Printer Recommendations Please

[Ramchu]

Hey Guys,
I have an HP f4235 printer scanner copier and it has been a good little cheep (purchase price) printer.
It seems as though that every time I go to print something, the color cartridge has dried out and I waste
a lot of ink cleaning it out and these cartridges for this printer aren't all that inexpensive.

Is there or can someone recommend an all in one printer that will work with PCLinuxOS
that does not present this problem.

Thanks,
Ramchu

[sir_herrbatka]

hi,

I would sugest to avoid samsung, epson and canon printers. Support is very short-termed. :-(

[horusfalcon]

Give us a bit more to go on here, if you will.  What kind of printing tasks do you anticipate doing, and how heavy is your printer usage?  Do you also need scanner/copier functionality, or is that just a nice extra?

I've had a cheap HP (PSC1410v) that has served us well since about 2005.  It doesn't do anything fancy, the cartridges are sold as a combo pack at Wal-Mart for $39 (which includes one black and one color cartridge), and a set of cartridges generally goes for about 300-500 pages, depending on whether I'm printing to it or the wife is.  (I do more high coverage color work).  The scanner/copier fuction is easy to access from the front panel, or from SANE, and produces very acceptable results.  The carriage on the 1410v places the print heads in a cap area when not in use to prevent drying out.  It's actually a very well thought-out product to be so inexpensive ($75, I think).

I don't think this model is being made any more, but I've had decent luck with HP products in general in terms of reliability, compatibility with Linux, and durability.  Even so, there are a few on the fora here who have had trouble with certain models.

I used an Epson C62 for a while at one place where I worked, and the print quality was unbelievable.  Of course, so was the supply cost.  Generally, supply cost is higher for Epson and Canon than it is for HP.

I've never been a fan of Lexmark printers, but some here will differ with me, I'm sure.  Same for Brother - I seem to recall many here having trouble getting a Brother printer to work with Linux.

All this time I've been supposing you don't want a laser printer - toner cartridges are quite expensive compared to inkjet cartridges, even if per-page cost can by very competitive.  That, and color lasers are even more expensive.

Yeah... talk a bit more about what you want to do, and be advised that Newegg is running a sale on certain models of inkjet and laser printers.  You might shop around and find what you need for a good price right now.  I probably don't have to remind you, but when you shop always price supplies, too.  They can be a real hidden cost for some models.

Later On,
D

P.S. - this page might give you some useful information...

[T6]

about printers, if you can avoid using it completely better because printers are from hell and came here to make us suffer

if you need to use them, i would suggest you to refill those hp cartridges, most of them will survive 3 to 5 refills without issues



if you don't want to refill your printer, lots of epson printers can be modified to accept ink tanks to print 10000 or more pages, this will void warranty on some models because you need to open the unitto adjust the ink tubes and not all models will be ideal to make the modifications, there is some kits for hp and canon too but not for all models



in general i recommend laser printers, especially samsung, cheap cartridges and good printing quality for a minimum of 1000 pages compared to maybe 80 pages from most hp or epson printers

[ThirdOfSix]

I too have the problem of rarely printing and then having one or more jets nonfunctional.

I have been thinking that I would like to come up with a nice usably formatted calendar that uses all the jets and colors and then create a cron job to have it print out about once a week to keep the cartridges clear.

That might be a very useful beginning programer/scripter project for someone in the group such that it features PCLOS and maybe prints out all those useful functions that some of us can never remember when we need them. Such as the keystrokes to get a non-responding system to come back to life without powering down.

But, in answer to your actual question, I was repairing a family members computer and set up pclos on it and set it up to work with her hp printer.

I was surprised to discover that her printer did not have that problem even if it sat for months. Apparently it does periodic self tests and purges itself if/when required.

This is good and bad. If it sits with new cartridges and you never actually print anything, it will run out of ink in 6 months to a year from the self tests.

Still, this is better than having it either not print or print with missing colors or streaks when you need a printout NOW.

Her printer is an hp photosmart C-5180 that uses six or seven small cartridges so you only have to replace the color cartridge that holds the color that you have used.

This beats the way mine works where if any color is used up, it refuses to print at all until you buy a new color cartridge at highway robbery prices.

The catch is that I don't think that printer is even sold anymore.
But, I would not be surprised if some of the others that use the same cartridges have the same function. I just don't know how you would find out because many/most retail sales folks will lie to make the sale.

The other thing to consider is that many people are so angry with printer ink prices that they go buy a new printer when it runs out of ink because cheap printers with cartridges cost less than buying replacement cartridges....little do they know that they are likely only to get a few pages out of the deliberately ink starved cartridges included with new printers.

Because of this, you can find these printers with missing ink cartridges in thrift stores for about five dollars.

[Rudge]

Hey Guys,
I have an HP f4235 printer scanner copier and it has been a good little cheep (purchase price) printer.
It seems as though that every time I go to print something, the color cartridge has dried out and I waste
a lot of ink cleaning it out and these cartridges for this printer aren't all that inexpensive.

Is there or can someone recommend an all in one printer that will work with PCLinuxOS
that does not present this problem.

Thanks,
Ramchu

Any of the "ink jet" printers are going to do this. The cartridges simply can't hold up unused for long periods of time. They all dry up and become clogged.

As has been suggested, a laser printer is your best choice under these conditions however, you wont be printing in color with a laser printer.


My suggestion? Buy an ink jet printer that you like and then write a script that prints out a test page every week, (stick it into cron.)

That should be enough to keep the ink flowing. It's a waste of ink, I know, but not as big a waste as replacing a dried out cartridge.


Good luck.    

[bicol_willem]

hi,

I would sugest to avoid samsung, epson and canon printers. Support is very short-termed. :-(

I would suggest Samsung, Epson and especially Canon. Support is hardly needed. (My MP160 seems to live for ever and was easily converted to "bottomless ink").
HP has great support in pointing you to the extraordinary expensive replacement ink. 

(Anything but HP here) 

[Rudge]

I have had good luck with Epson as well.

[gseaman]

I was an HP advocate until my recent purchase. I bought an L7700, (I think), which came with the ability to purchase long lasting ink cartridges for an extremely low cost per page. I never had an issue with the ink drying, but after the warranty (about 1 1/2 years), I had a print head quit working. Since this model had print heads seperate from the ink cartridges, I was faced with ordering a print head from HP for almost $100 and no guarantee that it would solve the problem. The worst part is that I had just replaced all 4 large volume colors for about $120.

Galen

[kaptain_zero]

I used an HP 1200 laser printer for many years. It finally quit on me so I replaced it with a Samsung SCX-4623F all in one laser (monochrome). It's been working fine for the past year or so....  I've always had the same problem with inkjets. I just don't use them often enough to keep the jets clean. I have an older cheap HP that still works fine, it was an all in one but had the older type cartridges that have the print head built into the cartridge. If it plugs up, just put a new cartridge in and all is back to normal.

There are fairly inexpensive color lasers out there these days, but by the time you buy all the toner cartridges (usually 4 or more), it probably costs as much or more than the printer did!

I stick with monochrome laser, send my photo images to a photo place for printing on traditional photo paper and if I just absolutely have to have a color printout, I fire up the old HP and keep my fingers crossed. The new HP printers I've seen all use a separate print head like all the other brands... I won't buy one of them as I just don't use an inkjet often enough to keep the print head working.

Regards

Christian

[twa]

Ramchu,
my all-in-one (printer-scanner-copy) is a HP deskjet 2050 bought here in Italy for €30 (approx $26)
and the cartridge (black or color) cost approx $20.
yes I do not understand why replacement cartridge should cost almost like the new printer..but
have passed through many LINUX distros (finally I landed on PCLinuxOS) and HPs always were detected/worked out of the box.
 

[bicol_willem]

Ramchu,
my all-in-one (printer-scanner-copy) is a HP deskjet 2050 bought here in Italy for €30 (approx $26)
and the cartridge (black or color) cost approx $20.
yes I do not understand why replacement cartridge should cost almost like the new printer..but
have passed through many LINUX distros (finally I landed on PCLinuxOS) and HPs always were detected/worked out of the box.
 

So do a LOT of printers of many makes 

[Ramchu]

Thanks for all of the replies.
I will look into the laser printers, looks like that may be the way to go.

again,
 Thanks !

[horusfalcon]

It sounds like you've found a path forward.  Just remember a few things when shopping for a printer:

1.)  Factor in the supply costs, both in terms of per page cost and purchase price.  These are the major hidden cost associated with printers.

2.)  Look into features you may want such as a duplex feeder, special sizes (like tabloid), etc.

3.)  Check the PCLinuxOS Hardware Database

4.)  Make sure you have a good cable (unless the printer is wifi-capable), and a spot on a surge suppressor or UPS to plug it in.

Good Hunting!  I hope you find what you need to get what you want to do done.

Later On,
D