Re: [OxLUG] Mono Laser Printer

On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 17:21 +0100, Colin Lloyd wrote:
> I'm looking for a cheap Mono Laser printer - non duplex

Second hand HPs are a good bet up to version 4 - when there were
actually engineered metal and decently robust plastic moldings rather
than stamped out on molds of thin sheet and flimsy plastics... Its
ecological and recycled HP cartridges have proved faultless in the 15 or
so years I've been using them from an HP2 onwards!

I've had a number of Laserjet 4+s with jetdirect cards (twisted pair
ethernet connection) from recon stock for 20 or so quid for people and
kept one for myself (and rather wish I'd kept two in hindsight). The
cost was less than the cost of a toner cartridge, and the toner
cartridges proved to be almost full too. Bullet proof pieces of kit, if
a bit bulky, and last decent bit of consumer engineering HP ever did.

The 5 series had a change of roller compound for the paper feed which
caused huge problems and they issued a free repair kit for the rollers.
I've 2x 5's in the loft with conversion kits to put on but haven't
bothered yet in all of 7 years since they played up >;) I'll wait until
the 4+ causes any problems and then swap them and install the new
rollers. So for plain paper printing we're set up for as long as the
machines and electronics survive and toner cartridges remain useable or
available. Its the kids and colour printing I worry about, so far I've
resisted buying a colour printer as our income is low and photoprinting
for e.g seems to cost a quid or two an exposure!

I've had a rummage through backlog of emails but don't seem to have kept
the stockist for the s/h HP stuff and can't remember name at all - it
was couple of years back on reflection, not last summer, I got them 4's.
I just googled for s/h LJ's at the time and got a number of hits.

I've still got an HP500 deskjet in the loft and a heap of old cartridges
and am toying with bringing that down to use up the cartridges, it was
only taken out of service last year when networked the laser which has
energy saving feature the old DJ500 lacked... and I've found that nearly
20 year old cartridges still work fine when unwrapped for those inkjets,
which says something for the quality of manufacture changing over the
last two decades. I still keep and use an old laptop companion portable
dj300 purchased second hand in ca 1990-91, running the cartridge under
the tap to wetten dried ink always seems to revive the cartridge that
is in use despite often a couple of years unused. Try that with an Epson
inkjet!

And I keep an old Epson 500 LQ and 1000LQ dot matrix for printing
multipart if ever need to again, and the LQ1000 prints A3 sheets
sideways which is good for drawings from CADs for planning applications
etc. in high quality press mode quite acceptable print quality for the
purpose with a revived (WD40 spray!!) ribbon.

Anyone else still got and use printers of 80s vintage once or twice a
year?