Printer recommendation please ?

thermal runaway · 3rd April 2009, 02:52 PM

Looking to buy a 3 in 1 printer , printer , scanner , copier.
Budget end of the market (max say £60) for general purpose use, primary concern is low running cost's for ink refills !!! I already have an Epson DX 6050 which is great for all around print quality , even on foto's , but I think the refill price is a little high. The new printer is for another location.

Thanks

Mr Evil · 3rd April 2009, 03:36 PM

Are there any printer manufacturers left who don't put "DRM" chips in the cartridges? When I bought my last printer, it was because Canon had plain old chipless cartridges, and thus I can still get cheap ink (Canon iP3000 - they seem to sell for a lot second hand because of this). I have heard that even Canon put chips in the new ones now though.

thermal runaway · 3rd April 2009, 04:01 PM

There is no alternative for the 3 in 1 units , they are all too recent not to have chipped ink. Some must have lower running cost's than others though.

dangus · 6th April 2009, 06:50 PM

A Brother multifunction (printer/scanner/copier/fax) that was bought a couple of years ago didn't have chipped ink reservoirs. I refilled the black with no problems. However, the printer automatically wasted ink cleaning the print head, so the colors ran dry even though I never printed anything in color. And it wouldn't print black if the color carts were empty. And after a while the WiFi connection stopped working.

If you mostly need to print documents, a dedicated laser printer is a good way to go. Toner isn't cheap, but it's a far lower cost per page than ink. Printers were built like tanks in the 1990s, and many are still very serviceable after 15 years. New laser printers can be had very cheaply; this is partly because they come with "trial" size toner carts, so you're gonna be buying a new toner cartridge very soon. However, cost per page is probably still very competitive, and the print quality should be better than with an old laserjet that only did 300 or 600 dpi.

thermal runaway · 6th April 2009, 09:40 PM

Yeah , I have a couple of old printers which are still going strong but I need the multi-function thing in this case. From what I've established so far it seems HP are the best overall.

quadtech · 7th April 2009, 05:59 PM

For me, proper Linux support was very high on priority list.
Both the laser printer and the scanner functions on my Samsung SCX-4100
work fine under Linux. Using the free Linux version of Eagle, I have
used it to make toner-transfer PCBs too.

3rd April 2009, 02:52 PM	#1
thermal runaway diyAudio Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: West Mids , UK	Printer recommendation please ? Looking to buy a 3 in 1 printer , printer , scanner , copier. Budget end of the market (max say £60) for general purpose use, primary concern is low running cost's for ink refills !!! I already have an Epson DX 6050 which is great for all around print quality , even on foto's , but I think the refill price is a little high. The new printer is for another location. Thanks

3rd April 2009, 03:36 PM	#2
Mr Evil diyAudio Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Behind you	Are there any printer manufacturers left who don't put "DRM" chips in the cartridges? When I bought my last printer, it was because Canon had plain old chipless cartridges, and thus I can still get cheap ink (Canon iP3000 - they seem to sell for a lot second hand because of this). I have heard that even Canon put chips in the new ones now though. __________________ https://mrevil.asvachin.eu/

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3rd April 2009, 04:01 PM	#3
thermal runaway diyAudio Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: West Mids , UK	There is no alternative for the 3 in 1 units , they are all too recent not to have chipped ink. Some must have lower running cost's than others though.

6th April 2009, 06:50 PM	#4
dangus diyAudio Member Join Date: May 2004 Location: Vancouver Island	A Brother multifunction (printer/scanner/copier/fax) that was bought a couple of years ago didn't have chipped ink reservoirs. I refilled the black with no problems. However, the printer automatically wasted ink cleaning the print head, so the colors ran dry even though I never printed anything in color. And it wouldn't print black if the color carts were empty. And after a while the WiFi connection stopped working. If you mostly need to print documents, a dedicated laser printer is a good way to go. Toner isn't cheap, but it's a far lower cost per page than ink. Printers were built like tanks in the 1990s, and many are still very serviceable after 15 years. New laser printers can be had very cheaply; this is partly because they come with "trial" size toner carts, so you're gonna be buying a new toner cartridge very soon. However, cost per page is probably still very competitive, and the print quality should be better than with an old laserjet that only did 300 or 600 dpi.

6th April 2009, 09:40 PM	#5
thermal runaway diyAudio Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: West Mids , UK	Yeah , I have a couple of old printers which are still going strong but I need the multi-function thing in this case. From what I've established so far it seems HP are the best overall.

7th April 2009, 05:59 PM	#6
quadtech diyAudio Member Join Date: Oct 2007	For me, proper Linux support was very high on priority list. Both the laser printer and the scanner functions on my Samsung SCX-4100 work fine under Linux. Using the free Linux version of Eagle, I have used it to make toner-transfer PCBs too.