, I've regretted it. Inkjets are slow and expensive per page, Lexmark lasers are flaky and expensive per page (because there are a dozen different things that can run out besides ink, and Lexmark has a monopoly on all of them). HP stuff always Just Works, and there's a large third-party toner market. If you're up to spending $650, buy a 2300it's absurdly fast. Alternately, used LJ4*s are cheap (like $50 cheap) and ubiquitous on eBay; just make sure you pick up some spare parts, too. (The roller thingies tend to die after a while.)

Re:HP LasterJet II

[bigenchilada]

You can fix that error 50 problem yourself. Check out the HP repair kits at:
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/kka3.html
$ 69.95 gets the printer back in business.
And as you said, the HPs of that vintage were built like tanks and last seemingly forever.

Re:Cost per page

[Txiasaeia]

My HP 842C (840 series) printer's black ink replacement cartridge is rated 450-500 pages; cost is $40 CAD. The Samsung ML1710's cartridge (includes drum) is rated for 3000 pages, cost $100 CAD. You do the math.

Simple

[NanoGator]

Brother HL-1440, and a $20'ish memory upgrade from crucial.com. I can personally vouch for the printer, even bought one as a present for my dad, no complaints from him either.

I do a lot of graphics printing on them, not as much text. Not sure how that translates to pages per month, but I can tell ya I'm well beyond several ink cartridges from my old inkjet.

Re:HP LaserJet

[Zocalo]

Seconded on the HPs; both the printers and the drivers are rock solid. I've got a LaserJet 6L which has been going strong for six years now and is on its third toner cartridge and due another RSN. I have it on a network print server and it's been just fine printing with Red Hat from v6.1 onwards using LPRng and now CUPS with v9.0, no PostScript, but the Linux drivers handle that just fine too.

It's just starting to have some problems with the paperfeed though, occasionally pulling several sheets of paper through at a time (successfully I might add!). And that's another thing about HPs; when they actually do jam you very seldom have any problems getting the paper out, you can usually pretty much expose the entire paper path by flipping the lid and removing the cartridge. I'm actually kind of sad to see it failing because it's served me that well, so I'll definately be getting another HP laser to replace it. The big question for me is whether or not to go colour...

Ebay

[Hungus]

I recently purchased a LaserJet 4M for $50 on ebay 75 with shipping 600 DPI and you will most likely never reach its duty cycle for a month in the time you use it. Like teh poster on the HP III said this line is bullet proof. Want the ultimate Bulletproof Laser printer? Lok for a Laserwriter II NT its slow but you could use it for an anchor drop it out of a plane hook it up and it would most likely still run just fine :)

Re:HP LaserJet

[JLester]

Stay away from any of the "L" models like 4L, 5L, 6L, etc. Their paper path is terrible and prone to misfeeds. The M and P models are great.

Jason

Re:HP LaserJet

[Sabriel]

Some of the older HP printers develop the multiple sheets problem, and HP was offering a free repair kit for certain models (dunno if it's still available - if not another reply mentioned a site where you can buy a fix for your model I believe).

Samsungs are cheap and linux ready ...

[timothy]

If you don't do much printing (like me), even a low-budget b/w laser printer is going to last a long time. Samsung makes several cheap-n-cheerful compact lasers that even come with a little penguin on the box. Watch sites like techbargains; recently some merchant had Samsung 1700 b/w lasers for $70 (after rebate) *shipped*. Not bad.

DMCA or not, I've been happy with my Lexmark E210, nicely Linux supported and (since I print little) still on its first cart. after 1.5 years ...

timothy

LaserJet 1300

[yancey]

I'll recommend the HP LaserJet 1300 which supports PostScript Level 2 for all your Linux printing needs and which you can find for as little as $350 on PriceWatch [pricewatch.com].

Lasers are built to last, inkjets are not

[bluGill]

See subject.

Okay, it is a generalization, so you can find exceptions. However that should be your guide. There is no reason and old eBay laser printer can't work for years to come with only toner replacements. Slow, but only compared to modern lasers, what is your hurry at home?

Inkjets are generally disposable. For as little as I print, a inkjet would have to be replaced every time I wanted to printer. My laser (which I got used for almost nothing) should last for years. Unfortunatly you never know, I said the same thing about my last laser printer and it no longer works. However used they are cheap enough that you can afford a lemon, and breaks are rare enough that you are unlikely to get two lemons.

Inkjets are still good for color. If you demand the best color, I've seen cheap inkjets that come out on top when compared to $50,000 color printers (when compared to a pantone standard after an expert adjusted the expensive printer for that color sample!). Most of us do not need that level of abilities in color, and if you do there is probably a reason to get the epensive color printer anyway. Still something to consider if you need color.

Postscript is in theory better than PCL, but Ghostscript does an excellent job in the real world, and not all printers have postscript that is up to standards. (but in most cases it it either real postscript, or an older version of ghoscript, so you can't really go wrong) Don't worry too much about it, but if all else is equal prefer postscript.

One warning, laser printers do need a lot of power, prefer one with an automatic power saving mode, otherwise you will want to turn it off after each use.

Re:HP LasterJet II

[ShawnD]

You can replace the blown traic on the AC module for a lot less (I think I paid about $5 for the part). Just use an NTE generic replacement. Also, put a larger heat sink on it.

I think you can find details using google groups on sci.electronic.repair

Brother 1440

[Tomah4wk]

This printer is absolutely amasing. You dont have to buy a new drum each time the toner runs out (like on hp laserjet) as the toner cartridge and drum a seperate units. Its fast, reliable and is really nice quality. It also has a proper (i.e. not like horrible inkjet) paper feed mechanism so never jams, or gets layers of dust on the top sheet if you dont use to for long. On top of that it has a front and back manual feed (front for envolopes, transparancies and the like, and back for non flexible media) for when you want to do something without removing the paper already in the tray, which is really handy. And mine has been runnging solid for about 2 years (with 3 house moves) without a single problem you cant really go wrong. There are even linux/osx/whatevernix drivers on the cd.

Re:A used HP Laserjet

[MarcQuadra]

Those things have NO regard for electric use, BTW. And cats will LOVE nesting in them while you're at work because they're always warm.

And NEVER plug a laser printer into any setup with a UPS invloved, they draw way too much juice while printing and can easily overload the UPS.

Re:Cost per page

[Permission Denied]

Anyone have any good data on cost per page for inkjet printers vs. laser?

A member of our IT department did a report on exactly this about a year ago. I don't have the report with me, but I can dig up details if required. The laser printers we evaluated were high-end workgroup printers and we took all costs into consideration (initial investment, rollers, maintenance kits, labor (whether we have an in-house technician or contract out the maintenance)).

We also used more realistic estimates on toner/ink usage than the industry defines. The standard industry test for toner cartridge life is at 5% coverage: they have a standard letter they send through the printer multiple times to see how long toner lasts. I wrote the print server software we use and for a few months I calculated and kept logs of ink coverage (on spare CPU cycles, render pages from postscript using printer's DPI and count pixels based on a gray-level heuristic that makes the standard test page come out at 5%). In (what I would call) a normal office environment, our coverage was around 8%, significantly higher than the "industry standard." There are lots of variables here, but the numbers we got for coverage roughly matched how much toner we actually purchased versus pagecount (also logged systematically). As such, I would not put much faith into the numbers printer manufacturers give you. The cartridges we buy are either refilled or we get a good enough volume deal on OEM cartridges that they cost the same as refilled.

Anyway, end results:

Laser: circa $0.07 / page
Inkjet: circa $0.25 / page

The inkjets costs were driven that high not just by cost of ink, but by cost of initial investment and maintenance. We usually have a lifecycle of at least four years on our laser printers in a high volume environment, but our investigations turned up the the average lifecycle of a personal inkjet is about two years. Also important is that most inkjets are simply thrown away when there is something wrong with them but laserjets like the ones we use are repaired and eventually retired to lower-volume environments, but rarely scrapped.

If you're looking at a personal laser printer instead of higher-end workgroup stuff the difference will of course fall (similarly to how the difference would grow if you're looking at professional print-shop stuff), but I'm pretty sure the savings would still be significant. As for myself, I don't own a printer - I just print my personal stuff after-hours at work :)

Re:Samsung

[Geam]

I second the Samsung ML-1710. I've had mine for a couple months and only print only a couple times a week. The quality of the output is great, the setup was easy (USB), and -- after the warm-up -- the pages do come out at 17ppm as promised.

The only downfall I found was the manual feed slot. The pages don't always pull in evenly and crumple one of the corners. Adding the page to the top of the tray resolves this problem. Also, I can't get envelopes to go through properly so I use labels instead.

This model is/was on sale at Best Buy for only $100 (after $30 instant and $70 mail-in rebate) and replacement toner is $70 a pop at Best Buy and similarly priced (very few less) online.

-Jason

Re:Samsung 1710 or 1750

[shaitand]

The 5l's or 6l's have a known issue with the pickup rollers wearing out CONSTANTLY. This is an issue on home printers which should last damn near forever on one toner and maintaince kit.

There are cheapy little pads you can buy that are supposed to "fix" this issue but they can cause more problems then they fix. The replacement rollers which are supposed to resolve the issue from HP doesn't work and still need replaced on very frequent basis.

A good laserjet 3 is probably a better choice, granted it's the size of a small tank and has a weight to match but they are rock solid. Or you could go the same route I did, I recently replaced my laserjet 3d with a laserjet 4100 and couldn't be happier with the results.

Re:HP LJ 4plus

[DarkDust]

I was going to recommend the HP LJ 4/5 series as well. They are very robust printers, Linux plays very nice with them (and every other OS as well). Replacement parts are also still avaible and very cheap. I've got an 5L and had a 4 at work and both work without any problems for years now.