[geeks] personal laser printer

[Kris Kirby]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> I am looking for a decent personal laser printer.
> It must work with UNIX of course.
> Any pointers or personal experiences appreciated.

I currently use a HP Laserjet 3 which I got for either free, $30, or $50 
and I don't remember which it was. After I recieved the printer, along 
with an HP LJ1, I took them down to the local printer shop and paid them 
$250 to outfit them with new toner cartridges and clean them. Once that 
was done I had about a year or three worth of use on the LJ3 and replaced 
the toner cart with one I bought off of eBay (couldn't afford to buy the 
$55 toner cart locally). Big mistake. The one I got off of eBay was 
apparently damaged in shipping or something and produces interesting 
results -- line duplication and image duplication. This cart will *NEVER* 
work for the DoD. But when I need to print something but don't need it 
resume quality, it works fine. Naturally, the graphics capability is 
rather limited -- you'll want something that does at least 1200 dpi or so. 
I think my printer is either 300 or 600 dpi; which ever, it's not the 
best for maps (except those rough ones Mapquest provides in 320x240 
windows).

Were I you, I'd be looking at surplus commercial printers, and watch out 
that the printer uses seperate toner cartidges for black and the colors 
and that it doesn't make black out of all the colors. The latter is 
absolute murder on the pocket book.

I just bought a Dell-branded Laser printer which supposedly works under 
Linux, but my brother tells me I have made a fatal mistake -- apparently 
the printer is actually a Lexmark printer and his organization has already 
been down the road of needing to print and it not accepting the 
Lexmark-brand toner carts but it does accept the Dell-branded one. Looks 
like Gilette's sales strategy is alive and well still. 

--
Kris Kirby, KE4AHR <kris at catonic.net>
                       "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!"
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