[SOLVED] Printer Recommendation please

business_kid · 05-30-2016, 06:06 AM

Recently I have been less deserving of my 'guru' status than usual due to personal illness.

That said, I have to buy a new monochrome laser printer, and request help. We have pcs, tablets, & smart phones on Slackware, Android, IOS, & windows here. I want a monochrome laser on wifi which will talk to as many of them as possible. Order of priority is

Slackware
Android
IOS
Windows

Printer performance requirements are unambitious as regards

Resolution
Speed
A4 paper is fine
Don't need color

I do need refillable cartridges for toner, and don't want to be ripped off in value or have my pages counted so the toner goes 'empty' whether it's empty or not. There's a definite 'no' to all Lexmarks, for example.

I do also desire simplicity. I see Brother models that print, scan, fax, phone a friend, scratch your backside etc. etc. all through some inadequate panel on the printer or windows software and I shudder. Something that just prints is ok.

petelq · 05-30-2016, 06:10 AM

I've had a cheap Samsung laser which worked out of the box. I don't think they make it now but I assume they're still OK.
But for almost guaranteed reliability with Linux you can't beat HP - although I don't think they stand up to your toner price requirement.

DavidMcCann · 05-30-2016, 10:52 AM

I use a Samsung laser printer which replaced a HP inkjet. Both makes seem equally well good from that admittedly limited experience. The HP lasted 8 years and I've had the Samsung for 3.

beachboy2 · 05-30-2016, 11:01 AM

business kid,

I bought this HP LaserJet P1102w 3 years ago for someone else and I have received no complaints about it:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-P1102w-W.../dp/B007UNCMJ2

teckk · 05-30-2016, 03:55 PM

My 2 cents.

In my opinion the printer language is as important as the brand of printer. If you get a postscript printer then everything will print to it. Windows and IOS will use it ok. All Linux, BSD, flavors will save as file.ps. Just simply cat the file.ps to the printer port and it will print. Least objectionable option.

Next choice is a PCL printer. Again, windows and mac will use it. GhostScript will easily change a .ps file to .pcl, then just cat it to the printer port on a BSD or Linux box.

Code:

pcl_convert() {
	#Get filename
	read -p "Enter file.ps to convert. : " infile

	#Specify ghostscript device here.See gs -h
	dev=laserjet			

	#Read infile name for outfile name.
	outfile=${infile##*/}		
	#Change .ps to .pcl
	outfile=${outfile%.ps}.pcl	

	#Convert file.ps to file.pcl ready for printing.
	gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=$dev -sOutputFile=$outfile $infile -c quit

	#Echo the $filename.
	echo "PCL file is "$outfile""

	#Print or not after conversion.
	read -p "Do you want to print it? Enter y or n : " yn
		case $yn in
			[Yy]* ) #Device node needs root
					su -c "/dev/usb/lp1 < $outfile" ;; #Set device node here
	
			[Nn]* ) exit ;;
		esac
}

Last option, a cheepo win printer. Not with the money.

Quote:

I do need refillable cartridges for toner, and don't want to be ripped off in value or have my pages counted so the toner goes 'empty' whether it's empty or not.

You can often times screw back in the little plastic tab on the back of the cartridge, stick it back in, and the meter is reset. It unscrews when the cartridge first runs. It touches a switch on the back of the printer. Then with others, the little resister on the cartridge burns out as soon as you install it, put another resister on it, reset. The quality will degrade in a little while if you run it over the life expectancy.

business_kid · 05-31-2016, 12:58 AM

Thanks for the reply.
I had presumed language would be .ps. Is it Canon who do .pcl?

I'm going to set up for Linux - anything else working is a bonus. Neat that it's doable to frustrate attempts to rip off the luser on print cartridges. The ones I had experienced were industrial ink jets which were loaded with little eeproms and had to be reprogrammed. It sounds ambitious for someone who has the use of only one hand atm, but the cartridge refill guys have no such limitations.
EDIT: I usually consult the cartridge refill guys before buying anyhow as they have good advice.

Teufel · 05-31-2016, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

EDIT: I usually consult the cartridge refill guys before buying anyhow as they have good advice.

HP and Canon original cartridges are crappy. Printing becomes pale very soon due to drum and you have to replace it with new one. Compatible cartridges much better (and cheaper). They can be refilled up to 10 times without loss of printing quality.

Old Samsung printers was good and had fine cartridges, but nowadays they became the same crap like HP and Canon cartridges.
If I could find Samsung with old cartridge it would be my choice, even if it with chip/page counter, but it mostly impossible to find such a printer now.

teckk · 05-31-2016, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Is it Canon who do .pcl?

I've got a Brother HL1440 that's PCL 5 and 6, and a Brother HL5340D that is PS as 2 examples. Both work just fine. I don't even have cups installed on the FreeBSD machine. I just send the .ps or .pcl doc to the printer port. You would of course have more features with cups. Interface, print spooler etc.

The point was that even if you have problems finding support for the printer, you can still use the printer without any fuss. If you have a postscript file then it'll print just like that on a postscript printer. That makes it a valuable printer that will last for years or decades no matter what you change. I don't see postscript going anywhere soon. Also PCL is no problem either.

Those little ink jet printers are cheap to buy, but cost to fill up the ink cartridges. Then you recall when microsoft changed their printer language in win 2000, and all of those little inkjets were worthless, nothing would speak to them.

Something like one of these http://www.brother-usa.com/Printer/M...5340d/Overview
will last for years until you can't get a cartridge for it anymore. If you use it lots (20k copies), you will eventually wear out the fuser rollers. (That's the hot part that melts and crushes the toner into the paper)
I think that the standard print cartridge (drum, drum blade, coronas, developer, toner) lasts for about 5k copies, depends on how black your prints are of course. Then you can cheat it and get more out of it. But since the developer is getting short on toner the print quality will start dropping off. You can get another 500 prints out of it maybe.

I think that I've had that HL1440 for 15 years now, I reached in it and somehow scratched the drum a while back. Now it's got a small (black) line on the prints. You can fix that somewhat by putting a small bit a nail polish on that thin scratch (carefully) so that the photo sensitive layer of the drum doesn't work there. You'll have a small blank (white) line which on white paper is mostly unnoticeable except where it hits a letter. And that HL5340D must be 10 years old now, I finally put another cartridge in it a while back. They're about $35 here.

Anyway, lazer printers cost more, but last for decades. And if you get one with a print server build in then you can use it as a network printer. They make them with 802.11 print servers also. Assign it an IP address and put it wherever you wish.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ce.mupdf&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ruce.lpd&hl=en

business_kid · 06-01-2016, 01:50 AM

15 years is a good age for a printe. I had to buy a couple of printers in that period, and the manufacturers have got meaner about ink refills and toner. These days it's always worth asking "What am I buying?" A cheap printer/scanner/faxb is going to have a lousy cartridge size, = high cost per page. Lexmark give away €200 worth of hardware for €50 but make it many times over on refills. The cartridge they supplied in new printers was two thirds empty (I knew a Spanish girl who manned tech support lines in German here). Her biggest difficulty was convincing people that their cartridge was gone already.

I'd like a printer that just printed plenty from a cheap refillable toner cartridge. I think inkjets are fine for small fancy runs & colour if you want that. I just use black and white.

I feel cups is awful, and wrote a report for Linux from scratch on 'printing from scratch ' using gs as the print engine. Someone else maintains it now.

teckk · 06-01-2016, 12:40 PM

If you can find one of those little digital copiers for cheap, or one that is past it's service contract and is thrown away, They are the same thing as a printer, they will have print servers build in, hard drives with spoolers, the ability to duplex, scan documents, etc. and are supported by their companies with parts for 10 or 15 years. Read the specs on them. The Ricoh-Savin-Gestetner machines used postcript language, the toshiba and sharps did too......haven't worked on them for a while.

To save paper and toner you can view .ps files with zathura, gv, okular, evince, gs, libspectre library, I think Libre has a plugin that will.
Most Linux apps will print to file as .ps or .pdf

Convert file.ps to file.pcl ready for printing.

Code:

gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=laserjet -sOutputFile=<outfile> <infile> -c quit

Convert file.pcl to file.ps ready for printing.
Here is the binary of GhostPCL, untar and use it, or compile it yourself
http://downloads.ghostscript.com/pub...nux-x86_64.tgz
Here is a sample .pcl file
http://openpcl.sourceforge.net/sample.pcl, also 2 in the .tgz

Code:

gpcl6-918-linux_x86_64 -o <out.pdf> -sDEVICE=pdfwrite <infile.pcl>

And then there are tools like:
pdftops
a2ps
gl2ps

Once you get a printer language file then:

Code:

/dev/usb/lp1 < $file

For a network printer you can use netcat.

Code:

netcat 192.168.1.20 9100 < $file

You can also save that .ps or .pcl for later printing, on another machine even.

I think that's about as simple, trouble free, and long lasting solution there is.

reclusivewriter · 06-01-2016, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beachboy2

business kid,

I bought this HP LaserJet P1102w 3 years ago for someone else and I have received no complaints about it:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-P1102w-W.../dp/B007UNCMJ2

+1 I've had mine for about that long and it's just a tank.

business_kid · 06-02-2016, 01:28 AM

@tekk: Thanks for all the useful ideas & suggestions. I don't know if there are any digital copiers secondhand locally; I am in Ireland, and fairly house bound. ps is what I'm hoping for.

@Launfal: Your HP1102 is a tank. That could be praise or criticism. Does it print well? Are the refills cheap? Does the toner last well?

beachboy2 · 06-02-2016, 02:47 AM

business kid,

I have no personal experience of this one, Samsung M2825DW, but it appears to be generally positively reviewed:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-M28.../dp/B00BMGHY0K

http://uk.pcmag.com/samsung-xpress-m...xpress-m2825dw

business_kid · 06-03-2016, 04:56 AM

As my limited circumstances allow, I have been doing my homework. I have a shortlist, and a word from anyone who owns one would be great

HP LaserJet Pro P1102W
Samsung M2070W
Brother HL-1210W

All come out close to EUR120 here. All 3 have supporting mobile apps and use wifi. The Samsung has a scanner/copier as well. The Samsung m2835dw is not really available here yet, and only offers the basic printer at what looks comparatively expensive price. The Samsung M2070W which provides scanner & copier basically for free. The Ricoh SP-213w made it on to the shortlist, but not enough places here do cartridges online, so it came off again. Pity, it was price sensitive.

The HP LaserJet Pro P1102W seems a lot like my last printer - a HP Laserjet P1005. That did 8000 pages per cartridge; the HP LaserJet Pro P1102W only does 1600:-(. It's too pricey per page unless you guys can tell me refilled or compatible cartridges work. Do I have to install foo2zjs to drive it? Foo2zjs offers several languages but it's './configure && make && make install,' and the install messes with udev and clashes with system-config-printer :-/. I was not hugely pleased with my old P1005, and it was ready to sit down in more ways than one when it died.

Cheapest cartridges seem to be twin packs of compatible replacements, or refills. HP on refills is cheapest,but most expensive on originals. The Brother is in the middle with Samsung on refills pricier. Toner cost per page is low on all of them - lowest with the hp on refills, but my hp didn't like refills. These sums don't factor in other running costs (electricity, drum replacements, paper, etc.)

I'm tempted by the essentially free scanner on the samsung, but put off a little by the complication of the software setup. Any owners of shortlist items?

Teufel · 06-03-2016, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

The HP LaserJet Pro P1102W seems a lot like my last printer - a HP Laserjet P1005. That did 8000 pages per cartridge; the HP LaserJet Pro P1102W only does 1600:-(.

They both has the same cartridges with the same capacity (58 g of toner for starter cartridge and 90 g of toner for replacement cartridge). HP Laserjet P1005 will not print 8000 pages per cartridge (one refilling). As well as P1102W will not print 1600 pages. The both will print 550-600 real pages (for starter cartridge) or 850-900 real pages (for replacement cartridge). The value of 1600 pages is a publicity stunt: cartridge can print 1600 pages if 5% of page's square filled with toner. How much of text occupies 5% of page? Its less then half of A4 page. The real page that full of text is about 11%.

HP LaserJet Pro P1102W cartridge can be easily refilled and printer doesn't block refilled cartridges, however original cartridges are very poor quality (both starter and replacement) so customer has to replace the cartridges fairly often. The best option is compatible cartridge.

Samsung M2070W will not work with refilled cartridges. It blocks cartridges that was exhausted (by their serial number).
To get Samsung work with refilled cartridge you have to replace it's firmware with cracked one (with cracked firmware printer resets page counter on every power-on so it never riches a limit)