Staples laser printer ate my decal paper!

[Radio Fixer]

Boo Hoo!

Worked fine last time but today it chewed. Dont know if the guy loaded it flat or slightly bent a corner...

Its a photo copier, with an attached PC, and maybe the A4 paper goes in long side first which would be the worst for it jamming up.

Later: I have just examined the evidence and it is crinkled up in the long direction so it did feed this way.

So I guess its back to ink jet and lacquer.

Gary

[AlanBeckett]

Oh dear.
Where I worked last we'd just had a splendid new A3 copier installed. A student chose the wrong transparency stock and wrote it off. The Fuse Roller was horrible to behold :-)
Alan

[Bushbaby]

Due to my poor housekeeping I inadvertantly left some paperwork including a plastic sleeve onto of the paper tray to my old Samsung coloror laser. I did see this when printing a document - suffice to say that the plastic pouch melted in the fuser unit. As this cost more that I paid for the printer I was most upset!! I's just filled the colour cartridges with refill toner too!

Pooh!

[Radio Fixer]

Well Alan at least it wasnt your printer sad though it was. Feel sorry for BushBaby; thats was a real shame... Maybe get the same printer so that the old cartridges can be used? But I doubt that will be the case... each product seems to have a life of about 6 months probably to beat the cartridge clone boys.

Gary

[Bushbaby]

Gary,
Thanks for your reply - I was really annoyed with myself at the time as I got a really good deal on the printer (£99 for a colour laser!!). However, it couldn't be repaired so I bought a slightly newer model for £109 and I'm being oh so careful this time around!

Rob

[Radio Fixer]

How about this one, even cheaper...

http://www.ebuyer.com/241755-dell-1250c-...-210-38075

Gary

[Yorkie]

£55 for the printer - £237 for a set of genuine Dell toner carts:

http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/toner-car...pc=froogle&utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=printer_toner

Printers are just honey traps to seduce us, then when they've beguiled us with their charms, they turn into a high maintenance mistress!

The makers know fine well that if they sold them at their true cost, their market would collapse, so they dangle the bait, we take it, and they reel us in. Even a premium brand clone of the Dell carts cost £98.87 from the same supplier. However, that only works out at 1.3p per page compared to the genuine Dell at 3.2p per page. What's the worst thing that could happen in the unlikely event that non-genuine cartridges cause problems. Your printer dies on you. So? You gamble that by saving £139 by buying non-genuine carts that you might risk a £55 printer.

I think that the likes of Dell, HP, Epson will go bust before Cartridge World et al.

Suppose car makers were to sell us cars at a bargian price of £2,000, but tell us we must buy only their brand of petrol or the engine would blow up or the car wouldn't drive well, but we took no notice and bought any old make of fuel, and the engine doesn't blow up and the car runs fine. How many drivers would still buy the 'genuine' fuel? Not perhaps the best analogy, but in the end, virtually giving the printers away and charging astronomical prices for inks and toners available cheaply from other suppliers is an unsustainable business model. Or so it seems to me.

I never print my own photos - claims that my printer, using genuine Epson inks and genuine Epson paper with the printer set on the correct setting will result in prints of 'lab quality' haven't proved to be so. I can pop them on a memory stick and get them printed off while I wait at a photoshop in the village to a much higher standard, and cheaper than feeding my printer's insatiable appetite for ink.

I've mentioned how disappointed I've been with my new Epson Stylus SX535WD printer, which eats cartridges. Having bought two sets of Genuine Epson carts already, I could buy yet more, but instead, I'm awaiting delivery of a full set of four, plus two extra blacks at £16.99. Or I could pay £69 for another set of Epson ones and two extra blacks.

As I write, my printer cheerily tells me that I need to renew black and magenta. Well it has a surprise coming to it - no more Mr Nice Guy, no more champagne and caviar - strictly a bread and water diet of compatible cartridges from now on, and if it acts up, it will follow that well-trodden path to the printer graveyard, where it will find plenty of company!

Rambled and dribbled David.

[Joe]

Rambled and dribbled David.

No, just spoken sense.

A lot of things claim that only manufacturer's accessories be used. My hair-clippers are at least fifteen years old and after the small bottle of oil that came with them ran out have run on WD40 quite happily. If this has shortened their life I'm still well satisfied and have saved more than the replacement cost.

- Joe

[AlanBeckett]

But Joe, they've killed all your hair
Alan

[Radio Fixer]

If your past Epson printers havent produced better prints than the 'village lab' (lab being a highly inflated term) than you must have bought cheap printers then David. I see the SX535 is only 4 colour. The 6 colour photo ones (see Epson Stylus Photo P50, 6 Colour) and even my very old R300 produce superb, really superb, results. I scoff a little at the word 'lab' as they are only as good as the people who service and calibrate the equipment. They may set the printer up to some standard occasionally (assuming they have the skill, which is getting more and more unlikely) but is your screen calibrated to any or essentially the same one?

I spend time calibrating my screen to the printer (and the scanner to prints) so I know what I see is about what I'm going to get. It may not be spot on to a national standard but its matched.

So I'm sure my 6 ink Epson can produce better prints for me than a 'village lab. I can even test on 6x4" first and make slight tweaks to sharp, bright, contrast, colour cast / balance etc etc before going for the final 6x4" or 10x8". But I only need to do this occasionally and for critical pics. Its being in control (control is everthing) that makes having a really good printer at home such a benefit. Will the 'lab' tweak pics for you as you stand behind the counter in a queue?

I bet the Staples Laser Printer wouldnt have crunched my decal paper if I had been doing it... but I doubt the nice, helpful lad took the trouble to flatten the paper or not bend a corner etc

For a small quantity of prints, ink cost doesnt matter. I bet most of us spend more on beer that we do on ink... for me, even with only a modest tipple, its certain. For the makers of printers its getting theirs in the offices and pre-press of companies. Every department will have one and use a lot of ink... so the corporates keep them in business and the home user benefits from being able to buy at dirt cheap prices amazing pieces of kit.

Joe: clippers and oil are light years apart in technology, from an an ink jet printer and its ink, so its a bad comparison. I have framed prints on the wall (Yes! makers ink and paper) that have been there for 10 years and maybe much more and the grass / sky / flesh colours still look natural ... they may have changed but not enough to notice. I have paint and toner (on cabinets I have refinished and now taken a knob off) and repro moulded knobs that have changed colour noticably and some dramatically in far less time ... the knobs in a couple of years. A repaired and sprayed in 30's Bakelite clock that was a perfect cream match about 10 years ago that is now a stark white. So you are getting something with the money you pay for good printer ink.

So when all the makers of fine printers are out of business are Cartridge World going to make us anything as good...

Anyway we are going over old ground here

PS: just seen one framed print in the Den that I know is about 18 years old (thats when the windsurfing holiday was), it faces the window but is still fine. Was it done on this printer? Not sure, this is my second Epson the first was a work chuck out that was badly broken (pushed off the desk). Glued back together by me and I had useful life from it.

Gary