Printer myth?

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by belikethat, Dec 22, 2007.

  1. belikethat

    belikethat Just Started

    what i heard that colour printer needs to have both the black and colour ink(etc not dried up) to maintain the lifespan of the printer head even if u do not use colour printing..

    true or false? :nuts:
     
  2. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    I don't think that's true. Many printers now use print heads on their cartridges. So everytime you insert a new cartridge, it has a new print head.

    Even in printers using a permanent print head, the presence (or lack) of black / colour ink should not matter.
     
  3. zy

    zy zynine.com Staff Member

    depends :mrgreen:

    my canon pixma @ home had removable print head.. tanks & print head are seperate. if you dont use your ink for a long long time, your print heads will still clog. :p
     
  4. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Hmm.. If your print heads are removable, then you can just replace them, right?

    As for clogging, you can always clean them, right?

    Anyway, I think bubblejets are quite a hassle to own and maintain. Unless I intend to print often, I wouldn't want to buy one. I prefer laser printers. :D
     
  5. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    Print heads can be replaced, but they are not cheap at all.
     
  6. belikethat

    belikethat Just Started

    using cannon sp400

    yeah once i had to replace the printer head for rm180, lucky i didn`t have to buy the hold set.. together with the original ink
     
  7. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Yeah, the permanent print head is not cheap.
     
  8. zy

    zy zynine.com Staff Member

    i dont like bout laser printers are the warmup time :p
     
  9. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Warm-up time? That's just a couple of seconds. :think:
     
  10. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    I think the startup time is at least 30 sec+
     
  11. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    I don't know about other printers, but my HP LaserJet starts up pretty fast. By the time I plug in the USB cable and actually finish the pre-print process (setting number of pages, page types, etc.), it's ready to print.

    The warm-up time may be 20-30 seconds but it won't really matter that much in real-life. Even if it takes a bit longer to print, I consider that far less of a problem than the cost and hassle of maintaining a bubble jet.
     
  12. zy

    zy zynine.com Staff Member

    Its only fine when you are printing lots of pages..

    but if you are printing like 1-2 page every couple of minutes, the warm-up times sux xD
     
  13. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Hmm.. Not really. I'm using one here and I'm actually spooling, instead of directly printing. So far, it only takes 4-5 seconds for my printer to start printing after some idle time. :think:
     
  14. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    Idle time and start up time is not the same AFAIK.
     
  15. peaz

    peaz ARP Webmaster Staff Member

    Depends on the laser jet model. some models starts up pretty fast. the smaller it is, the faster it warms up. but it's irrelavent since the printing time is usually faster than BJ printers.
     
  16. Dashken

    Dashken Administrator!

    Don't get bubblejets if you don't intend to use it every week. Like me, nowadays only my father is using at most 1-2 times per month. And since the year 2000, I think we have bought more than 5 bubblejets. Waste of money... but still have to be ready just in case there are important documents to be printed out. Printing it outside is just too expensive...

    And I don't like to trouble friends to get my stuffs printed. Coz I don't like them to trouble me as well... haha. :p
     
  17. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Your bubblejets so unreliable? :think:

    Well, get a laser printer! Unless you really need to print colour. :D
     
  18. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    Get colour laser! :haha:
     
  19. Majormaggot

    Majormaggot Newbie

    Laser jets are the best investment i think. best thing to do is buy a cheap $50 color printer and throw it out when the ink is used up(since the ink refill cost more than the printer). i had a lexmark laser jet printer where i used to work, that thing was on from 7 in the morning to 8 at night printing sheets every few minutes. i'd say the warmup time was maximum 1-2 sec before it started spitting out paper. that thing was reliable and fast. Unlike my 13 year old hp laserjet 4p, 4 pages a minute baby! So far been thru 5 color printers. on my 6th now (just bought a lexmark printer/scanner/fax combo) hopefully it lasts as long as the hp
     
  20. plasma

    plasma Newbie

    Laser is the way to go. There's only a minimum start-up/warm-up time. If you add that to the total print time, it still may well be faster than bubblejets.
    My laser printer is sitting there for 6 months at times between prints and still works fine.
     

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