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Ask Slashdot: Do You Print Too Little?

Posted by BeauHD on from the out-of-ink dept.

shanen writes: How many of you don't print much these days? What is the best solution to only printing a few pages every once in a while? Here are some dimensions of the problem...

Inexpensive printers: The cost of new printers is quite low, but how long can the printer sit there without printing before it dies? Lexmark and HP used to offer an expensive solution with integrated ink cartridges that also included new print heads, but... Should I just buy a cheap Canon or Epson and plan to throw it away in a couple of years, probably after printing less than a 100 pages?

Printing services: They're mostly focused on photos, but there are companies where you can take your data for printing. My main concerns here are actually with the costs and the tweaks. Each print is expensive because you are covering their overhead way beyond the cost of the printing itself. Also, most of the time my first print or three isn't exactly what I want. It rarely comes out perfectly on paper the first time.

Social printing: For example, are any of you sharing one printer with your neighbors via Wi-Fi? Do you just sneak a bit of personal printing onto a printer at your office? Do you travel across town to borrow your brother-in-law's printer?

9 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. What is the solution to printing rarely? by Gaygirlie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A laser-printer. I mean, the powder doesn't dry, it won't clog the nozzles and it's useable even 10 years later.

    1. Re:What is the solution to printing rarely? by omnichad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      and it's useable even 10 years later.

      And that's not even just the hardware if you make sure it speaks an industry-standard language like PCL. No worries of the OS dropping support when it's a 5 years old.

    2. Re:What is the solution to printing rarely? by darkain · · Score: 5, Informative

      Exactly this. I manage a business that has a whole fleet of HP LaserJet 2100 printers manufactured between 1998 and 1999. There is still 100% fully supported drivers by HP For Windows 10 in both 32bit and 64bit environments. All of the printers were upgraded with the optional JetDirect network card ($10 or less on eBay usually), so they just connect to the network and just WORK. The toner cartridge and print head are one in the same, so replacing toner is basically replacing the majority of the components within the printer.

    3. Re:What is the solution to printing rarely? by AndyKron · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've got an old B/W laser that works on toner that's close to twenty years old.

    4. Re: What is the solution to printing rarely? by Miamicanes · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm surprised nobody in China (or even the US, since we're STILL pretty competitive for low-volume manufacturing) has started cranking out laser printers with copies of the 1990s-era LaserJet print engine. The patents have all expired, printing technology has gone basically nowhere in 20 years, and old LaserJet consumables are basically commodities by now. The HOME market for printers like this might be small, but small & medium-sized businesses (especially those who print a LOT) and schools would LOVE printers that cost a few hundred bucks, but had almost zero consumables cost.

      Worst-case, they'd have to get ISO to codify the consumables for the print engine & give a non-Trademarked name to PCL or PostScript, so they could advertise their standard-compliance without risking a lawsuit for Trademark-infringement.

      They could probably even start by giving the printer a "dumb" framebuffer, then do all the rendering/rasterization logic & printserver in a RasPi. So you'd buy the USB-interfaced dumb-framebuffer printer, and pair it with your own Pi-based printserver running GhostScript.

    5. Re: What is the solution to printing rarely? by eth1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm surprised nobody in China (or even the US, since we're STILL pretty competitive for low-volume manufacturing) has started cranking out laser printers with copies of the 1990s-era LaserJet print engine.

      Yeah... those things never actually die, as far as I can tell. I used to work for a school that had some HP LJ 6MPs in the lab. By the time I got there, they'd already done 17 squillion pages, but were perfectly fine - just slow. The slowness led to them getting replaced (in about 2004), at which time I offered to buy one to take home. They said "just take it." I still have it, and it works perfectly, with the same toner cartridge that was in there when it was retired from the lab at school. It will still be printing come doomsday.

      Only problems I've ever had with it are that it only has a parallel port, which is getting really damn inconvenient to deal with, and it's short on memory, which leads to the occasional inability to print something.

  2. Laser printers can sit a long time by Slugster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you don't get much, get yourself a cheaper black-only laser printer. There's some for ~$100 now if you shop around. The problem with inkjets is that the print heads dry out and clog if you don't use it regularly. And if you do use it regularly, then the ink cartridges cost a lot.

    Don't get me wrong, inkjet printers are fantastic for some purposes--but they are rather expensive to maintain.

  3. Why buy? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's what the office printer is for.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  4. Dot matrix all the way by j2.718ff · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My dad has a side business, and he uses a dot matrix printer for the invoices. He's been using the same printer for over 25 years, and I believe he's on his second printer ribbon. The printing isn't very dark, but it's perfectly readable.