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  • #61
    Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
    Hey Panix! What did you end up buying?
    Because right now I have b209a sitting in front of me, that started to make traces. I have soaked the Q-tip as HP recommends in alcohol and cleaned the head - nothing. Then I have soaked it in hot distilled water, as HP recommends too, and after that all RGB colors stopped to print correctly, they print as if it is ink shortage; yet when printing via printers menu, it does not appear. I soaked again and now black color is not working - at all. After 2 days eaten by this printer (on xmas!) Im done. Lots of dirty paper, dirty working - even when normally printing there are excessive amounts of ink on head - and cleaning process is actually crap - the ink is thrown inside a container residing in printer itself. This guy is way too messy and too stupid to use.
    Im looking for color laser, which is both cheap in buying and cheap in refilling(original or not) and supports linux. Konica Minolta 2550 sounds fine, right now. I dont have 1000$ to invest in Ricoh, neither I will print 24k pages in year.
    After some time, I think I will invest in sublimation printer specially for photos.
    I ended up not buying anything.

    Good idea to buy a color laser, though, imho. My next printer will probably be a color laser. I really would like a scanner so that was part of the reason I was looking for an inkjet (multifunction).

    I suggest looking for a Samsung, Brother or Lexmark (maybe even in that order?). A common model in those brands might offer the best chance at finding cheap ink/toner and I'd look for an online vendor who will ship to your area (as cheap as possible). Most of those have some Linux support but probably enough to run in native Linux.

    When I get around to it, I want to get one and a genuine scanner (only scans) which I'll use in Windows or VirtualBox (don't see why it wouldn't work in that setting). The Samsung CLP-325 is around $100 but if you need better models, most in those brands are probably $200+.

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    • #62
      Originally posted by Panix View Post
      I ended up not buying anything.

      Good idea to buy a color laser, though, imho. My next printer will probably be a color laser. I really would like a scanner so that was part of the reason I was looking for an inkjet (multifunction).

      I suggest looking for a Samsung, Brother or Lexmark (maybe even in that order?). A common model in those brands might offer the best chance at finding cheap ink/toner and I'd look for an online vendor who will ship to your area (as cheap as possible). Most of those have some Linux support but probably enough to run in native Linux.

      When I get around to it, I want to get one and a genuine scanner (only scans) which I'll use in Windows or VirtualBox (don't see why it wouldn't work in that setting). The Samsung CLP-325 is around $100 but if you need better models, most in those brands are probably $200+.
      Hey, thanks for reply!
      Yeah, the problem with multifunction, is, as once nice site says: you get a little bit of everything and a little bit cut from everything in terms of quality.
      With Lexmark I have biggest fears - their inkjets and their lasers all maintain similar policy - high maintaince costs. Check color laser 54x series, the color transfer module costs around 250$, 2/3 of printer!

      When you buy laser, you almost certainly need toner - many used printers are sold without those. Toners can cost from 70$ to 200$ per one color - and they have different range - from 1000 to 8000. So thats one major point.
      Difference can be huge here. For example HP printers and konika printers toners cost around same, but HP has 1500 pages, and konika 4000pages @ 5% coverage.

      Then, you need fixer, which burns away as you print (70$-200$) and excessive toner collector(20$-50$).

      Then, depending on model - you have either one drum, that covers all colors (for printers that print color in several passthroughs - they have very very long color print time compared to sw); or individual drum for each color.
      Those cost you again 50$-240$.

      There are color laser printers that cost litterally 20$, because they have all above mentioned internals removed. Ahaha, talking about "cheap", laser printer is by far not cheap. Inkjet is much cheaper when using alternative good ink, but its messy, and I already had printhead gone dry. 40$ cost by HP. Not bad,.. but I don?t really want to mess with inky ink again. By all that very good photo quality, I have decided that it just aint worth it - it is similar to dot-matrix, they are cheap, but they have design flaws.

      By the way, OKI printers are the only one that seem to ignore the "secret government stenographic yellow dot tracking pact". This is crazy, I mean, if they don?t want us to print money, introduce algorithms in firmware, why mess our prints? :/

      Sublimations are ultimate for photo printing, laser has photo possible as well (on special laser photo paper), but sublimation are best. They cost too though.

      Btw, yesterday I missed one fine piece @ 80% toner volumes for 70$. Dang.

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      • #63
        HP Photosmart 4780 all-in-one, it's all working fine with either USB or Wifi connection.

        I wouldn't recommend Canon, their drivers are often binary-only, or 32-bit only, or just for old Fedora Core without any update for more recent distros.

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        • #64
          Originally posted by AlbertP View Post
          HP Photosmart 4780 all-in-one, it's all working fine with either USB or Wifi connection.

          I wouldn't recommend Canon, their drivers are often binary-only, or 32-bit only, or just for old Fedora Core without any update for more recent distros.
          Thats correct, but wait till your inkjet head gets dried out :P

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          • #65
            HP does not have heads. The cartridges themselves directly print the things onto the paper (that's why they are more expensive than canon cartridges). After replacing a cartridge you don't need any cleaning work, just alignment which is done on the printer itself without needing to do a linux-incompatible thing on the computer.

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            • #66
              Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
              Hey, thanks for reply!
              Yeah, the problem with multifunction, is, as once nice site says: you get a little bit of everything and a little bit cut from everything in terms of quality.
              With Lexmark I have biggest fears - their inkjets and their lasers all maintain similar policy - high maintaince costs. Check color laser 54x series, the color transfer module costs around 250$, 2/3 of printer!

              When you buy laser, you almost certainly need toner - many used printers are sold without those. Toners can cost from 70$ to 200$ per one color - and they have different range - from 1000 to 8000. So thats one major point.
              Difference can be huge here. For example HP printers and konika printers toners cost around same, but HP has 1500 pages, and konika 4000pages @ 5% coverage.

              Then, you need fixer, which burns away as you print (70$-200$) and excessive toner collector(20$-50$).

              Then, depending on model - you have either one drum, that covers all colors (for printers that print color in several passthroughs - they have very very long color print time compared to sw); or individual drum for each color.
              Those cost you again 50$-240$.

              There are color laser printers that cost litterally 20$, because they have all above mentioned internals removed. Ahaha, talking about "cheap", laser printer is by far not cheap. Inkjet is much cheaper when using alternative good ink, but its messy, and I already had printhead gone dry. 40$ cost by HP. Not bad,.. but I don?t really want to mess with inky ink again. By all that very good photo quality, I have decided that it just aint worth it - it is similar to dot-matrix, they are cheap, but they have design flaws.

              By the way, OKI printers are the only one that seem to ignore the "secret government stenographic yellow dot tracking pact". This is crazy, I mean, if they don?t want us to print money, introduce algorithms in firmware, why mess our prints? :/

              Sublimations are ultimate for photo printing, laser has photo possible as well (on special laser photo paper), but sublimation are best. They cost too though.

              Btw, yesterday I missed one fine piece @ 80% toner volumes for 70$. Dang.
              The cheapest Samsung and Brother color lasers are around $100 - $200 and combo toner just under $200 (1000 to 2000 pages; varies), at least at the vendor I usually deal with for printers. I bought toner for a cheap HP inkjet that eventually became junk, officially. I currently have a Samsung ML-2510 but the toner is way cheaper for a monochrome laser, obviously.

              I think printers nowadays are deteriorating in quality so I would need a lot of reasons to buy an inkjet now. The HP I had was junk and I used a very similar one at a workplace before and it would always paper jam and smudge. HP is already going down the drain and if you check their support page for Linux, there's 'end of support' for many models. Wouldn't buy one even if it was on sale.

              Comment


              • #67
                Originally posted by AlbertP View Post
                HP does not have heads. The cartridges themselves directly print the things onto the paper (that's why they are more expensive than canon cartridges). After replacing a cartridge you don't need any cleaning work, just alignment which is done on the printer itself without needing to do a linux-incompatible thing on the computer.
                I wonder why does my HP B209a-m has head that is dried up? :P
                Also HPtool for Linux seems to disagree with your statement, because it has both cleaning and aligning functions
                The cleaning function is different from that that is accessible via build-in menu. This is one of (my) reasons for pro HP on linux.

                Comment


                • #68
                  Maybe something here will give you some ideas?:

                  Join the conversation in HP’s Support Community / Forum to find solutions, ask questions, and share tips for HP Notebooks, Printers, Desktops, tablets, more.


                  Join the conversation in HP’s Support Community / Forum to find solutions, ask questions, and share tips for HP Notebooks, Printers, Desktops, tablets, more.


                  Are you using HP 564XL ink cartridges?

                  Seriously, I would just look for a new printer. HP is crap. Like I posted previously, the 'Linux support' looks as though it's dwindling as many printers are listed as 'end of support.' (HPLIP versions are NOT updated).

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by Panix View Post
                    The cheapest Samsung and Brother color lasers are around $100 - $200 and combo toner just under $200 (1000 to 2000 pages; varies), at least at the vendor I usually deal with for printers. I bought toner for a cheap HP inkjet that eventually became junk, officially. I currently have a Samsung ML-2510 but the toner is way cheaper for a monochrome laser, obviously.

                    I think printers nowadays are deteriorating in quality so I would need a lot of reasons to buy an inkjet now. The HP I had was junk and I used a very similar one at a workplace before and it would always paper jam and smudge. HP is already going down the drain and if you check their support page for Linux, there's 'end of support' for many models. Wouldn't buy one even if it was on sale.
                    You seem to have had difficult times with HP. My both b209 never had a single paper jam (~2k pages), but one head dry-up. I was actually really mad @ the printer day before yesterday (when I posted), but I ended up purchasing new head for 25$ several hours before and I feel a bit contradicted from what I have learned in these two days.

                    Actually I found out that both laser and inkjet are crap in different ways. Anyway, if I buy used laser printer I risk highly if it breaks up, as parts all cost at least 100$ (except individual toners). This is the risk I cannot currently take, I can buy 10 x 25$ heads for amount I would by for drum ("grey lines" or "black dots" simptomes on color lasers). If I would have 500$ (and I will), I would go color laser, but other wise it is not worth it due to risk.

                    What I have learned is, for color lasers, that samsung for example wastes (exactly wastes, not uses) extremely heavy amount of toner and is generally dirty in operation(from amazon). HP and Brother on other side, use very small amount of toner. Brother printer graphics performance tend to be crappy. The best color performance for color laser is from canon, but I have personally had possibility to enjoy canon driver installation procedure on linux (I think it was lp3200, 5 days, udev script programming included). HP has comparatively low amount of toner per catridge (2k pages) but gives acceptable graphics.

                    All color lasers do not produce good photo results, inkjets are ahead (but they get dirty and can dry out if you dont watch out). Never ever use alcohol on inkjet, that was my mistake. It pushes water and if it dries (and it will, very quickly) - it dries pigment ink along and this inside the microjets, inside the printing head - you (I) can never clean it. If you dont need inkjet for long time, use kitchen vacuum device (the one thats good to package food in plastic bags) to package head with such device - it will never dry up this way.

                    I learned that color lasers now are produced with same scheme as with inkjets - the toner and accessories are overpriced, device itself does not cost even 20$. Thats not the case for "enterprise" class printers, that one could by used(yet be ready to service them; which is suprisingly not much expensive(2x-3x price, with 4x-5x resource as payback) compared to normal "desktop" lasers)

                    I also have read about cases where paper is torn or jams inside the printer and no one was able to fix it, except by replacing the whole drum system (150$).

                    One of the best devices I encountered were two kyocera printers: fs-2000d, bw laser capable of printing 13k pages with single cheap toner and Kyocera C-5020n color laser, that has 8k pages in single toner at acceptable price. Very expensive on contrary was dell, with toner costing around same as of c-5020n, and yelding only 1500 pages.

                    For lots of monochrome prints, laser is way to go. For color, it depends - there is split between lower-quality laser(only cheaper if inkjet is using official ink, otherwise on par) - yet pictures are really water resistant(but not specially UV resistant, for example Brother is not), good quality inkjet (but can be messy, need special paper to waterproof, need non-official ink asap), and best quality sublimation (with most expensive supplies).

                    That said, I thank you guys for answering and wish you happy new year

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
                      You seem to have had difficult times with HP. My both b209 never had a single paper jam (~2k pages), but one head dry-up. I was actually really mad @ the printer day before yesterday (when I posted), but I ended up purchasing new head for 25$ several hours before and I feel a bit contradicted from what I have learned in these two days.

                      What I have learned is, for color lasers, that samsung for example wastes (exactly wastes, not uses) extremely heavy amount of toner and is generally dirty in operation(from amazon). HP and Brother on other side, use very small amount of toner. Brother printer graphics performance tend to be crappy. The best color performance for color laser is from canon, but I have personally had possibility to enjoy canon driver installation procedure on linux (I think it was lp3200, 5 days, udev script programming included). HP has comparatively low amount of toner per catridge (2k pages) but gives acceptable graphics.

                      All color lasers do not produce good photo results, inkjets are ahead (but they get dirty and can dry out if you dont watch out). Never ever use alcohol on inkjet, that was my mistake. It pushes water and if it dries (and it will, very quickly) - it dries pigment ink along and this inside the microjets, inside the printing head - you (I) can never clean it. If you dont need inkjet for long time, use kitchen vacuum device (the one thats good to package food in plastic bags) to package head with such device - it will never dry up this way.

                      I learned that color lasers now are produced with same scheme as with inkjets - the toner and accessories are overpriced, device itself does not cost even 20$. Thats not the case for "enterprise" class printers, that one could by used(yet be ready to service them; which is suprisingly not much expensive(2x-3x price, with 4x-5x resource as payback) compared to normal "desktop" lasers)

                      I also have read about cases where paper is torn or jams inside the printer and no one was able to fix it, except by replacing the whole drum system (150$).

                      One of the best devices I encountered were two kyocera printers: fs-2000d, bw laser capable of printing 13k pages with single cheap toner and Kyocera C-5020n color laser, that has 8k pages in single toner at acceptable price. Very expensive on contrary was dell, with toner costing around same as of c-5020n, and yelding only 1500 pages.

                      For lots of monochrome prints, laser is way to go. For color, it depends - there is split between lower-quality laser(only cheaper if inkjet is using official ink, otherwise on par) - yet pictures are really water resistant(but not specially UV resistant, for example Brother is not), good quality inkjet (but can be messy, need special paper to waterproof, need non-official ink asap), and best quality sublimation (with most expensive supplies).

                      That said, I thank you guys for answering and wish you happy new year
                      Thanks for the info.

                      Yes, my experience with HP printers is horrible but I acknowledge they had good ones back in the day when they were heavy and huge! But, quality has slipped drastically and you can read the reviews for evidence. At least, the Photosmart series is especially bad. Deskjets and maybe Officejets have a better chance of being half decent so if you can get an inkjet with those series, maybe it would be satisfactory, I don't know for sure.

                      But, when one reads about the awful QC and deteriorating business climate of HP, I am not sure I'd want to take a chance on a $100 - $200 HP printer. I also believe their support in Linux won't be the same.

                      Anyone can decide to what they want and it is their choice if they want to buy product A or B. I just have my doubts regarding HP as it seems their entire line of computer products is suspect and when they are reporting they might shut down or sell off the entire line one day and then 'change their minds' the next, that doesn't inspire me with confidence. Printers are already bad enough in terms of computer products so why risk going with what may be one of the worst choices?

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