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Lexmark Recalls 40,000 Laser Printers
ack154 writes "An electrical shock hazard has caused Lexmark to recall about 39,400 laser printers. The printers were sold under the nameplates of Lexmark, IBM, and Dell. From the article: "The recalled printers include Lexmark E232, E232t, E330, E332n, E332tn; IBM Infoprint 1412, 1412n; Dell 1700 and 1700n." Contact information is provided in the article in order to get your free replacement."
I never was a real fan of Lexmark printers but they are actually pritty popular because they can take a lot of paper trays. I have seen some 4 or 5 high with paper trays. They are very popular at banks. I havent been to a bank yet that doesn't use Lexmark Printers. That may just be because banks are cheap. But reparing some lexmark printeres and seeing where there are a lot of oversights in the design process of the printers where there could be a problem like that. There not like HP or Xerox (I am talking about Laser Printers not the others) printers which are designed quite well.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
So now you have a "get out of lexmark-hell free" card. Return your old printer for the recall and get the new one fresh in the box. Sell the new printer as "brand new in box" on ebay or in local papers. Then go out to the store and get a decent printer.
Don't Tread on Me
This is a fact - you'll also find that Dell don't provide the same level of driver support on these rebadged pieces of crap.
I recently had an experience where a friend of my Dad bought a Dell printer for his ageing Win98 box. The supplied driver disc was for Win2K/XP only. A little research yielded the fact that the Dell model (A920) was the exact same as the Lexmark X1150. I remember the model numbers due to the trauma involved... Lexmark provide a Win9x driver for this model. Dell don't. Attempts to install the Lexmark driver were hampered by the fact that the printer identified itself as Dell.
Even worse was the fact that upon calling Dell it was suggested he buy a new machine - from Dell of course. I started wondering if there was some specific reason for the lack of support - Surely Win9x support means you would sell more printers! Ah, you want to sell more of those boxes instead...
A friend of my sister works for Dell front line support. I asked him about the situation and he said "yeah, we had a few calls about that..." and nothing else.
Me: Why no 98 driver? The Lexmark version has one - surely a trivial matter for one of your guys to customise it for the Dell version.
Him: But it's a Dell printer - a Lexmark driver won't work.
Me (slapping forehead): Why is there no 98 driver?
Him: Yeah, we had a few calls on that.
Me: I can see how you got that Dell job.
Him: Thanks!
He bought a new box (not from Dell, thankfully) and the old machine was donated to a local school. I guess all's Dell that ends Dell...
That's because the stock market's dirty little secret is that it's just a huge gambling house. "Negative news" means it's time to sell short and "positive news" means it's time to buy. Go check out any of the daytrader boards and you'll see it.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Together with the IBM adapter recall last week , it would seem the CPSC is getting better at picking out product safety faults than UL whom the manufacturers actually pay to do this kind of thing.
That particularly lovely model of printer also had "electrical problems"; that is, the power supply melted away! Then after a quick search I found I was not the only one with the same melty problem. So this news surprises me, but only because Lexmark is actually recalling a faulty product!
***
Back before there were laser printers for PCs, the first laser printer I encountered was an IBM unit the size of about 6 racks and had a drum with a diameter of about 3 feet. It used the old pin-fed paper and like the line printers it stood next to, took paper by the box. It could go through an entire box of paper in 7 minutes.
Thus, you had this huge fast spinning drum in a very dry environment. When it was first installed it was improperly grounded, and soon afterward one print room employee got severly shocked, with the static charge arcing about a foot, knocking him across the room. The details weren't made public, but I believe he got a decent settlement from IBM.
I guess you could say this isn't the first incident of electic shock from a laster printer...
e to the i pi equals negative one
took long enough for y'all to post this I work at a branch of the countries largest office supply change. We pulled the machine in early august as ordered by lexmark. When the retail lexmark rep came in he told me their was a powersupply problem but if any yone asks just tell them we are bringing out a new model. I couldn't believe it they took long enough for the consumer recall and didn't want to recall them. This lexmark sales rep said the problem was do to grounding and anyone with a modern house would be safe, he said lexmark engineers believe most people have houses up to the NEC(National Electric Code) He gave me a gift certificate to keep quite. If I get some good posts back I will give out more info
Torvalds is god