Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#51

Post by cr0sh » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

tyleo wrote: post #37

hprotagonist wrote: post #8

Any base model brother laser printer, preferably any that support wifi printing. i’ve had one for 7 years, and replaced the toner exactly once.

My roommate and I have had a Brother printer for years. It was damaged while moving and a bunch of parts fell out and it still worked great. After that, we damaged it again when moving it around the house and even more parts fell out. Quality fell after that but its still kicking. I bought another Brother this week to finally replace it. Like others in this thread, we never ran out of toner.

Sounds like an old '79 Ford Bronco I used to own. Or the Jeep TJ I own today...

/something fell off? Welp, still moving forward, so we're all good!

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#52

Post by orev » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

Only thing I can add to the laser printer choir: I used to try to go with inkjets because they were so cheap, and the price of a laser really put me off (wanted a color one). The inkjets jammed and clogged every time I tried to use them, which was very infrequently. I finally bit the bullet and went with a Brother color laser (MFC-9340CDW) and it is one of the best purchases I have ever made. You can print stuff directly from your phone, and I don’t have to spend all night trying to unclog the print head (wasting valuable ink) the night before I have an early flight (back when you still printed boarding passes). The reduction in stress by knowing it will “just work” when I need it is priceless.

Only issues I have had with this model are the auto feed on the scanner stopped working, and when it did work the scans came out a little skewed.

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#53

Post by whateveracct » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

Any recommendations for one for rare printing that is also as small as it gets? I want to be able to put it away easily instead of give it space to live due to its size.

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#54

Post by starik36 » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

I have an old LaserJet 1320 sitting in the garage and like you, I use it very infrequently.

Unfortunately, it's not wireless and I didn't want to run a network cable just for that. So I bought a Raspberry Pi Zero W, connected it to the printer via a USB cable, installed cups and some other packages and now I can print wirelessly from either desktop or mobile.

The printer has been very reliable.

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#55

Post by fyfy18 » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

I bought a Dell multifunction colour laser printer / scanner / fax (C1765NF) around 8 years ago. It is perfect for occasional usage, and a full set of toners is only £25. Unfortunately they sold their printer branch and no longer make them.

I believe there's only two companies making laser printers now (HP and Brother?), so there isn't really much choice. As others say you might be better off getting something on eBay.

Whatever you get check the prices of new toners (third party are fine; refilling yourself isn't worth the effort/mess) first as some are going to be the same price as the printer.

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#56

Post by bryanlarsen » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

yangikan wrote: post #46

bryanlarsen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wirecutter makes their money from affiliate links, so the potential for conflict is high. They also mostly just meta-analysis rather than doing their own. Their biggest source is Consumer Reports, who don't make their money from advertisers. Much better to go straight to the source: https://www.consumerreports.org/printers/best-laser-printers... Subscription required, but that's the point -- no conflict of interest.…

Any similar recommendations for color laser printer?

the recommended Canon imageCLASS MF642Cdw is a color laser printer

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#57

Post by goatinaboat » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

I would gladly pay for a service that my “printer driver” really uploads it securely and a few days later I get the printout in a cardboard envelope through the post.

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#58

Post by bborud » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

starik36 wrote: post #54

I have an old LaserJet 1320 sitting in the garage and like you, I use it very infrequently. Unfortunately, it's not wireless and I didn't want to run a network cable just for that. So I bought a Raspberry Pi Zero W, connected it to the printer via a USB cable, installed cups and some other packages and now I can print wirelessly from either desktop or mobile. The printer has been very reliable.

I agree. I have a very simple base model Laserjet that supports postscript. Regular black and white, the simplest possible model and no extra paper tray or anything that can go wrong. I've had mine for 15 years (replaced the toner cartridge once in that time), we bought roughly the same model at work 8 years ago (on my insistence). Both of them have worked flawlessly.

(Meanwhile at work, the other teams bought huge, complex beasts with lots of features and they are regularly down, offline, broken etc. I think they are on the fourth or fifth iteration of fancy printers).

Laserjet, simple, postscript, low price.

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#59

Post by avhon1 » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #27

You want a laser printer. Inkjets will clog up with infrequent use, but lasers won't. HP makes some interesting compact laser printers these days that could easily be stored away while you're not using them -- something like the HP LaserJet Pro M15w might be nice for infrequent use.

That sure is a compact laser printer! And it only draws 210 watts while printing! Unfortunately, I was disappointed by this part of the description:

> Dynamic security enabled printer. Only intended to be used with cartridges using an HP original chip. Cartridges using a non-HP chip may not work, and those that work today may not work in the future.

DRMed toner cartridges with OTA "security" improvements? That sounds like a major anti-feature.

Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?

#60

Post by zzzeek » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

Looks like other people are saying it but inkjets are a scam, not only the ink is useless but the printers themselves just break, I used to go through them like paper towels. Brother MFC 9560 CDW here, I'm sure there are newer models now but definitely the color laser thing is vastly cheaper to just buy it once rather than buying new ink/printers every few months.