Finding a Reliable Laser Printer?

SpottedKuh asks: "Perhaps the days of sturdy laser printers are over, or perhaps it is just my bad luck. I've recently been the proud owner of two paperweights: First, an HP LaserJet 1100, which continually misfed papers and smeared toner. After selling that printer, I foolishly purchased a LaserJet 1012, not realizing just how poorly it played with my BSD systems. Naturally, I've learned my lesson about checking LinuxPrinting.org; but, more than that, I'm gun-shy about purchasing yet another printer to replace my current LaserJet. I look at one of my friends who has had a LaserJet 4P for probably around ten years, and it's still going strong. Are the days of such quality gone, or am I just looking in the wrong places?" "Though compatibility with *nix is a must, it is not all that I want. I want a printer that will be sturdy and reliable, with few toner smears and jams. Also, if I'm going to be dropping all this money again, a duplexing printer is a must! I've heard that there are a lot of design problems with the LaserJet 1320, mainly regarding the manual feed mechanism. Maybe the LaserJet 1*** printers just aren't well-built? So I'm thinking of purchasing a LaserJet 2420d; but, I haven't been able to find many reviews of that printer.

Can the Slashdot community provide me with feedback regarding the printers I have mentioned, or any other reliable duplexing laser for in my home office?"

Comments

Cleaning it...

[turtled]

It's also about maintainence. If rollers get dusty / toner-ized, you'll get constant jams. I have a LaserJet 4+ I bought new in '94. Like you said, still going strong. Haven't replaced rollers on it, and i am not in front of it, but, probably a good 75k prints on it maybe? I only use it with a Windowz box and have it networked through a print server router.

Re:Cleaning it...

[turtled]

I use rubbing alcohol, brings back the tackyness of the rollers. If that doesn't work, I would buy a maintainence kit; for work we get ours from http://www.printertechs.com/ They have great instructions w/pictures. Good luck.

Re:Cleaning it...

[Lord Prox]

Yeah, DO NOT USE ALCOHOL. Regardless of what someone else tells you. It will dry out the rubber rollers and then you will know the true meaning of paper jams. Use something that will mosturise the rubber, soft and supple is key here.

As for the artical poster, the best solution I have found is Ebay. Buy an old Laserjet 4 - 5 with a low pagecount. They may not be the fastest things on the planet but they just work (as you know)

Also feel free to drop some hate mail over on HP and their new big chief Carly Fiorina. She must have something to do with this.

HP 24xx

[jsailor]

I can't speak to the 2400 directly, but I have an 7 year old 2100 that has yet to fail at all.
My office has used 23xx printers for (I think) 2 years without issue. My understanding is the 24xx is that it's the next generation of the 2300.

Samsung Laser Printers

[Gulthek]

Definitely check out the Samsung ML-1750 (and the cheaper ML-1710 although I believe that is not a PCL printer). I have the 1750 and it plays well with Linux, OS X, and Windows. I have printed off thousands of pages and it has never smeared, and only had two or three paper jams.

HP LaserJet 4000

[vasqzr]

Buy a LaserJet 4000 or 4050. If you want a faster one get a 4100.

They're cheap, last a long time, and they don't require much maintenance.

You can find them on eBay for $400 with very low page counts ( 100,000 pages)

They do PCL and Postscript. Get one with a JetDirect card so you can plug it in your LAN and you'll be all set. Works great with Linux, Mac, Windows...

Oldie

[Phillup]

I'd go with an oldie if possible.

I have a laserjet 4MP and just love it. (you mentioned one of the 4 series and I've found them to be quite reliable)

So... how about something used?

Here is one and there is an optional duplexing unit on the bottom of the page.

Samsung.

[m0rph3us0]

Seriously, I've gotten Samsung's Linux drivers to work in OpenBSD with out emulation. Their printers work like a charm with cups + ghostscript. Even works with Windows via Samba. Something like this: Samsung ML-2250 is what I would recommend because it supports PCL6 and has memory upgradable using standard SODIMM laptop ram. The GDI printers work great too they just offload too much work on to the CPU.

Hardware problems

[Robbat2]

"First, an HP LaserJet 1100, which continually misfed papers and smeared toner"

Misfed paper is a sign of a few possible things:
- incorrect paper weight or thickness.
- dirty pick-up mechanism.

By far, incorrect paper turns up far too often. If the paper is too thin or light, it's likely to slip. If the paper is too thick or heavy, it's likely to stick. Also make sure you load the paper into the printer the correct way up! Look at the ream of paper when you buy it, and on one end there will be an arrow indicating what side you should be printing on.

For the smeared toner, try to find out where in the printer it's smearing. Primarily, is it between the drum and the fuser, or after the fuser. If it's the former, then clean that part of the printer throughly! If it's after the fuser, then your fuser is malfunctioning (unfortunetly fusers often cost a lot of money to replace).

I'm the proud owner of a LaserJet 4L that's more than 10 years old. I've gone thru 7 toner units, and had a single hardware failure - the power supply, and it worked perfectly fine after that was replaced.

However it wasn't keeping up with the demand for printing, so I also got an HP LaserJet 2100TN.

HP Laserjet 2100

[Thomas A. Anderson]

I run a small dual-boot internet cafe. My old school HP DeskJet died, so I found a used HP LaserJet for $100. Only had it a few months, but it works great and plays very nicely with CUPS.

Hope this helps,

Greg

Re:HP LJ 1100

[Hadlock]

Try using Xerox brand laser paper. Not only is it dryer than regular laser paper (which in turn, is much dryer than inkjet paper), but it has chemicals in it to resist water soak.

Yes, LJ1xxxs are cheap and flimsy

[Alan Shutko]

You should definitely upgrade at least to the LJ2xxx series. The LJ1xxxs are cheap, intended to be the barest entry to laser printing HP sells. You're trying to compare it to things like the LJ4, which were built for much higher volume business use. If that's the kind of printing you do, go with the LJ2xxxs or better.

Look at the estimated duty cycles on each, and you'll see that the LJ2xxx meets a much higher spec.

Re:Check out local computer shows

[TYC]

Hmm. I picked up a LaserJet 4M+ and a refurbished toner cartridge on e-Bay for $40 ($15 for the printer, $25 for the toner), plus $30 for shipping. The shipping was much more than the price of the printer, but the net price of $70 is still less than half what you paid.

Oh, and the printer is big, ugly, noisy and pumps out nice printouts at decent speed day in and day out, and I have absolutely no doubt that it will keep on doing it for many years to come. Works great with Linux, too.

Same here. About a year ago, I bought a used HP4M+ with under 15k pages on it ($89, shipped) for the office. Used it for 30k pages, put new rollers (about $22, shipped) in it to fix intermittent paper jams, and I'm now near 90k pages. Since putting the rollers in, I haven't had even one error, misfeed, or other problem with it, and I feed a variety of paper, envelopes, checks and cardstock through it.

Since then, I've bought two more, and never had any trouble at all with either of those two.

If you get a 4 series, get a "plus" model. The original 4 series doesn't go into low power standby mode when idle.

It doesn't hurt that new, off brand toner cartriges are dirt cheap as well.