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Color Laser Printer WIFI (Although I'm old!)
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tooki:

--- Quote from: daveyk on March 29, 2020, 06:32:06 pm ---"My Missus & I got sick of using/buying cheap $30 inkjet printers."

Not laser, but I would add my 2 cents.  I purchased two Epson ET-3750 EcoTank Printers.  One for upstairs and one for my small business.  The one for my business has printed through two ink refills in less than a year.  That is a huge amount of printing, a lot of it in High Quality double-sided mode.  It is about $300-$350 (I forget), but the ink is dirt cheap.  You refill the ink tanks from large bottle of ink.  In high quality mode, it is a bit slow, but the printing is probably about as good as a laserjet, not as nice as a wax, sublimation printer, but I am very happy them.

I am now interested in a laserjet printer, probably monochrome is fine.  I primarily want it for printing circuit board PCB transfers, but I am thinking I may get a color one that can do double-sides for use in the business too.  Toner cartridges cost is the main reason I didn't get a laser printer.  It seems you found one with inexpensive cartridges on ebay for your printer.  I have to read through the rest of the messages and see if you mentioned the model of the printer you choose. 

Is there a good color wax printer out there like the Xerox we had a work?  I forget the model but it had 4 or 5 WAX cubes instead of a toner cartridge.  It had the best printout I have ever seen in a color printer and it was as fast as a laser.  It did need services a couple times a year, but it was used hard, probably printing 200-500 pages a day.  I would love one of those, or similar, for here at home. LOL, I can only dream.  I wonder if WAX printers are okay for PCB transfer paper?  I would highly doubt it.

--- End quote ---
I think your printer knowledge is kinda outdated.

The wax inkjets (inkjets is what they were, after all!) were never the best print quality. What they had was awesome speed and great economy provided they were never switched off. (Priming the system after powering up consumed enormous amounts of wax, more than 10% of a refill per warmup cycle, making them exclusively suitable for fairly high-volume office operations — they were totally unsuitable for home use). Anyway, their print quality was matched or exceeded by aqueous inkjet 20 years ago, and their speed matched by even cheap lasers 15 years ago, so Xerox stopped making them a few years ago. (I bet they would have worked very well for PCB transfers, though!!!)

Dye sublimation printers only survive as dedicated printers for photo printing, mostly for in-store kiosks and little mini home photo printers. In their previous domains of photography and prepress proofing, dye sub printers have been completely replaced by aqueous inkjet and color laser.


Whether you go for inkjet or laser, the best advice I can give you is to not go cheap on the printer itself. The cheaper the machine, the more expensive the consumables. There is no meaningful difference in print cost between laser and inkjet per se: it depends entirely on the model. (As I've explained in other threads, cheap lasers have completely moved to the razor-and-blades model, as cheap inkjets have always done. Meanwhile, for B&W office printers and things like mass mailing printers for utilities, inkjet now has the lowest page costs.) Inkjet will ultimately give the best print quality for photos, while laser has the advantage of having no ink to dry up, so much better for sporadic use.
SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: daveyk on March 29, 2020, 06:32:06 pm ---"My Missus & I got sick of using/buying cheap $30 inkjet printers."

Not laser, but I would add my 2 cents.  I purchased two Epson ET-3750 EcoTank Printers.  One for upstairs and one for my small business.  The one for my business has printed through two ink refills in less than a year.  That is a huge amount of printing, a lot of it in High Quality double-sided mode.  It is about $300-$350 (I forget), but the ink is dirt cheap.  You refill the ink tanks from large bottle of ink.  In high quality mode, it is a bit slow, but the printing is probably about as good as a laserjet, not as nice as a wax, sublimation printer, but I am very happy them.

I am now interested in a laserjet printer, probably monochrome is fine.  I primarily want it for printing circuit board PCB transfers, but I am thinking I may get a color one that can do double-sides for use in the business too.  Toner cartridges cost is the main reason I didn't get a laser printer.  It seems you found one with inexpensive cartridges on ebay for your printer.  I have to read through the rest of the messages and see if you mentioned the model of the printer you choose. 

Is there a good color wax printer out there like the Xerox we had a work?  I forget the model but it had 4 or 5 WAX cubes instead of a toner cartridge.  It had the best printout I have ever seen in a color printer and it was as fast as a laser.  It did need services a couple times a year, but it was used hard, probably printing 200-500 pages a day.  I would love one of those, or similar, for here at home. LOL, I can only dream.  I wonder if WAX printers are okay for PCB transfer paper?  I would highly doubt it.

Dave

--- End quote ---

Keep in mind also that color laser is not good for PCB transfer projects - the "ink" is not the right type.  It needs to be monochrome, and there are some brands of monochrome printers (and aftermarket toner) that won't work...   do your homework before buying something for PCB work.


jfiresto:

--- Quote from: IDEngineer on March 29, 2020, 06:46:50 pm ---... After copious research, we replaced it with a Canon LBP226dw. For under $300 delivered it is easily 2-3X faster than the 1200, does duplex printing which will slash our paper consumption, includes Ethernet (no more dependence upon a specific host PC so everyone else can access the printer!), etc. It's better in every way. Longevity remains to be seen....
--- End quote ---

Longevity may prove to be the deciding factor. The P2040dw is a similar model from Kyocera if you ever need another brand to try. I will look at the Canon if my P2040dn (a dw without WiFi) does not last.
IDEngineer:

--- Quote from: jfiresto on March 30, 2020, 07:35:16 pm ---Longevity may prove to be the deciding factor.
--- End quote ---
Agreed, and it will be hard to match the 1200's 48K page count. Back in their heyday, HP bought the laser mechanisms straight from Canon and built their printers around them (I interviewed at the HP printer division in Boise and learned many interesting things!). If the 1200 is any indication, I'm hopeful that same Canon longevity is still in the new printer!  :)
jfiresto:
I am pretty sure my first laserprinter, from QMS, used a Canon engine.

On paper, the Kyocera P2040dn/dw is meant for a serious amount of use, with a maximum 50 000 pages per month duty cycle, and drum+wear items replacement every 100 000 pages. Extending the warranty from 1 to 3 years, roughly doubles the price of the printer. Assuming their customers average 25 000 pages a month, that suggests a product design life of perhaps half a million pages.

The design life in years is another and the more important matter. I assume it is at least three years. I just hope that much lighter use does not shorten the printer's useful life, as it did with my father's old, Tektronix color laser printer.
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