Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Hawkmoon on March 23, 2017, 06:14:48 PM
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When my wife was alive, we had her computer connected to an HP Officejet Pro 8500 multi-function printer. That machine also served as our fax machine and scanner, but those functions were rarely used. She liked printing stuff in color, so that's why she had that one. My computer, on the other side of the home "office" room, was (and is) connected to an HP Laserjet 1536dnf multi-function printer, which is B&W.
Since my wife's death three years ago I mostly keep the Officejet turned off, because that's my only protection from junk faxes. I don't remember when I last used it, but I turned it on today and it won't print at all. It runs and goes through the motions, but no ink comes out. I have read that the life of the print heads in that model is short, and I remember getting some alert messages awhile ago that the printheads were mostly expired. New ink cartridges didn't fix it, so I guess it needs print heads.
Print heads are available from Staples, but they cost $70 ... each, and two are required.
My dilemma is whether or not to drop $140 on new print heads. I have another printer waiting in the wings, an Epson wide carriage inkjet that will handle up to 11x17 and the slightly larger "Super-C" size paper. So I don't *NEED* the Officejet -- but it's a good machine (when it works), and it bugs me to just dump it in a landfill.
Fix ... or dump?
Amazon has a set of refurbished print heads for the Officejet Pro 8500 for $41. That's tempting, but reviews are VERY mixed. For some people it seems they worked great, and for others they didn't work at all, or died at 31 days (with a 30-day warranty period). Worth a try?
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Since my wife's death three years ago I mostly keep the Officejet turned off, because that's my only protection from junk faxes.
Unplug the phone line from the printer?
My dilemma is whether or not to drop $140 on new print heads.
Printheads plus cartridges? Junk it.
You can get new for less. http://www.staples.com/All-in-One-Printers/cat_CL161518 (http://www.staples.com/All-in-One-Printers/cat_CL161518).
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Printheads plus cartridges? Junk it.
No, I just installed new ink cartridges.
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What Lee said. You already have the other inkjet. New printheads are not worth it.
As it stands today, inkjets are no longer the economical solution. If you need (or want) the more vibrant color from inkjets for photos or whatnot, go ahead and get one, but otherwise laser is the way to go.
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If you rarely use a printer inkjet is horrible. The ink dries up before you use it all. Laser toner doesn't do that and Brother makes some inexpensive ones that have served me very well at work. Here's a color laser printer w/ toner for $230: https://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL3140CW-Wireless-Networking-Replenishment/dp/B01K4XPVAG
Although if you very rarely need to print color and want high quality sending it to Walgreens isn't a bad option either.
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No, I just installed new ink cartridges.
$140 on new printheads? Check the link I posted. There's whole all-in-one printers less than that.
Yep, lasers are the way to go.
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You might be able to soak the heads in distilled water and/or isopropyl alcohol and get them cleaned up enough to work again.
But otherwise, I'll ditto the advice that, for rare printing, inkjets are a horrible choice. Get a color laser if you want because toner doesn't expire, and you get a lot more pages out of a toner cartridge, the per price print is much lower, especially when you're not wasting ink by having it dry out before use.
And yes, if you really need that very occasional highly colorful photographic print, just hire it out.
Which is cheaper, spending $10-20 to get those photos printed, or spending $100 on ink cartridges that will dry out before you print more photos again?
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Which is cheaper, spending $10-20 to get those photos printed, or spending $100 on ink cartridges that will dry out before you print more photos again?
Uh, oh. Higher math. Is this an open book quiz? Gotta work on that one.
You might be able to soak the heads in distilled water and/or isopropyl alcohol and get them cleaned up enough to work again.
Swabbing the print heads with alcohol got a bit of printing back, then it faded away again. I think I'll try soaking overnight in alcohol. If that doesn't work, I guess I suck it up and take it to the recycling center.
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Don't HP printers have the print head built into the cartridge? Epson has them separate (the ink is cheaper that way, but when the print head goes you are screwed) I don't know about Canon and Lexmark.
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"If you rarely use a printer inkjet is horrible. The ink dries up before you use it all."
This. In Spades.
When I bought my first computer I got a mid-quality Epson color inkjet. I rarely printed stuff out, and the ink was always drying out. Late last year I bought a new ream of paper. I bought the first ream of paper in 2000, when I got my first computer. So, that should tell you how much I print.
I went for a long time without a printer. Scrapped the Epson instead of just buying new cartridges for it to let them dry out, and printed at the office.
Few years ago I decided to spring for a Cannon B&W laser that also did scanning, fax, etc., for a really decent price. Had some issues getting it to work smoothly with Windows 7, but the print quality and scan quality are very good, so I'm quite happy.
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If you have an ultrasonic cleaner, that's the way to try to recover those printheads.
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If you have an ultrasonic cleaner, that's the way to try to recover those printheads.
Good idea. I wish I had one.
I wish color laser printers would come down just a bit more in price.
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Good idea. I wish I had one.
I wish color laser printers would come down just a bit more in price.
How much lower do you want?
https://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL3140CW-Wireless-Networking-Replenishment/dp/B00BR3VZCG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1490366896&sr=8-2&keywords=brother+color+laser
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I wish color laser printers would come down just a bit more in price.
Look at it this way, if you pay ~$150 for the laser (plenty in that range on Amazon, or wait for sale at Staples, etc.), within a year you've already saved ~$50 on ink cartridge replacements. It only goes down from there.
I was waiting to get a laser printer until my Canon inkjet bit the dust. That just happened a few of months ago. In that time, I ended up having to print a lot of stuff - enough that I would have replaced a set of ink cartridges. I'm not even halfway through the toner that came with the laser printer, which are the "starter" toner cartridges. Normal toner runs about twice as long as the starter toner.
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How much lower do you want?
https://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL3140CW-Wireless-Networking-Replenishment/dp/B00BR3VZCG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1490366896&sr=8-2&keywords=brother+color+laser
That's pretty darned good. I guess my thinking has been biased because the Officejet is a multi-function machine, so my dinosaur brain is locked on on replacing it with a multi-function machine. I may have to adjust my mindset.
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And I wish the Fiat Money Fairy would drop off a couple of million dollars, but that's not gonna happen either.
So suck it up and move forward one way or the other. :rofl:
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That's pretty darned good. I guess my thinking has been biased because the Officejet is a multi-function machine, so my dinosaur brain is locked on on replacing it with a multi-function machine. I may have to adjust my mindset.
A couple of choices:
You have that Epson already, so you could just print color on that. Just make a note to print a test page or whatever a few times a month to keep the ink flowing. Then get a monochrome laser MFC for $120.
Or wait for a sale. I got my Brother MFC9340CDW for $75 less than the Amazon price during a Staples sale.
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A couple of choices:
You have that Epson already, so you could just print color on that. Just make a note to print a test page or whatever a few times a month to keep the ink flowing. Then get a monochrome laser MFC for $120.
Or wait for a sale. I got my Brother MFC9340CDW for $75 less than the Amazon price during a Staples sale.
Craigslist. It's amazing how many people panic when they see toner prices and will bail on a very good, lightly used color laser printer. They never consider the cost per page or the fact that toner doesn't dry out.
Brad
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Look at it this way, if you pay ~$150 for the laser (plenty in that range on Amazon, or wait for sale at Staples, etc.), within a year you've already saved ~$50 on ink cartridge replacements. It only goes down from there.
Also, I have a HP laserjet. It's been complaining that the black toner is "extremely low" for the last year or so - and I've put a couple reams through it in that time. I've never said that I'm a high volume printer, after all.
I was waiting to get a laser printer until my Canon inkjet bit the dust. That just happened a few of months ago. In that time, I ended up having to print a lot of stuff - enough that I would have replaced a set of ink cartridges. I'm not even halfway through the toner that came with the laser printer, which are the "starter" toner cartridges. Normal toner runs about twice as long as the starter toner.
In many cases you can get 'high capacity' toner cartridges that will outlast even the normal ones by 50-100%.
Craigslist. It's amazing how many people panic when they see toner prices and will bail on a very good, lightly used color laser printer. They never consider the cost per page or the fact that toner doesn't dry out.
Indeed. $40 inkjet cartridges might get you a couple hundred pages, printed, if you're printing enough to exhaust them before they dry out.
My $60 131A HP black toner cartridge is rated for ~1600 pages. As I said earlier, it's been telling me I'm out 2 reams(1000 pages) ago. Still printing fine.
$80 gets you the high yield version, at least for black, which is 50% more, ~2400 pages. I mostly print B&W, but that doesn't hurt the other colors none.
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In many cases you can get 'high capacity' toner cartridges that will outlast even the normal ones by 50-100%.
That's what I did. I bought a high capacity black cartridge when I bought the printer, then plan on buying standard color cartridges as the starters go dry. Seems like that'll be just right for me. At present, the black starter is showing 25-30% lower than the colors.
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I'll stop in at a Staples the next time I go by one. Meanwhile, the Officejet is 75% back -- I soaked the printheads in alcohol overnight and all morning -- everything now prints except the yellow. And it's possible that if I cycle it off and on a few times to run the internal printhead cleaning routine, the yellow may wake up. At this point, I think what would make me happy is to see it working well enough that I could give it to someone who needs a printer and who is a low-volume but regular user. This fiasco leaves me reluctant to even set up the Epson. I bought it for the wide carriage capability, so until I make progress on the prject that was going to need that, I don't see much point in setting it up and startiing the cycle of having to print weekly or bi-weekly just to keep things flowing.
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That's what I did. I bought a high capacity black cartridge when I bought the printer, then plan on buying standard color cartridges as the starters go dry. Seems like that'll be just right for me. At present, the black starter is showing 25-30% lower than the colors.
So isn't mine, oddly enough. Black at 0%, but still printing fine, the others are all at 30%.
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)(*%%_(&^%$*
Update: THe "75% back" lasted for two pages, then the black disappeared and all I was left with was cyan.
Print heads are spending another night soaking in alcohol.
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Bought one of these this afternoon. Looks good so far but only printed 70-80 pages of stuff that I wanted to print (PDF camera manuals for some recent acquisitions) ;)
Got tired of fighting with my wife's inability to manage her networked printer, always out of paper and/or ink or loaded with card stock whenever I needed to print something.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Brother-HLL2305W-Laser-Printer/39791287 (https://www.walmart.com/ip/Brother-HLL2305W-Laser-Printer/39791287)
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Newest is offering a color laser Ricoh printer for $110 at the moment.
$200 will get you a multifunction.
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Looking at two choices from Staples -- which would the computer gurus recommend? Remember, I'm not a techno-nerd.
http://www.staples.com/Dell-E525W-Color-Laser-All-in-One-Printer-New/product_1667711
or
http://www.staples.com/Canon-Color-ImageCLASS-MF628CW-Laser-Printer-New/product_1807525
Obviously, the price of the Dell is attractive, but it seems to have a fairly high number of really negative reviews.
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My experience from work is that Dell is attempting to do with toner what the rest of the companies have done with ink. Expect to pay a lot more for refills(check prices and size first!) but the whole 'doesn't dry out' makes it not so bad if you don't print much.
Looking at those toner cartridges, I can see that they don't include the drum, like most toner cartridges do for smaller machines.
Think of the toner as oil and the drum as the oil filter. Both are consumable items, though it's generally true that the drum outlasts the toner.
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&sku=210-AEDL&redirect=1
Looks like they used a non-replacable drum/fuser unit in this model. So if the drum goes, so doesn't your printer.
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Of the two, I'd probably lean towards the Canon. I used Canon inkjets exclusively (still have a large format photo printer) and was very happy with the quality. I was going to go Canon for my laser, but I needed duplex scanning and copying, and Canon only had higher end business MFCs for that (like in the $1000 range), so went with the Brother. You should check Canon toner prices though - I don't know if they are higher than Brother, HP, etc. If outrageously high, you might want to wait for a sale on an HP or Brother.
Also, don't confine yourself to Staples. Look at Office Depot, Best Buy, etc. They were all outdoing Amazon when I was buying. For the printers on sale, anyway.
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Also, don't confine yourself to Staples. Look at Office Depot, Best Buy, etc. They were all outdoing Amazon when I was buying. For the printers on sale, anyway.
I'd check newegg out as well.
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It may cost me a few bucks extra, but I want to buy from a company with nearby, bricks-and-mortar stores so I can take it in for service if there are problems. We have Staples and Best Buy around here. Never had Office Depot that I can recall -- we had Office Max, but they closed all their stores (at least in this corner of the universe) several years ago. So I'm skipping Amazon, and no to Newegg, as well.
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It may cost me a few bucks extra, but I want to buy from a company with nearby, bricks-and-mortar stores so I can take it in for service if there are problems.
I'm not aware of any brick and mortar stores that can actually "service" a printer if there's a problem with it today. The solution these days, for something valued at a couple hundred or so, would be to simply exchange it. Which they will only do during their standard return period, maybe.
Otherwise they're going to tell you to contact the manufacturer to use their warranty.
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I'd check newegg out as well.
Newegg is good so long as you only buy products marked with "Sold and Shipped by Newegg" on the product page. I know multiple people that have been screwed-over by Newegg Marketplace sellers, and Newegg basically told them "sorry, nothing we will can do."
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You can also frequently get excellent deals at Tigerdirect.com
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You can also frequently get excellent deals at Tigerdirect.com
Tigerdirect falls in my "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" category.
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Tigerdirect falls in my "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" category.
That's odd, Tigerdirect falls directly into my "bought various items from them nearly a dozen times over the past 10 or so years and have gotten exactly what I ordered, gotten it when they said I would get it, and gotten it for excellent prices" category.
I think the last time I ordered from them was last June or July. Got my crap with no muss or fuss.
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I'm jinxed that way. A lot of people in my Jeep club (and on-line) have had good results buying from Rock Auto. When I tried them ... they sent me parts that didn't fit my Jeep or match the description on their web site, double charged me for shipping, and when I contacted them to point out that the parts they sent didn't fit the vehicle they basically wrote back, "*expletive deleted*ck you, we have your money."
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Well, I really can't blame them.
After all, they had to deal with you... :rofl:
I recently had a similar problem ordering a coat online. It was described as a parka. Parka has some very specific meanings attached to it, as in insulated to some degree to be able to deal with cold weather.
Well, this thing was not a parka, it was barely even a windbreaker.
I blew my stack, returned it, made a very strong complaint about having to pay shipping BOTH ways because their description was so flawed as to be the next thing to an out and out lie.
Got pretty much the same response.
So now it's my mission to make sure that people know that their product descriptions simply cannot be trusted, and that if you buy based on a lie, you're still going to be out a good chunk of money.
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I'm jinxed that way. A lot of people in my Jeep club (and on-line) have had good results buying from Rock Auto. When I tried them ... they sent me parts that didn't fit my Jeep or match the description on their web site, double charged me for shipping, and when I contacted them to point out that the parts they sent didn't fit the vehicle they basically wrote back, "*expletive deleted*ck you, we have your money."
That's when you dispute the charge with your credit card company, so, "*expletive deleted*ck you, you don't have my money"
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I should have gone that route but decided against it.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
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I had to make a decision, so I went with the Canon from Staples. 3-year full-replacement warranty added only $39 to the price. If it doesn't break within three years, it'll never break.
http://www.staples.com/Canon-Color-ImageCLASS-MF628CW-Laser-Printer-New/product_1807525
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.staples-3p.com%2Fs7%2Fis%2Fimage%2FStaples%2Fs0985061_sc7%3F%24splssku%24&hash=e13dd16d910e4fd9194b9db02e3a0db501c69fb1)
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I had to make a decision, so I went with the Canon from Staples. 3-year full-replacement warranty added only $39 to the price. If it doesn't break within three years, it'll never break.
http://www.staples.com/Canon-Color-ImageCLASS-MF628CW-Laser-Printer-New/product_1807525
[img]http://www.staples-3p.com/s7/is/image/Staples/s0985061_sc7?$splssku$
If you buy your toner from Staples, be aware they will price match Amazon.
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I wasn't aware of that. Thank you very much, Sir!
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I had to make a decision, so I went with the Canon from Staples. 3-year full-replacement warranty added only $39 to the price. If it doesn't break within three years, it'll never break.
http://www.staples.com/Canon-Color-ImageCLASS-MF628CW-Laser-Printer-New/product_1807525
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.staples-3p.com%2Fs7%2Fis%2Fimage%2FStaples%2Fs0985061_sc7%3F%24splssku%24&hash=e13dd16d910e4fd9194b9db02e3a0db501c69fb1)
Excellent choice, I think.