Best printer for toner transfer

[tooki]

FYI, I tried the big workgroup color Kyocera at work, and like the small desktop B&W Kyocera, it worked, but the result is nowhere near as sharp as what I got out of the el-cheapo Samsung.

[moffy]

The Kyocera I have seems OK, but I don't have any real comparisons. The pages when they come out though are hot, and accompanied with a puff of steam. It's like a little dragon. We can also print directly from our phones to the printer, neat!

[Pawelr98]

Anyone here uses Sodium persulfate for etching ?

Generally speaking in Poland it replaced Iron Chloride for many people.
A local company sells Sodium persulfate crystals as a well known B327 etching product.

You purchase a bag full of white crystals, then you dissolve it in water which has to be heated up to around 40-50°C.
At 50°C the process is a bit faster than at 40°C but faster etching means higher risk of small tracks getting etched.
Variable temperature means the etching speed can be controlled as required.
The solution at lower temperatures will still etch, but it will be painfully slow.
I don't recommend higher temperatures, not really worth it as the stuff gets messy (either toner is dissolving or something is breaking down chemically, lots of black stuff appearing in the water).

Never really had problems with thinner tracks getting etched away though.

Instead of following the procedure written on the B327 package which says "disslove X amount in Y amount of water" I just dissolve more each time the etching process slows down or just stops alltogether.
When the process stops the pure copper gets "dirty", most likely from byproducts of the chemical reaction.
Once you add more the copper instantly becomes "clean" and the process starts again.

The etching solution is fairly transparent (gets blue over time but still nothing serious) so one may observe the etching process in detail.

[KL27x]

If I had never fallen down the cupric chloride rabbit hole, I might be etching with that stuff, today. The etching accuracy is supposed to be the best, so your experience sounds about right. And you make it sound convenient enough.

When I reached that fork in the road, the pop knowledge on the internet led me to believe etching with cupric would be impossibly simple and easy.

[madires]

Anyone here uses Sodium persulfate for etching ?

Generally speaking in Poland it replaced Iron Chloride for many people.

It's similar over here. I've moved from iron (III) chloride to sodium persulfate long time ago. But there's one drawback, it's more aggressive against all kinds of materials. I had to swap the wooden air bubblers with ceramic ones, some plastic screws had to be replaced with another plastic type, and the air tubing was changed from PVC to silicone.

[BrandonClarkson]

I can advise you HP LaserJet Pro M104w. I have been using it for many years and I really like it.

[cheeseit]

@BrandonClarkson: That's good to know. I'm waiting for the M118DW being back in stock locally though I realise that the two of them may have nothing in common. This is to replace an old Samsung with half the vertical resolution.

@KL27x: could have been me, I'm from Denmark, have used photo paper and found that some don't work, some are mediocre and some are excellent. Trouble is that I can't remember which were the good ones. I do remember some Canon papers were excellent. 

I never got the yellow backing/transfer paper from China to work as my Samsung doesn't work properly with them.

[rfguy2020]

I have tested two new printers.

Xerox 6510 was not working well. Linewidth of the print was not even close to Samsung. I'm not sure if the problem was caused by the driver or printer itself. I tried to get support from Xerox, but outcome was that printer is intended for "high quality text documents and color files printing". Whatever that means. Anyway, I was testing some blue press and peel films and they did look too promising either. I decided to forget Xerox printers.

Then I went to HP. I tested Laserjet pro M304a. First impression was not much better than Xerox. I cannot print with same quality than with Samsung. Toner looks more promising, but resolutions is worse. Picture of my test pattern as attached.

It seems that laser printers are degenerated. I think those new "laser" printers are actually LED printers. LED printer is not probably able to print with same quality than true laser. Does anyone know if there are any true laser printers available?

I'm interested to hear how HP Laserjet Pro M118dw is working? It might be next candidate in my list. 

[tooki]

@BrandonClarkson: That's good to know. I'm waiting for the M118DW being back in stock locally though I realise that the two of them may have nothing in common. This is to replace an old Samsung with half the vertical resolution.

@KL27x: could have been me, I'm from Denmark, have used photo paper and found that some don't work, some are mediocre and some are excellent. Trouble is that I can't remember which were the good ones. I do remember some Canon papers were excellent. 

I never got the yellow backing/transfer paper from China to work as my Samsung doesn't work properly with them.

Weird. My (sadly now broken) Samsung produced the best output I’ve achieved so far onto the yellow transfer paper.

[tooki]

Anyone got any experience with a laser printer model that’s on the market now? After my little Samsung died (whose output was surprisingly good, producing much better transfers than any of the printers at work), I’ve been left without a viable PCB printer...

[SilverSolder]

If the printer was really good, maybe get a used one of the same model on eBay?

[tooki]

If the printer was really good, maybe get a used one of the same model on eBay?

Because 1. I’m in the market for a new (all purpose) printer anyway, and 2. driver support for old printers dwindles. My current general printer (a Canon inkjet) is already running on borrowed time in this regard, with me installing the final version of the drivers onto an unsupported newer OS. That’s not gonna work forever. Granted, with laser printers this is somewhat less likely due to PostScript support, but it’s still not ideal.

Also, the Swiss are really good about recycling their old gadgets, so you tend to find a lot less used gear than in, say, the US.

In the case of the little Samsung, it was not a postscript printer, so totally reliant on custom drivers, and since HP bought Samsung’s printer division several years ago, there are no (obvious) closely-related successor models whose drivers maaaybe could be cajoled into working.

[SilverSolder]

If the printer was really good, maybe get a used one of the same model on eBay?

Because 1. I’m in the market for a new (all purpose) printer anyway, and 2. driver support for old printers dwindles. My current general printer (a Canon inkjet) is already running on borrowed time in this regard, with me installing the final version of the drivers onto an unsupported newer OS. That’s not gonna work forever. Granted, with laser printers this is somewhat less likely due to PostScript support, but it’s still not ideal.

Also, the Swiss are really good about recycling their old gadgets, so you tend to find a lot less used gear than in, say, the US.

In the case of the little Samsung, it was not a postscript printer, so totally reliant on custom drivers, and since HP bought Samsung’s printer division several years ago, there are no (obvious) closely-related successor models whose drivers maaaybe could be cajoled into working.

I have a number of older printers, including a large format inkjet that I rarely use, but don't want to lose - I have no intention of replacing any of them.  Why replace something that works?  I would rather spend my money and more importantly, TIME! - on something more interesting than replacing working equipment with modern equivalents that often have hidden downsides like requiring cloud accounts, or using expensive time bombed consumables, or other complications that I don't even want to spend time exploring, let alone working around!   

The solution to keeping old peripherals running can be as simple as just running a small Windows 7 instance in a virtual machine, and use it as a print server (just share its printer(s)).  This approach means that you can use the "good" drivers that work with the OS that was around when the printer was designed, and don't have to deal with legacy drivers in Windows 10 which, as you noted, can be a complete b!tch to get working (if it is even possible).

Having this kind of thing set up means you can now buy from a big range of bargain printers and other peripherals - in addition to the large format printer that I got for a few percent of the price of an equivalent new one, I also have a vinyl sign cutter that I got for pennies on the dollar because its software only works on Win 7!

Being a cheapskate is an art form, as you can see! 

[RoGeorge]

For the driver part, a virtual machine running an older version of whatever OS still supports the printer, hosted on whatever the current OS is.  VMware, VirtualBox or alike.

[tooki]

If the printer was really good, maybe get a used one of the same model on eBay?

Because 1. I’m in the market for a new (all purpose) printer anyway, and 2. driver support for old printers dwindles. My current general printer (a Canon inkjet) is already running on borrowed time in this regard, with me installing the final version of the drivers onto an unsupported newer OS. That’s not gonna work forever. Granted, with laser printers this is somewhat less likely due to PostScript support, but it’s still not ideal.

Also, the Swiss are really good about recycling their old gadgets, so you tend to find a lot less used gear than in, say, the US.

In the case of the little Samsung, it was not a postscript printer, so totally reliant on custom drivers, and since HP bought Samsung’s printer division several years ago, there are no (obvious) closely-related successor models whose drivers maaaybe could be cajoled into working.

I have a number of older printers, including a large format inkjet that I rarely use, but don't want to lose - I have no intention of replacing any of them.  Why replace something that works?  I would rather spend my money and more importantly, TIME! - on something more interesting than replacing working equipment with modern equivalents that often have hidden downsides like requiring cloud accounts, or using expensive time bombed consumables, or other complications that I don't even want to spend time exploring, let alone working around!   

The solution to keeping old peripherals running can be as simple as just running a small Windows 7 instance in a virtual machine, and use it as a print server (just share its printer(s)).  This approach means that you can use the "good" drivers that work with the OS that was around when the printer was designed, and don't have to deal with legacy drivers in Windows 10 which, as you noted, can be a complete b!tch to get working (if it is even possible).

Having this kind of thing set up means you can now buy from a big range of bargain printers and other peripherals - in addition to the large format printer that I got for a few percent of the price of an equivalent new one, I also have a vinyl sign cutter that I got for pennies on the dollar because its software only works on Win 7!

Being a cheapskate is an art form, as you can see! 

Aside from the fact that I made it clear I want a new printer, and that my question is “what printers on the market now” are good for toner transfer, time is precisely why I don’t wanna dick around with nonsense like running a VM just to print! I want to be able to click “Print” and have it print. Sure, by printing to PDF and then copying the PDF to the host, one can print across nearly any permutation of OSes and drivers, but it’s too time consuming.

Also, I never actually said I use Windows. I actually don’t know how Windows’ printer sharing works, but on the Mac, if you want full access to a shared printer’s features, the client needs the printer driver. Otherwise you just get generic settings, which are often not enough, especially for specialty applications like here, where being able to set the toner density is critical. Again, it’s a bit different for postscript printers, where at least in theory a PPD file (postscript printer description) is enough.

(I am a former computer support professional, so I am well aware of all the workarounds. I just don’t want any right now. I have neither the time nor inclination to deal with it.)

[SilverSolder]

I hear you, and it is of course an excellent solution to just get a modern printer that solves the problem. 

I spent some time talking with the "inventor" of the Pulsar toner transfer paper a while back.  He was pretty adamant that an older printer is the way to go...  he was not able to recommend any new ones at all.  This was a year or two ago now.  He was recommending a used HP 2300 at the time.  That's pretty much how I ended up "making it work".

Hopefully a newer model will emerge in this thread, it would be valuable for us all to know! 

[rfguy2020]

I also gave hope to find any new printer, which can do the job as good as old Samsung. I have collection of new laser printers, which are not usable. I'm looking for second hand Samsung models now. I just wonder if there is any difference between all of those Samsung models? I have SCX3205. Later models might have more years left than older models.

[tooki]

I also gave hope to find any new printer, which can do the job as good as old Samsung. I have collection of new laser printers, which are not usable. I'm looking for second hand Samsung models now. I just wonder if there is any difference between all of those Samsung models? I have SCX3205. Later models might have more years left than older models.

What do you have that doesn’t work? Knowing what to eliminate is almost as useful as what to get.

Also, if you could go into why they don’t work, that’d be useful, too.

[SilverSolder]

Apparently some of the new toners are higher temperature stuff that doesn't "re-melt" the way we need it to do for toner transfer...  it might be fruitful to track which printers use what cartridges, as presumably one that doesn't work in printer A, won't work in printer B either.

An alternative to a laser printer is a personal photocopier...  the little Canon ones use the right kind of toner.  Unfortunately, the resolution is not as good as a laser printer...

The Samsung ML-2570 uses the same Canon internals as the recommended HP Laserjet 2300...   I'm guessing that the "good" Samsungs are from that era. 

[tooki]

Apparently some of the new toners are higher temperature stuff that doesn't "re-melt" the way we need it to do for toner transfer...  it might be fruitful to track which printers use what cartridges, as presumably one that doesn't work in printer A, won't work in printer B either.

An alternative to a laser printer is a personal photocopier...  the little Canon ones use the right kind of toner.  Unfortunately, the resolution is not as good as a laser printer...

The Samsung ML-2570 uses the same Canon internals as the recommended HP Laserjet 2300...   I'm guessing that the "good" Samsungs are from that era.

Again, I’m not sure that focusing on obsolete machines is a fruitful approach for PCB making in the long run. I don’t know when Canon stopped making those personal copiers, but I imagine it’s been a while, since multifunction home printers have been widespread for a long time now, killing off the market for personal analog copiers once and for all. (I don’t think anyone makes analog xerographic copiers at all, for any market. They’re all digital now, since it leverages economies of scale with printing, and produces better output to boot.) The last analog Canon personal copier I could find was released in 2011. I don’t know when they officially discontinued them, but they certainly don’t make them any more.

I somewhat doubt that modern toners are actually higher temperature — if anything, I’d expect the opposite, to support the modern approach of fusers that only turn on on demand, rather than staying heated all the time. The higher speeds of modern printers would also, if anything, benefit from a lower melting point, not a higher one, I would think, since the page has less contact time with the fuser.

There are massive differences in toner characteristics for sure: Brother toners are extremely gummy when hot, and just don’t separate from transfer sheets. A color Oki at work has toner that transfers well, but barely adheres at all — it behaves like a layer of flaky, brittle paint, easily scratched off a transfer sheet or PCB with a fingernail.

[SilverSolder]

I guess that if mainstream manufacturers are moving away (or have already gone away) from using "pure" plastic toner to newer formulations that don't behave well for our purposes, we may have to face up to the possibility that toner transfer may eventually no longer be viable, apart from using older equipment?


There are only a few options available:

1) Identify a modern printer that uses a type of toner that works for our purposes.  (None known at this time)


If that is not possible,

2) Identify a source of replacement toner cartridges for a modern printer that is filled with "the good stuff".   Third party toner suppliers may not have moved on to the latest technologies, and may have found that the old style toner actually still works in some machines...


If that is not possible,

3) Develop some kind of methodology that works with the new style of toner.  Maybe some chemical or other can persuade the new toner compound to behave better.



If that is not possible,

4) Keep an older model alive as long as possible, eventually give up on the method when it becomes too impractical/expensive.

[rfguy2020]

I also gave hope to find any new printer, which can do the job as good as old Samsung. I have collection of new laser printers, which are not usable. I'm looking for second hand Samsung models now. I just wonder if there is any difference between all of those Samsung models? I have SCX3205. Later models might have more years left than older models.

What do you have that doesn’t work? Knowing what to eliminate is almost as useful as what to get.

Also, if you could go into why they don’t work, that’d be useful, too.

I have tested HP Laserjet pro M304a and Xerox 6510. Both printers have same problem. Resolution of the print is not nearly as good as old Samsung.

[SilverSolder]

Old Samsung and HP printers both used engines that were actually made by Canon.   Top drawer quality, obviously.

It might be hard to find a modern printer that the cheesy MBAs haven't found a way to limit the quality to the absolute minimum necessary to sell them!

[rfguy2020]

Old Samsung and HP printers both used engines that were actually made by Canon.   Top drawer quality, obviously.

It might be hard to find a modern printer that the cheesy MBAs haven't found a way to limit the quality to the absolute minimum necessary to sell them!

I think so too. It seems that printer companies don't care much about resolution anymore. Resolution is probably good enough for 99 percent of users. You cannot see the difference in the Word document.

I believe most laser printers are actually LED printers? LED would not have as good resolution than good old laser.

According to wikipedia, 2400dpi lasers exists: "2400 dpi electrophotographic printing plate makers, essentially laser printers that print on plastic sheets, are also available. ". Does anyone know what kind of printer is used by electrophotographic printing plate maker?

[tooki]

Huh? Your final question is basically “does anyone know what kind of printer that non-printer uses?”

The plate maker is the specialized printer. But it doesn’t print on paper, it produces printing plates used in a printing press to make large print runs.