I could buy a colour laser printer and scanner! :o
Then my postage labels would be waterproof and I wouldn’t have to cover them in sellotape, and I could make better zines I think??
I’M GONNA DO IT.
Does anyone have any advice about buying laser printers generally?
Like, "don't get one like [this]" or "make sure you check it has [feature]" or "price doesn't really affect quality" or "you get what you pay for" or "I make zines and [this] was bad but [this] was good", etc?
@bobstechsite @cassolotl Thanks for the confirmation. Researched a bit and came to pretty much the same conclusion.
Sry for hijacking. ;)
@cassolotl Depends on your usecase. If you just need a b/w laser for home use most brands work well. If you print a lot the cost of toner is a big factor and other thing like the drum that need changing over the years. Colour is still "expensive" and some big ink printers are much cheaper and faster and have tanks to fill up, no cartridges.
@cassolotl Built-in duplexing is amazing.
@annika I had to look up what duplexing is and OHHHHHH COOOL thank you, noted!
@cassolotl My experience is that Brother printers are easy to set up and reliable.
Laser prints are NOT waterproof though.
@neckspike Oh I was probably going to go with Brother because they're an ethical company and stuff! Awesome. :)
That is good to know about waterproofness or lack thereof. I need to do more research, I reckon.
@cassolotl hmm, I just got a Brother 3150cdw that was (and still is cheap) and which works well for us. @geekylou mentioned earlier that it was still getting good reviews.
@cassolotl @geekylou no clue about their ethics tbh. I was replacing an ink jet and it was a good spec/price and a brand I knew of.
@cassolotl we use a HP at work and like others have said, it's a super reliable workhorse. I don't know much about technology but I do know ours is designed so you can get at al the bits very easily, so if there's a mechanical issue 95% of the time you can pop off one or two bits and be able to touch the paper jam or whatever, you don't have to completely disassemble it like a surgeon. It's important to be able to just pop a plate off and get your hand in there to sort things out quickly!
@Murkrow That is good to know! Thank you. :)
@cassolotl Been a few years since I looked into this, but I did find a scanner with paper feeder to be useful for a time when I was working a lot with typewritten manuscripts. Depending upon how you put your zines together, this could be worth considering.
@marginalie Ahhh my zines are *mostly* cut and paste and lots of layers of paper and glue and stuff. I think probably a paper feeder is not something I would use! Good to have thought of it pre-purchase though, thank you. :)
@cassolotl Think about whether you want auto-duplex or similar for getting booklets in the right order?
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@cassolotl I have an HP LaserJet. Very reliable and inexpensive to run. I suggest you buy one with an ethernet port and plug it into your router. Saves you having to mess around with Wi-Fi.
@iain Why wouldn't I just plug it into my computer? :D (Thank you for the recommendation!)
@cassolotl Only because if it is networked into the router then every device connected to the router can print through it.
@iain Ohhh I get you. :) I just have a big computer and a laptop, and if I need to print from my laptop I take the USB out of the back of the computer and plug it into the laptop! :P
@cassolotl Easy! I live with my family in a house and the router connection gives us most flexibility. 🏠
@iain Awesome!
@cassolotl @iain Most of the printers people have been recommending are designed for small or med. business, and use a network connection. They're nice anyways - you can use your laptop on the couch, hit print, and hear it start up in another room 🙂
@cassolotl Even if you use Windows, don't get one that's explicitly Windows-only. They tend to have *very* crappy drivers.
@irina Ahh that's all good, I'm on a Mac. :)
@cassolotl I make Zines!
We released ~1000 copies of our zine every two months.
We used a Brother HL L2300D or a Brother Monochrome Laser Printer HL2240D. (We used both at various times, because one was smashed with a hammer. I don't remember which was which, they are basically identical.)
You want to make sure that whatever you get supports Duplex printing (so you don't have to print the backs manually.)
@ajroach42 Oh duplex! People have said that twice now. How does that work? Does it need to have a paper feed thingy? My zines are all cut and paste, so they won't go through a paper feed thingy!
@cassolotl I'm not sure what you mean by cut and paste, nor by paper feed thingy.
Duplex works by printing the paper on one side, then sucking it back in, flipping it over, and printing it on the other.
It makes zine printing much easier to automate.
@ajroach42 Ahhh okay, so it can't duplex print with the photocopy thing, only with printing from a file?
@cassolotl Neither of the models I mentioned have photocopy/scanner available. I didn't realize that was a requirement.
In that case, I'd probably try to use a separate scanner and scan to a file, and then print from the scanned file, but I don't know your workflow.
I'm sure there are brother models with integrated scanners, but at least one of the two I reference here should be available for about $80, which is cheaper than I've ever seen a laser all in one.
@ajroach42 Yeah, I want an all-in-one printer scanner thingabob, so I can copy or scan zines as my heart desires, and occasionally print out letters and such. :)
@cassolotl Ah.
In that case, I don't have many recommendations. We always used a separate scanner, and scanned to a file, but we also always needed to edit digitally before printing.
I know the all in one laser printers with duplex can get pricey, but I've never needed to research them directly, just saw them in passing.
@ajroach42 It seems like duplex printing is probably not worth it for me, especially since I mostly zine in a photocopying way! So I'll just skip that part. :)
I always go with brother because the toner can be refilled and the drum is separate from the toner.
They don't encourage this, but they can't stop it either.
Toner refills will set you back about $5-$7/each, and it can get messy, and there are a few tricks to getting it right.
But you can make one drum and one cartridge last for 30k pages or more, in my experience.
@ajroach42 Interesting. I might have to learn how to do that. Presumably there are resources online. (I really like Brother, I have a Brother inkjet printer right now and I was hoping to buy another one!)
@cassolotl When I bought my first set of toner refills from Amazon it came with instructions.
Later sets from other sellers didn't.
there are plenty of instructions online though.
And, with the toner refills, your cost per page plummets.
@ajroach42 That sounds cool. :D I would like to learn how to do all of that stuff and save some pennies. Good stuff.
IIRC, when I worked it out originally, our cost per page, if we were paying for toner cartridges, was about 3 cents. (Toner cartridges are expensive, even refurbs)
When we swapped to refilling our own, our cost per page went to .001 or .002 cents. (That is to say, we had to print 50 or 100 pages before it cost us a penny.
I can go dig up the exact numbers if you want, but refilling works out to be an order of magnitude cheaper (provided that you have a model with separate drum)
@ajroach42 That is so cool. :O
@ajroach42 @cassolotl I've had really good experiences with my brother B&W laser printer, fwiw.
@hummingrain @ajroach42 Awesome! :) I think I've had more recommendations for Brother than any other brand, except maybe HP.
@cassolotl if you use Linux be sure there are drivers for your distro. Mine is 8 and I’ve nursed it along for years but it’s a reason I have to dual-boot
@ruth Thankfully I use Macs! :)
@cassolotl The Wirecutter is usually a good starting point, although their use cases don’t always align with mine. I am pretty happy with the Samsung printer I got because of their recommendation.
@cassolotl Oops didn’t see your earlier note about color and/or waterproofness. That probably changes everything, but I will say if you can afford a Phaser go for it
@pagrus Thank you! :)
@cassolotl You bet, I hope it was helpful
@cassolotl I've got a Brother MFC L2700DW which I've been quite happy with
It's one of those multifunction print/scan/copy/fax things with networking
Plays nicely with linux, it's only black and white though so not quite what you're looking for
@troubleMoney Tis good to have a brand recommendation though! :) Thanks!
@cassolotl if you get one that supports Apple AirPrint, any Apple device should be able to see it and use it without any setup as long as it's in the same network (and the network doesn't block stuff)
@noiob Oooo fun! :)
@cassolotl Thank you for that thread, btw! I'm on the hunt for a good one myself, so I'm learning loads!
@TQ Oh brilliant! :) Happy to be accidentally helping, hehe!
@cassolotl there are totally some super-cheap lasers that'll do you just fine as long as you aren't doing, like, whole books on the reg. It's all about judging your needs.
Also the company will try to scaremonger you into using on-brand toner cartridges at $50 a pop, but (maybe unless you're doing real office volume) the cheap compatibles are fine.
Got good experience with hp, and a professional samsung copier.
If you get a networked printer with PS (PostScript) support then you can be quite sure you always get it to work.
I've no experience with mediumrange scanner/laserprinter combinations. But if the printer supports duplex, there's little reason for that not to work with the scannet bit. Usually that results in scan one side, flip paper, scan other side, print page, next.
Goodluck and remember, printers are shit ;)
@cassolotl if you're after cross-platform and don't want to get shafted on ink refills stick to HP.
Avoid Lexmark. Good printers, crap drivers! (Same for Epson, although their problem is they have crap printers and good drivers)