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

[rrinker]

 I gave up on color inkjet a number of years ago. I print so little in color that the ink was always drying up, netting me only a few pages worth of yield from each expensive cartridge or refill. For infrequent use, even heavy use with long idle times between uses, you can't beat laser - the color toner doesn't dry up just sitting there, it's ready to go even if you haven't printed in color for a month.
 I happen to have a Canon. I found a good source on Amazon that has proven to work reliably, for third party replacement toners. For the cost of one Canon genuine color cartridge, I get a pack that has all 3 colors, plus 2 blacks - since I (actually, it's my GF) prints a LOT of text, we go through black toner like crazy. Even with the 2:1 ratio, I still buy extra blacks.
 I've had this about 5 years now, it's probably printed close if not over the rated pages per year, and just keeps on chugging. It has WiFi, wired ethernet, and USB, but since it sits 5 feet from my switch, I have it plugged in instead of using WiFi.

[SilverSolder]

I gave up on color inkjet a number of years ago. I print so little in color that the ink was always drying up, netting me only a few pages worth of yield from each expensive cartridge or refill. For infrequent use, even heavy use with long idle times between uses, you can't beat laser - the color toner doesn't dry up just sitting there, it's ready to go even if you haven't printed in color for a month.
 I happen to have a Canon. I found a good source on Amazon that has proven to work reliably, for third party replacement toners. For the cost of one Canon genuine color cartridge, I get a pack that has all 3 colors, plus 2 blacks - since I (actually, it's my GF) prints a LOT of text, we go through black toner like crazy. Even with the 2:1 ratio, I still buy extra blacks.
 I've had this about 5 years now, it's probably printed close if not over the rated pages per year, and just keeps on chugging. It has WiFi, wired ethernet, and USB, but since it sits 5 feet from my switch, I have it plugged in instead of using WiFi.

I'm making sure to get the worst of all worlds, by caring for several different inkjets as well as mono laser...  please don't talk me into looking into color laser as well!   

[tooki]

I gave up on color inkjet a number of years ago. I print so little in color that the ink was always drying up, netting me only a few pages worth of yield from each expensive cartridge or refill. For infrequent use, even heavy use with long idle times between uses, you can't beat laser - the color toner doesn't dry up just sitting there, it's ready to go even if you haven't printed in color for a month.

For sure, I also recommend lasers for people who print sporadically. But FWIW, there are massive differences in inkjets’ tolerances for downtime. 1990s-2000s Epsons were notorious for being spectacularly intolerant of downtime. By the end of the 2000s, I would not recommend them for anything other than busy offices (where high-quality color was needed) where they’d be used on a daily basis. Even just once-weekly use wasn’t enough to guarantee they wouldn’t clog.

In contrast, Canon inkjets with the separate ink tanks, at least the ones from 2000 on, have proven to be excellent performers in this regard. Yes, they’ll still use a bit more ink after a very long downtime, but they don’t clog up, even after months of sitting idle. I’m still using my 2008 Canon MP970, and in literally 12 years, I’ve only had to deep-clean the heads once or twice. (And with it being such an old model, I’ve been able to stock up on genuine Canon ink for free or close to it by trawling the classifieds for unopened ink from people who upgraded to a newer printer and had leftover spare tanks.)

Finally, while it’s a much smaller problem than inkjet ink drying up, laser cartridges do not have unlimited shelf life. Just last night, I pulled out the small B&W laser (also a classifieds freebie) that I have for PCB making, only to discover that in the probably 2-3 years it was sitting in the cupboard, the imaging drum has gone bad — it has a horizontal stripe across the drum, presumably from the prolonged contact with another roller. I’ve heard of this problem before, as well as of the rubber wiper blades going hard. Either way, a new print cartridge solves it, and it takes years, not months, to happen. But it does happen.

(Then, last night, the printer decided to not eject the toner transfer sheet, but instead wrap it around the fuser drum and iron it tight. In the process of getting that off, I caused a few scratches on the fuser drum, effectively ruining it. Good thing it was a freebie with a nearly-empty cartridge!!!)

[tooki]

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.

Addendum to my prior reply to you:

The reason the wax-inkjet Phaser printers were so fast was that they had page-width printheads (one for each color, of course), so it took merely one pass (edit: probably a few, see SeanB’s reply) of the transfer belt transfer drum under the heads to create the image, and then one swift transfer to the paper while ejecting. Pairing that with the fast CPUs they put inside those things is what let them have the superb print speeds.

Anyway, while wax inkjet is now gone, page-width aqueous inkjet now exists. HP sells it as their “PageWide” printers. I’ve not had a chance to try one yet, but if their specs are to be believed, they’ve got outstanding print speeds, with the same low time-to-first-page times as a prewarmed wax Phaser. And the ink for them is cheap. (As in, the cartridges cost a bit, but they’re enormous. AFAIK these have some of the lowest page costs of any desktop/office printers in existence.) Like the wax Phasers, they’re sold as small-workgroup office printers. What I have no idea about is their resilience to sporadic use. I know HP uses a lot of technologies to prevent and clear clogs (like back suction to reverse clogs back out, instead of trying to force them out forward like previous ones), but I just have no practical experience with these.

As for print quality, they wouldn’t be my first choice for photos, as even their maximum resolution (1200x1200dpi) isn’t that high. But I have seen the output from them, and it’s great for business graphics, text, and other everyday documents.

[jfiresto]

... I pulled out the small B&W laser (also a classifieds freebie) that I have for PCB making, only to discover that in the probably 2-3 years it was sitting in the cupboard, the imaging drum has gone bad — it has a horizontal stripe across the drum, presumably from the prolonged contact with another roller....

Are you sure it was not (not so) prolonged light pollution?

[IDEngineer]

Are you sure it was not (not so) prolonged light pollution?

That was my first thought too. There's a reason many (most? all?) toner cartridges that have an integral drum are shipped in black plastic bags.

[GlennSprigg]

Are you sure it was not (not so) prolonged light pollution?

That was my first thought too. There's a reason many (most? all?) toner cartridges that have an integral drum are shipped in black plastic bags.

He said the m/c was in a 'cupboard', and the drum would be hidden inside the m/c. Can't see light being a problem.
I'd be more curious about how it now printed, with regards to quality??

[tooki]

... I pulled out the small B&W laser (also a classifieds freebie) that I have for PCB making, only to discover that in the probably 2-3 years it was sitting in the cupboard, the imaging drum has gone bad — it has a horizontal stripe across the drum, presumably from the prolonged contact with another roller....

Are you sure it was not (not so) prolonged light pollution?

Definitely sure it wasn’t. The printer was in a closed cardboard box, and the cartridge was inside the printer. No way for light to get in. Before going into the box, it worked flawlessly.

The damage to the drum is mechanical: it’s a roughened (textured) line about 1.5mm thick. So it’s not just desensitization of the photosensitive coating.

(It’s a moot point anyway at this point: the printer subsequently decided to commit suicide by wrapping an A5 sheet of toner transfer paper around the fuser drum, and the rotations ironed it down nice and tight. No idea why it choked on the A5, since that is a supported paper size, and it had no trouble with the A4 sheets of transfer paper. In the process of removing that mess, I caused a few scratches to the fuser drum’s Teflon coating. On paper, that just causes very minor flaws, but on toner transfer paper, where toner adhesion is deliberately weak, it tears off chunks of toner. :/ Luckily this thing was a freebie I didn’t pay one cent for!)

[tooki]

Are you sure it was not (not so) prolonged light pollution?

That was my first thought too. There's a reason many (most? all?) toner cartridges that have an integral drum are shipped in black plastic bags.

He said the m/c was in a 'cupboard', and the drum would be hidden inside the m/c. Can't see light being a problem.
I'd be more curious about how it now printed, with regards to quality??

Other than the banding due to the imaging drum damage (and prior to the fuser drum damage), the print quality was absolutely flawless. The PCBs I made (using the band-free center portion of the image, which was just wide enough for my circuit) came out very well, with sharply defined edges. (Only the center fill of broad traces could have used a bit more toner, even with the highest density setting.)

I suppose it helps that I have a really good laminator. It cost me $1 on the local auction site, but apparently would have cost over $400 when it was new. A few passes thought it on high heat (with the PCB and transfer sheet sandwiched in a folded sheet of plain paper) and done. This was actually the first time I’ve done toner transfer, and it worked better than I’d hoped for, the printer issues notwithstanding.

[SeanB]

Addendum to my prior reply to you:

The reason the wax-inkjet Phaser printers were so fast was that they had page-width printheads (one for each color, of course), so it took merely one pass of the transfer belt under the heads to create the image, and then one swift transfer to the paper while ejecting. Pairing that with the fast CPUs they put inside those things is what let them have the superb print speeds.

Anyway. while wax inkjet is now gone, page-width aqueous inkjet now exists. HP sells it as their “PageWide” printers. I’ve not had a chance to try one yet, but if their specs are to be believed, they’ve got outstanding print speeds, with the same low time-to-first-page times as a prewarmed wax Phaser. And the ink for them is cheap. (As in, the cartridges cost a bit, but they’re enormous. AFAIK these have some of the lowest page costs of any desktop/office printers in existence.) Like the wax Phasers, they’re sold as small-workgroup office printers. What I have no idea about is their resilience to sporadic use. I know HP uses a lot of technologies to prevent and clear clogs (like back suction to reverse clogs back out, instead of trying to force them out forward like previous ones), but I just have no practical experience with these.

As for print quality, they wouldn’t be my first choice for photos, as even their maximum resolution (1200x1200dpi) isn’t that high. But I have seen the output from them, and it’s great for business graphics, text, and other everyday documents.

Phasor printers do have a page width print head, but it makes up an image on the heated transfer drum from multiple rotations of the drum, stepping the head over a pixel width at a time to build up the full page image, then it transfers the hot wax film image from the oil layer onto the paper in a single rotation. There are around 50 IIRC of each colour wax jets, each with it's own channel for hot wax in the main casting, and each with it's own piezo actuator to pump out a droplet of hot wax onto the drum surface as it passes by, just clearing the head. go through the menu structure and get to the test print, and it will make a set of 4 colour bars down the page, each corresponding to a print head output.

Not cheap to run though, as they use around a half stick of the wax ( black still free right) per colur during start up, as the heads are heated up, the vacuum head is pulled over the nozzle area, and the pump runs to pull hot wax through the head multiple times, to clear any air bubbles out of the wax passages. Then the wax is deposited into the maintenance tray as a black blob. then the maintenance tray is lifted up so the wiper pad can clean the drum surface, then it applies the oil film needed to float the image before transferring to the paper as it passes through.

They suck with transparencies, smearing them, but work well on any card or paper stock you run through them, as the paper path is nearly straight. they also are exactly the same cost per page, so I almost always would print anything as white or coloured images on a solid black (at least to the page borders) background.

Still got one in the garage, but as the wax blocks were over $100 per colour, for 3 blocks, or a month's supply in standby, I have not powered it for a decade. Got plenty of black though, I have been using them as candles, just stick a hole in the middle, and put in a wick.

[GlennSprigg]

... I pulled out the small B&W laser (also a classifieds freebie) that I have for PCB making, only to discover that in the probably 2-3 years it was sitting in the cupboard, the imaging drum has gone bad — it has a horizontal stripe across the drum, presumably from the prolonged contact with another roller....

Are you sure it was not (not so) prolonged light pollution?

Definitely sure it wasn’t. The printer was in a closed cardboard box, and the cartridge was inside the printer. No way for light to get in. Before going into the box, it worked flawlessly.

The damage to the drum is mechanical: it’s a roughened (textured) line about 1.5mm thick. So it’s not just desensitization of the photosensitive coating.

(It’s a moot point anyway at this point: the printer subsequently decided to commit suicide by wrapping an A5 sheet of toner transfer paper around the fuser drum, and the rotations ironed it down nice and tight. No idea why it choked on the A5, since that is a supported paper size, and it had no trouble with the A4 sheets of transfer paper. In the process of removing that mess, I caused a few scratches to the fuser drum’s Teflon coating. On paper, that just causes very minor flaws, but on toner transfer paper, where toner adhesion is deliberately weak, it tears off chunks of toner. :/ Luckily this thing was a freebie I didn’t pay one cent for!)

Re: your last paragraph. While recently looking at glossy paper options, especially when people so often now want to print PCB circuits, I was warned to never use paper meant for an InkJet printer, (has a special coating for ink absorption), as the Laser printers have way too much heat and can melt that coating!  Don't know if this applies to you or not?

[tooki]

Addendum to my prior reply to you:

The reason the wax-inkjet Phaser printers were so fast was that they had page-width printheads (one for each color, of course), so it took merely one pass of the transfer belt under the heads to create the image, and then one swift transfer to the paper while ejecting. Pairing that with the fast CPUs they put inside those things is what let them have the superb print speeds.

Anyway. while wax inkjet is now gone, page-width aqueous inkjet now exists. HP sells it as their “PageWide” printers. I’ve not had a chance to try one yet, but if their specs are to be believed, they’ve got outstanding print speeds, with the same low time-to-first-page times as a prewarmed wax Phaser. And the ink for them is cheap. (As in, the cartridges cost a bit, but they’re enormous. AFAIK these have some of the lowest page costs of any desktop/office printers in existence.) Like the wax Phasers, they’re sold as small-workgroup office printers. What I have no idea about is their resilience to sporadic use. I know HP uses a lot of technologies to prevent and clear clogs (like back suction to reverse clogs back out, instead of trying to force them out forward like previous ones), but I just have no practical experience with these.

As for print quality, they wouldn’t be my first choice for photos, as even their maximum resolution (1200x1200dpi) isn’t that high. But I have seen the output from them, and it’s great for business graphics, text, and other everyday documents.

Phasor printers do have a page width print head, but it makes up an image on the heated transfer drum from multiple rotations of the drum, stepping the head over a pixel width at a time to build up the full page image, then it transfers the hot wax film image from the oil layer onto the paper in a single rotation. There are around 50 IIRC of each colour wax jets, each with it's own channel for hot wax in the main casting, and each with it's own piezo actuator to pump out a droplet of hot wax onto the drum surface as it passes by, just clearing the head. go through the menu structure and get to the test print, and it will make a set of 4 colour bars down the page, each corresponding to a print head output.

Not cheap to run though, as they use around a half stick of the wax ( black still free right) per colur during start up, as the heads are heated up, the vacuum head is pulled over the nozzle area, and the pump runs to pull hot wax through the head multiple times, to clear any air bubbles out of the wax passages. Then the wax is deposited into the maintenance tray as a black blob. then the maintenance tray is lifted up so the wiper pad can clean the drum surface, then it applies the oil film needed to float the image before transferring to the paper as it passes through.

They suck with transparencies, smearing them, but work well on any card or paper stock you run through them, as the paper path is nearly straight. they also are exactly the same cost per page, so I almost always would print anything as white or coloured images on a solid black (at least to the page borders) background.

Still got one in the garage, but as the wax blocks were over $100 per colour, for 3 blocks, or a month's supply in standby, I have not powered it for a decade. Got plenty of black though, I have been using them as candles, just stick a hole in the middle, and put in a wick.

Thanks for the info!! Sadly, there is very little technical info on these things available online.


A bit of research says that the regular A4 size models had 440 nozzles per color.

How much do the heads move? From illustrations, it’s clear it’s page-wide, so 440 nozzles for a color, onto roughly 8.25” wide paper, works out to about 50dpi, which would mean 12 rotations to achieve the normal 600dpi print output. So does the head, in essence, just wiggle over a total of 1/50” in 1/600” steps? Given the high print speeds, this must mean the drum is rotating at a ferocious rate, explaining why the page is ultimately ejected with such enthusiasm!


I remember how much wax they used on startup. (And the free black.) As I stated earlier, this made them wholly unsuitable for anything other than workgroups, where it’d get used regularly and never, ever turned off.


Odd that you had smearing on transparencies. The ones I saw come out of these were flawless. (But like color laser transparencies, almost worthless, since the opacity of the color pigments meant that a colorful transparency still appeared nearly black and white when projected! Aqueous inkjet with dye inks is far better for this.)

[tooki]

... I pulled out the small B&W laser (also a classifieds freebie) that I have for PCB making, only to discover that in the probably 2-3 years it was sitting in the cupboard, the imaging drum has gone bad — it has a horizontal stripe across the drum, presumably from the prolonged contact with another roller....

Are you sure it was not (not so) prolonged light pollution?

Definitely sure it wasn’t. The printer was in a closed cardboard box, and the cartridge was inside the printer. No way for light to get in. Before going into the box, it worked flawlessly.

The damage to the drum is mechanical: it’s a roughened (textured) line about 1.5mm thick. So it’s not just desensitization of the photosensitive coating.

(It’s a moot point anyway at this point: the printer subsequently decided to commit suicide by wrapping an A5 sheet of toner transfer paper around the fuser drum, and the rotations ironed it down nice and tight. No idea why it choked on the A5, since that is a supported paper size, and it had no trouble with the A4 sheets of transfer paper. In the process of removing that mess, I caused a few scratches to the fuser drum’s Teflon coating. On paper, that just causes very minor flaws, but on toner transfer paper, where toner adhesion is deliberately weak, it tears off chunks of toner. :/ Luckily this thing was a freebie I didn’t pay one cent for!)

Re: your last paragraph. While recently looking at glossy paper options, especially when people so often now want to print PCB circuits, I was warned to never use paper meant for an InkJet printer, (has a special coating for ink absorption), as the Laser printers have way too much heat and can melt that coating!  Don't know if this applies to you or not?

Definitely not. I said “toner transfer paper” because I bought toner transfer paper made specifically for this purpose. It’s paper with one side laminated with a non-stick coating that just baaaarely holds onto the fused toner. So when you then use a laminator to apply it to the PCB, the toner adheres to the copper and readily releases from the transfer paper.

(From my writings on printers, including the replies in this thread, I’d think it was obvious that I have more than a passing understanding of printer technologies, and certainly would know not to use inkjet photo papers in a laser printer.  )

[GlennSprigg]

Sorry...   
Am only online every few days and can't read everything. 
Hope you and your family are safe in these troubled times!!

[tooki]

Sorry...   
Am only online every few days and can't read everything. 
Hope you and your family are safe in these troubled times!!

Thank you, you as well!

I’m fortunate that my home electronics lab is reasonably well equipped (both in equipment and parts), so rather than going into work, I can do it from home. (I’m interning at a vocational school before beginning an apprenticeship as an electronics technician in the fall.)

[rrinker]

 Interesting - the best overheads I ever saw were from a wax Tektronix printer we had at the place I worked. There was a certain quality to them, reminded me of an elementary school art project where we used crayon shavings then pressed it with a hot iron. The ones we used were special blanks made for that type of printer - I can't imagine an ordinary type working well. Even ink jets have problems, the transparencies designed for inkjet printing usually have a slightly rough surface on the inked side to allow it to adhere.

 I did have one problem with my color laser, because of rarely actually needing color, I ran it for a long time with the color toners actually empty. Until it started leaving a pattern of lines on black and white prints. Cleaning didn't help, looking at the black cartridge, it was fine. But I pulled a color cartridge - black stripe across the drum. Checked the other 3 - same thing. Scraped, not deposited - I guess they don;t like running with absolutely no toner. Replaced the colors - black printed perfectly fine again.

[tooki]

Interesting - the best overheads I ever saw were from a wax Tektronix printer we had at the place I worked. There was a certain quality to them, reminded me of an elementary school art project where we used crayon shavings then pressed it with a hot iron.

Encaustic painting.

A transparency like that sounds interesting, but not necessarily good.

The ones we used were special blanks made for that type of printer - I can't imagine an ordinary type working well. Even ink jets have problems, the transparencies designed for inkjet printing usually have a slightly rough surface on the inked side to allow it to adhere.

Well yeah, you have to use special transparencies for any printer (the ones for writing on with pens will melt in a laser, in an inkjet the ink beads up on them, and I’m honestly not sure what would have happened in a wax printer).

The roughness of inkjet transparencies isn’t visible when projected. What I can say is that by 1998 or so, when I had a 720dpi epson inkjet, the color transparencies from it absolutely wowed people, because they looked spectacular. (For what it’s worth, the roughness was just for grip, in particular for early HP Deskjets, which had a U-shape paper path with feeble rollers that just wouldn’t reliably transport smoother transparencies. It’s the gelatinous coating that makes them amenable to aqueous inks. Some inkjet transparencies had only very, very subtle texture. And there exist opaque glossy inkjet films based on the same types of coatings, but without any texture at all.)