[conspire] (forw) [svlug] Free HP Color LaserJet model 2605DN if you hurry

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):

> I owned one of these and it was a work horse but ended up with trouble
> relating to a design flaw.  dust invetiably gets into the optical unit.
> In the end, after the catrige ran out, I replaced it with a M551dn
> which is a vastly better machine and was very cheap for the quality.  In
> fact, it was hard for me to purchase because it disapeared from the HP
> catelogue.
> 
> the 2605 is still on the floor.  I haven't had the heart to toss it.

Heh.  ;->

If you'd like two sitting on the floor, I can ship the Menlo Park one to 
you.

Wow, that flaw with poor dust control is a shame.  My own experience with
LaserJets from the primary business-focussed series was very good, and I
heard good things about others of those.  E.g., up until around 2006, I
had a LaserJet Series III with upgraded RAM and a PostScript cartridge, 
and that thing was legendarily reliable.  It weighed over 100 lb and
dimmed the house lights when you powered it on, but it was
super-reliable and dirt cheap per page.  The 4 and 5 series were
reported to be likewise.

I read that all of the most-recent laser printers built the drum and
corona wire into the toner cartridge rather than making them a fixed
part of the printer.  Thus, you buy new ones every time you buy a
cartridge.  I've always wondered why, and whether that doesn't defeat
some of the cost advantages of toner being cheap, especially relative to
supplies for other printing technologies like inkjet or thermal transfer 
/ solid ink / phase-change.

Maybe drums and corona wires have themselves become so cheap that it's 
cost-effective to turn them into supply components rather than something
that must be built to last the full life of a printer.  I don't really
know what the story is.

I _do_ know that the cost per page over time of any type of printing
except B&W laser (which includes similar printers with other light
sources such as LED bars) is absurdly high, especially inkjet.

If I were shopping for a new printer, I'd start with princing printing
cartridges, getting estimated printable pages per lifetime, and
calculating average cost per page.  Then, I'd look at reliability
prospets of the models with low cost per page, read reviews (e.g., on
Newegg), and buy what seems to have cheapest supplies cost per page and
most reliable operation over service life.  IMO, those things are _way_
more significant than is purchase price.

-- 
Cheers,                                      299792458 meters per second.  Not
Rick Moen                                    just a good idea.  It's the law.
rick at linuxmafia.com                
McQ! (4x80