Color Laser Printers?

[Beej]

Anybody know peripherals?

I need a colour laser printer and I'm considering the Samsung CLP-510.

Anyone have comments or suggestions here?

I don't want to pay through the nose, but I would like reliability and would enjoy not having to replace an expensive cartridge monthly. Most of my printing is black and white, but pretty much daily I have to print some docs with colour, and the old deskjet is getting pretty tired...

 

[mdl]

Hmm... no. You need an membership instead.



Look into some made by HP.

 

[RichP]

Color lasers are OK, downside is cost for a good one. I have 3 printers at home, two monochrome lasers and a HP T55 print/copy/fax/ all in one that uses parallel. The lasers are both network printers, Brother HL-1850TN full duplex [prints both sides without having to touch the paper] and an HP4200N, I do have one more, HP designjet 800N, still in the box and stored on end along with it's legs and wheels, things 6ft long and I don't have a place to put it.. got a feeling the radial saw is bound for the shed
I'd go with a brother before a samsung or qms/minolta
I'd go with one of these two brothers and spring for the extra memory stick for whatever you get, www.newegg.com has good prices

HL-5250DN
HL-5140

One other thing, since I got the brother laser in 3 or 4 years ago I have only replaced carts on the HPT55 ONCE, the Brother laser is still on it' original toner cart though the idiot light did come on 'low toner', remove cart, shake side to side to side, reinstall and good for another month or so. Just redistribute the toner in the cart to even it out...

 

[casm]

I don't want to pay through the nose, but I would like reliability and would enjoy not having to replace an expensive cartridge monthly. Most of my printing is black and white, but pretty much daily I have to print some docs with colour, and the old deskjet is getting pretty tired...

Poke around eBay and Craigslist for used / surplused HP stuff. I got an HP Color Laserjet 4550 a while back for the massive sum of 'free' this way - company had gone bankrupt and didn't want to have to store it (it's large and heavy). One downside (apart from the bulk): it requires four toner cartridges that cost about $500 in total if you have to replace all four.

BTW, check the cost of toner before you dive in on any of them. As a rule of thumb, It's usually not cheap for multicolour lasers. HPs are your best bet if you can get one cheap.

 

[PhunkXJ]

One other thing, since I got the brother laser in 3 or 4 years ago I have only replaced carts on the HPT55 ONCE, the Brother laser is still on it' original toner cart though the idiot light did come on 'low toner', remove cart, shake side to side to side, reinstall and good for another month or so. Just redistribute the toner in the cart to even it out...

you can't do this with the new HP cartridges, they have memory chips installed on the cartridges now that stores how many copies were made on that cartridge. so if a cartridge has a life on 6,000 copies there could till be 25% toner left but the cartridge won't work. you have to replace it, all 4 colors at the same time also. If you try to disable the chip the cartridge is toast. I went through this 2 years ago with an HP color laser printer, we spent about $6k on it and a set of cartridges was $1200, we went through 2 sets of these a week.
I was using the color laser jet to do red imprints, so I was only using the magenta and yellow cartridges, but I had to replace the cyan and black also when the mag. and yellow ran out. I complained to no end to HP about this, I probably spent 15 hours on the phone with them. we only used the printer for about 6 weeks, it got us through the job we were doing and HP ended up refunding me for all but one set of cyan and black cartridges and did a 80% buyback of the printer.

I would avoid HP if they are still using this chip technology on their cartridges. also from what I understood because of these chips you can't buy less expensive re-manufactured/re-filled cartidges, you have to buy HP's cartridges.

 

[GSequoia]

...but I had to replace the cyan and black also when the mag. and yellow ran out...

I've never had that issue; I use a Color LaserJet 4550 here at work.

you can't buy less expensive re-manufactured/re-filled cartidges, you have to buy HP's cartridges.

Trust me you don't want to buy refilled cartridges. Most of them are absolute trash; think Home Depot "ACOS" trash. There are very few refillers out there who pay attention to detail; I've seen reman'd cartridges destroy printers multiple times.

This is coming from somebody who spent a fwe years in hell - printer repair.

I don't touch anything but HP unless it's free.

 

[RichP]

you can't do this with the new HP cartridges, they have memory chips installed on the cartridges now that stores how many copies were made on that cartridge. so if a cartridge has a life on 6,000 copies there could till be 25% toner left but the cartridge won't work. you have to replace it, all 4 colors at the same time also. If you try to disable the chip the cartridge is toast. I went through this 2 years ago with an HP color laser printer, we spent about $6k on it and a set of cartridges was $1200, we went through 2 sets of these a week.
I was using the color laser jet to do red imprints, so I was only using the magenta and yellow cartridges, but I had to replace the cyan and black also when the mag. and yellow ran out. I complained to no end to HP about this, I probably spent 15 hours on the phone with them. we only used the printer for about 6 weeks, it got us through the job we were doing and HP ended up refunding me for all but one set of cyan and black cartridges and did a 80% buyback of the printer.

I would avoid HP if they are still using this chip technology on their cartridges. also from what I understood because of these chips you can't buy less expensive re-manufactured/re-filled cartidges, you have to buy HP's cartridges.

It figures they'd find a way to screw the laser buyers. We just got rid of a bunch of HP lasers, older ones that used the bottles to refill the colors, plug bottle in, printer blows air in and pulls the toner out, 30 min to do a refill.
I've been happy with the brother, good quality, did need to really clean it last week but the new fuser/toner cart kit was like $80-90, the toner cart is $60 for 6,000 page size. I don't do alot of color so the inkjet T55 works fine for me, I wanted it for the fax/copy thing when I was job hunting. Inkjets are just money makers for the companies and god help you if you buy a jet printer with an all-in-one color cart or one without a black cart where they use the color carts to make black.
I do have one other one, epson 600 color, thats hooked to my Sparc ultra 80, that puppy has to be almost 10 years old and I've used it as a loner where customers have run the snot out of it..

 

[87manche]

Being that I'm a printer guy I'll chime in.
Don't buy one of the cheap HP lasers, they're still a multipass system and color output speed blows.
The deal with Samsung is that the consumables usually cost an arm and a leg. Price out consumables before you buy the printer. You have to factor that into the purchase price. Total Cost of Ownership....
For a cheap color laser that does nice work and is networkable out of the box I'd point you towards an Oki c3200N.
that's a single pass laser, so it's pretty quickprinting color, and the LED printheads have a 5 year warranty. it also has a straight through feed system, so it will do real heavy cardstock and oddball sizes most won't.
I'll second not using reman cartridges. Most places that reman those do not have the equipment needed to test the photoconductor, it's a very expensive machine. Print quality issues are always a problem, and I too have seen them destroy gears in a printer when the drum locks up.
Stick with OEm stuff for your tonoer cartidges/photoconducter drums, it's more expensive, but your print quality will be much better.
Sorry for the book, but I am a printer repair guy, certified by HP, Oki and Canon even.

 

[Beej]

Thanks for the info everyone. The reason I was leaning towards the Samsung was because it is a bit less than the equivalent HP, I can buy it on account at my computer store, and the cartridges are about half the price of the Okidata and less than a third the price of the HP's. The warranty for me is the same on all of them.

I won't buy anything off eBay or such places because of the reliability-of-transaction issues inherent with auctions and also, I need to get it this week or early next at the latest.

Any other thoughts?

Tx...

 

[red91]

Anyone have comments or suggestions here?

yeah...dont look at it directly...it'll put your eye out.

 

[PhunkXJ]

I've never had that issue; I use a Color LaserJet 4550 here at work.

this was a color laser that I bought in 11/03 maybe they did away with the smart chip technology (that's what HP called it) or refined it. I can't find out the model of the printer, that requires digging through actual paper work rather than just my computer, the purchase price was only $4k not $6k, my mistake.

I have over $6k in refund deposit from HP direct and from CDW where I bought the cartridges, that's only from 2003 my last refund came in Feb. 04. It was a huge headache, I didn't have to work too hard for these refunds or the buy back, HP was really accomodating it was just a ton of time spent going through the right channels to get to the right person.

I obviously wasn't their intended user, we did over 25,000 copies a week.
HP had a great product, if only I could bypass that smart chip on the cyan and black, that was bs. We were in a bind and this was the fastest solution at the time without spending $30k on a digital duplicator that we weren't able to thoroughly explore our oprtions, which is what I eventually ended up with.

My advice to beej, take your time and research everything. decide what your useage will be and factor in the consumables.

 

[GSequoia]

certified by Hp ... and Canon even.

Now what's the point of being certified by HP AND Canon for Laser Printers? :twak:

 

[JoesXJ]

we have a HP 2600n here at work and it works great for doing little jobs here and there in color cost was like 300 or so at office depot

 

[87manche]

Now what's the point of being certified by HP AND Canon for Laser Printers? :twak:

I'm certified in Hp lasers and inkjets
Okidata laser and impact
Canon Inkjet
Epson inkjet and impact.
oh, and I freakin hate working on printers.
Always a gigantic PITA.

 

[GSequoia]

I'm certified in Hp lasers and inkjets
Okidata laser and impact
Canon Inkjet
Epson inkjet and impact.
oh, and I freakin hate working on printers.
Always a gigantic PITA.

Don't think you go tit.. I was refering to HP Lasers actually being Canon engines (except some Colors, but if I recall they switched back to Canon with the LaserJet 4500, the original Color LaserJet was a Canon engine).

Are their Inkjets still Matsushita? haven't worked with one in awhile.

Also I agree about the PITA factor - that is why I am no longer in the business (well, that and the company I worked for paid me shit)

 

[87manche]

Don't think you go tit.. I was refering to HP Lasers actually being Canon engines (except some Colors, but if I recall they switched back to Canon with the LaserJet 4500, the original Color LaserJet was a Canon engine).

Are their Inkjets still Matsushita? haven't worked with one in awhile.

Also I agree about the PITA factor - that is why I am no longer in the business (well, that and the company I worked for paid me shit)

No I got it, that's why I clarified that it was Canon inkjets.
They still use canon most exclusively, sating all the way back to the SX engines.
For the most part all the apple laserwrited were also canon engines.
Canon would license that to most anyone. I'e got a newspaper customer that has some crazy customized off brand that's a clone of a laserwriter 8500, that's buil on a canon engine.
freakin printers.

 

[GSequoia]

Everybody uses Canon engines 'caused they're the best I've worked on from the SX engine through to the 4000/4050 (forget it's designation) and everything in between. I got out of the business when that printer was current.

The one HP I always hated working on was the Color LaserWriter 5 - if I recall that was Konica enigne - hated that one!

I've got an old Color LaserWriter 13/600 (if I recall) at my mom's house. THe old Canon engine model with the fuser oil. Huge heavy beast that I should junk one of these days!

 

[87manche]

yeah the fuser oil is the best. There was a tech that worked at the same place I did(won't mention the name). He din't know anything about printers, I don't even know why he was looking at it.
Anyway, he flipped it over to look at the paper feed in the bottom of the chasis and didn't take the fuser oil bottle out first. Ruined the printer, that stuff gets everyway, and it's a bitch to clean up, stupid silicone based oil. That was a color laserwriter of some sort. Big monster, maybe an 8500?

 

[RichP]

yeah the fuser oil is the best. There was a tech that worked at the same place I did(won't mention the name). He din't know anything about printers, I don't even know why he was looking at it.
Anyway, he flipped it over to look at the paper feed in the bottom of the chasis and didn't take the fuser oil bottle out first. Ruined the printer, that stuff gets everyway, and it's a bitch to clean up, stupid silicone based oil. That was a color laserwriter of some sort. Big monster, maybe an 8500?

Back many years ago [~72] when xerox had the curved top copier I was loading the toner into the tray from the gallon jug, just got it filled up when I frigging sneezed, that sneeze came up from my toes so it was a whopper, copier was in the middle of the com center and uniform of the day was undress whites [Navy], toner everywhere, I looked like buckwheat from the little rascals. Uniform of the day was changed for about 2 months to work uniform [dungarees], needless to say I was not popular with 'managment' but the rest of sections loved me... even after that though you still found toner in the weirdest spots..