Andy Pastuszak
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Mar 1, 2023 2:45:18 GMT
I've been printing out pages on my venerable Epson EcoTank ET-2750 printer for a few years and I have been very happy with it. For the last 6 months or so, I have been having lots of problems with the printer prinrting off center. My left margin would be 14mm and my right margin would be 16mm. So I would go into Scribus and adjust the bleed to compensate. I could get the pages to print properly for a while, but eventually the bleed would stop working.
And this was happening across Mac/Windows/Linux and Adobe Reader/Foxit Reader/Apple Previews.
I spent 2 HOURS last night trying to figure out the bleed setting that would make the page centered.
This USED TO print just fine. I don't know if a firmware update borked the printer, or if there is something wrong wit the paper feed system. Unlike some printers, you can't print a test page and then scan it in to calibrate the print heads.
At 4:00 PM two things happened:
1. I'd had enough of dealing with this mess. 2. My bank account showed my tax refund arrived.
So, after a lot of venting to my wife, and with her approval, I went to Staples and bought a new inkjet printer.
Steering clear of Epson, I bought a Brother printer, because I own a Brother laser printer, and that thing has been a champ.
I spent a little more than I expected and bought a Brother MFC-J6555DW.
I'm still playing around with it. So, far I got it plugged in and tested printing the same page I was having problems with last night and the thing is perfectly centered on the page.
I can't really give a review of the printer, since I have only had it a few hours, but there are some things I like about and a few things I don't like about it:
Likes:
It can print pages up to 11x17. So, I now have the option to go Scott page size if I want. Paper feed through on it's side instead of from the top. It's a "tank" printer that came with one year of ink in the box. I can't find any chips or PCBs anywhere on the massive ink cartridges, so I don't think this will nag me for not using genuine ink. The scanner can scan up to an 11x17 sheet of paper. - The printer is REALLY QUIET
- The display on the front is HUGE compared to the Epson. It's very easy to see.
- The firmware is password locked out of the box with a random password that's printed on a sticker on the back of the printer. This should prevent my printer from joining a botnet.
Dislikes: - The thing is a lot bigger than my old printer. But I guess that is to be expected when you buy a printer that can handle 11x17
- I paid $329 for the thing. That's actually a really good price for an 11x17 printer, but still more expensive than what I regular inkjet would cost.
- It was on sale for $289 on Saturday, but I hadn't hit my breaking point till last night. So, my hesitation cost me $40.00.
- The ink cartridges are more expensive than Epson ink bottles. An Epson ink bottle costs around $25-$30 per color and Epson claims it can do 3000 pages. The Brother cartridges are $30/color for a cartridge that can 2500 pages. They also sell a deluxe cartridge for $50.00, but that one can do 6,000 pages, according to Brother. LD Products say they're going to have generic ink cartridges available soon, so this may not be an issue.
I really wish I had done this sooner. I spent a lot of time dealing with these margin problem over the last 6 or so months. Had I bought this printer sooner, it would have saved me an insane amount of time.
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vikingeck
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What I collect: Samoa, Tobacco theme, Mail in Wartime, anything odd and unusual!
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Post by vikingeck on Mar 1, 2023 12:36:43 GMT
Gee Andy, I dont know whether to admire your persistence over this "marginal" issue or worry that 2mm either way can possible cause so much upset ?
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Andy Pastuszak
Member
Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Mar 1, 2023 14:13:48 GMT
Gee Andy, I dont know whether to admire your persistence over this "marginal" issue or worry that 2mm either way can possible cause so much upset ? For 3 years I supported the graphic arts department of Comcast Cable. Though that did not make me a better graphic artist, it made me super anal-retentive about a lot of graphic arts stuff. If margins on a printer were off by 1-2 mm I didn't see it, but these guys noticed it, and I had to troubleshoot it, get new drivers and call the vendor. Same with colors that were not rendered properly. This was back in the days of Phaser color printers that used huge wax sticks.
After just a few months of doing this, I could look at a piece of printed paper, and the slightest imperfection would annoy the **** out of me. Page gets fed wrong into the printer and the whole page is ever so slightly skewed. My eye sees that immediately and it bugs me.
I once bought a ream of paper that was not exactly US letter size. The height was off by the slightest little bit because the ream was cut wrong. The size of the page looked wrong to me immediately.
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vikingeck
Member
Posts: 3,266
What I collect: Samoa, Tobacco theme, Mail in Wartime, anything odd and unusual!
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Post by vikingeck on Mar 1, 2023 14:26:46 GMT
Gee Andy, I dont know whether to admire your persistence over this "marginal" issue or worry that 2mm either way can possible cause so much upset ?
After just a few months of doing this, I could look at a piece of printed paper, and the slightest imperfection would annoy the **** out of me. Sympathy …..I am not upset to that detail , but misspellings (your/ you’re, there/ their / they’re ) the intrusive apostrophe, ( tea’s and Coffee’s), incorrect plurals,(millenniums for millennia,)and wrong preposition “me and my friend “ for “ my friend and I”, do irritate me . My late wife was a proof reader! |
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Andy Pastuszak
Member
Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Mar 1, 2023 14:28:24 GMT
I just wish the 3 years I supported these guys made me a better graphic artist. Sadly, talent is not transferable by osmosis. 😀
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Post by PostmasterGS on Mar 1, 2023 16:11:37 GMT
I recently had to replace my long serving printer as well.
Back when I was still using Schaubek-sized paper, I bought an HP CP5225DN Color Laserjet because it was the only color laser I could find at the time that would do the larger paper. It lasted 13 years and tens of thousands of pages. It had been a real pain in the butt the last few years -- with a laser printer, eventually the toner dust gets into every portion of the innards, and it's difficult to get it all out. I was getting little spots of toner in random places on my pages, which I could deal with, but then the controller board finally gave up and I was unable to print more than 1 page without cycling the power.
I shopped for a newer model replacement, and first purchased a Brother color laserjet. This was a gamble, because the printer wasn't listed as being able to support the heavier paper I use for my pages. One print with that one showed it was a mistake -- the finer fonts on my pages came out too thin and blurry. So, I gave that one to family who needed a new printer, and started shopping again.
In the end, I ended up buying the same HP model again. Shockingly, HP still sells it after all these years, as it is still their only "professional" color laserjet that is listed as supporting heavier paper. It means doing without a lot of the nice new features (WiFi connectivity being the big one), but it does print really beautifully.
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brookbam
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APS 236261
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What I collect: US...everything until I decide what I don't want to collect! And now thanks to a TSF give-away I'm adding Space topicals!
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Post by brookbam on Mar 1, 2023 19:13:32 GMT
Gee Andy, I dont know whether to admire your persistence over this "marginal" issue or worry that 2mm either way can possible cause so much upset ? For 3 years I supported the graphic arts department of Comcast Cable. Though that did not make me a better graphic artist, it made me super anal-retentive about a lot of graphic arts stuff. If margins on a printer were off by 1-2 mm I didn't see it, but these guys noticed it, and I had to troubleshoot it, get new drivers and call the vendor. Same with colors that were not rendered properly. This was back in the days of Phaser color printers that used huge wax sticks.
After just a few months of doing this, I could look at a piece of printed paper, and the slightest imperfection would annoy the **** out of me. Page gets fed wrong into the printer and the whole page is ever so slightly skewed. My eye sees that immediately and it bugs me. I used to have to set up PowerPoint slides for officers for their briefings back when I was in the military. I quickly learned that when they scrolled through their slides that there was to be absolutely NO frame movement as the slides went through the presentation. The frame being the border around the presentation. It was easy enough to copy and paste that into the following frames...but when you don't know that the first time a new sergeant sets up the briefing....well...things aren't really good for that new sergeant....
That was a blast in those days. Mike
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Post by PostmasterGS on Mar 1, 2023 19:22:41 GMT
I quickly learned that when they scrolled through their slides that there was to be absolutely NO frame movement as the slides went through the presentation. The frame being the border around the presentation. Maybe it's my days of preparing PPTs for general officers, but I still have this pet peeve. Bad. For my album pages, I use masters (which you can do in InDesign, PPT, etc.) to make sure the elements that are static across all pages don't vary by even a pixel. For the elements for which the content changes from slide to slide, but which should still be positioned consistently, I export the album pages to PDF, then zoom in tight on each part of the page and page-up/down watching for the flicker of something moving that shouldn't be. Even though once printed, you'd never be able to see the difference. |
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Andy Pastuszak
Member
Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Mar 1, 2023 20:00:42 GMT
I quickly learned that when they scrolled through their slides that there was to be absolutely NO frame movement as the slides went through the presentation. The frame being the border around the presentation. Maybe it's my days of preparing PPTs for general officers, but I still have this pet peeve. Bad. For my album pages, I use masters (which you can do in InDesign, PPT, etc.) to make sure the elements that are static across all pages don't vary by even a pixel. For the elements for which the content changes from slide to slide, but which should still be positioned consistently, I export the album pages to PDF, then zoom in tight on each part of the page and page-up/down watching for the flicker of something moving that shouldn't be. Even though once printed, you'd never be able to see the difference. Master pages are the way to go. Insurance consisteny for static elements.
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, I spent a lot of time in Harvard Graphics designing a presentation for my manager that we printed out in transparencies. I wish DOS apps back then had master pages.
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Andy Pastuszak
Member
Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Mar 1, 2023 20:20:41 GMT
I recently had to replace my long serving printer as well. Back when I was still using Schaubek-sized paper, I bought an HP CP5225DN Color Laserjet because it was the only color laser I could find at the time that would do the larger paper. It lasted 13 years and tens of thousands of pages. It had been a real pain in the butt the last few years -- with a laser printer, eventually the toner dust gets into every portion of the innards, and it's difficult to get it all out. I was getting little spots of toner in random places on my pages, which I could deal with, but then the controller board finally gave up and I was unable to print more than 1 page without cycling the power. I shopped for a newer model replacement, and first purchased a Brother color laserjet. This was a gamble, because the printer wasn't listed as being able to support the heavier paper I use for my pages. One print with that one showed it was a mistake -- the finer fonts on my pages came out too thin and blurry. So, I gave that one to family who needed a new printer, and started shopping again. In the end, I ended up buying the same HP model again. Shockingly, HP still sells it after all these years, as it is still their only "professional" color laserjet that is listed as supporting heavier paper. It means doing without a lot of the nice new features (WiFi connectivity being the big one), but it does print really beautifully. Printers were designed to be servicable. All the rollers were replaceable.The plastic tabs that hold the paper in the tray at the right position were replaceable. But then the era of companies making insane profits off of ink happened. Printers were made as cheap as possible to sell for as little as possible, and you'd make the money back on ink sales. Well, people learned quickly a lot of times it was cheaper to buy a new inkjet printer than it was to buy new ink. That's when printers started to come with "starter ink" that was good for only a few dozen pages.
People got fed up with inkjet printers and started to look at laser printers as an alternative. So, laser printers started their race to the bottom. Even now, you can get a b&w laser printer for around $99 from some brand. It prints super slow, and it has a hideously short paper path that will warp a lot of paper. The thing will break a year after the warranty runs out. And nobody makes replacement rollers, or even fusers and drums. It just takes a toner cartridge. Use it till it breaks and then go out and buy a new one.
Years ago, I brought home am HP4050DN from work they were getting rid of. The thing printed like a champ. I bought a new set of rollers for it and a maintenance kit. I used it for probably 5 years and then I needed to get new rollers and a waste toner bottle. Well, HP had this policy that after a product had been discontinued for so many years, spare parts are no longer available and you go through something I think they called "legacy support." So, the $20.00 set of rollers now cost $100.00 because it was a "legacy part."
I took the printer to electronics recycling.
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brookbam
Member
APS 236261
Posts: 226
What I collect: US...everything until I decide what I don't want to collect! And now thanks to a TSF give-away I'm adding Space topicals!
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Post by brookbam on Mar 1, 2023 23:21:42 GMT
Maybe it's my days of preparing PPTs for general officers, but I still have this pet peeve. Bad. For my album pages, I use masters (which you can do in InDesign, PPT, etc.) to make sure the elements that are static across all pages don't vary by even a pixel. For the elements for which the content changes from slide to slide, but which should still be positioned consistently, I export the album pages to PDF, then zoom in tight on each part of the page and page-up/down watching for the flicker of something moving that shouldn't be. Even though once printed, you'd never be able to see the difference. Master pages are the way to go. Insurance consisteny for static elements.
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, I spent a lot of time in Harvard Graphics designing a presentation for my manager that we printed out in transparencies. I wish DOS apps back then had master pages.
Oh I do too! After I started training younger troops to do the slides, I definitely educated them on setting up the master slides because, of course, the previous years slides couldn't be used because...well...they're officers....
But yeah...that annoys me too not having borders lined up now too.
But going back to the original topic, I might be in the market for a new printer too. I have a Canon color laser something or other but it prints black lines down one side so I don't know what is wrong. I tried replacing the carts (all of them) and that worked for a few pages but then it started again. I think it might be the fuser roller. It's about $200. I'm currently using a HP black toner laser but it's a smaller one and I don't know if it is going to handle the slightly thicker paper when I start printing my DIY album pages out.
And then I have a Canon MX922 inkjet but for the number of pages I need to print, I'd really rather run a laser to keep the cost per page down. Mike
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Andy Pastuszak
Member
Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Mar 2, 2023 0:43:40 GMT
Master pages are the way to go. Insurance consisteny for static elements.
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, I spent a lot of time in Harvard Graphics designing a presentation for my manager that we printed out in transparencies. I wish DOS apps back then had master pages.
Oh I do too! After I started training younger troops to do the slides, I definitely educated them on setting up the master slides because, of course, the previous years slides couldn't be used because...well...they're officers....
But yeah...that annoys me too not having borders lined up now too.
But going back to the original topic, I might be in the market for a new printer too. I have a Canon color laser something or other but it prints black lines down one side so I don't know what is wrong. I tried replacing the carts (all of them) and that worked for a few pages but then it started again. I think it might be the fuser roller. It's about $200. I'm currently using a HP black toner laser but it's a smaller one and I don't know if it is going to handle the slightly thicker paper when I start printing my DIY album pages out.
And then I have a Canon MX922 inkjet but for the number of pages I need to print, I'd really rather run a laser to keep the cost per page down. Mike
Inkjets are really only worth it if they're "tank" printers. Anything that still uses ink cartridges is just too expensive to operate long-term.
I'd love to get a 11x17 laser printer, but they're just too expensive.
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angore
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Post by angore on Mar 2, 2023 10:29:37 GMT
Laser printers are more like an investment rather than a lost expense. They can be idle for a long time without worrying about ink drying up, clogging heads, etc. I would like a large format printer but it would drive other costs (larger more expensive binders).
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Andy Pastuszak
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Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Mar 2, 2023 14:32:39 GMT
Something interesting with the new printer.
I used to use 100% cotton paper for stamp pages. But it's not even slightly inkjet friendly. The ink absorbs into the cotton fiber and feathers.
Well, with this printer, it's not doing that, at least when I print it black and white.
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Andy Pastuszak
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Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Apr 2, 2023 14:30:38 GMT
I thought I would post a 1 month printer update. So far, every problem I had with the Epson ET-2750 is not present in the Brother MFC-J6555DW. 1. Everything is printed dead center on the page 2. A much larger variety of paper that is not inject friendly still produces crisp and clear output 3. Apple Preview and Foxit Reader both produce the exact same output. I no longer have to use Foxit Reader to get the best output out of my pages. Epson has been in the printer business a long time. I am sure the actual hardware they make is fine. I'm pretty sure this all comes down to the printer driver. Printers really went through a "race to the bottom" in the 2000s. It would not surprise me if in-house developers were let go and driver development is now outsourced to people in India for a lot of printer manufacturers. I'm planning to sell my Epson. Centering being off by 2mm and not being able to print on cotton paper will probably only negatively impact less than 1% of the population.
EDIT:
Two other things of note:
1. The Epson does print faster than the Bother does 2. The model that I got, the MFC-J6555DW has the added advantage of being able to scan and copy up to 11x17 also. The documentation says it can send and receive faxes 11x17 also, but I don't think I have ever seen an 11x17 FAX machine anywhere before this. Having an 11x17 is a nice to have feature and I think I would have missed that feature had a bough the $30 cheaper model.
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angore
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What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Apr 3, 2023 9:56:23 GMT
I have Brother laser and continues to serve well as long one does not upgrade to Win 10 clean install. MS removed the driver!
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Andy Pastuszak
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Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Apr 4, 2023 0:59:48 GMT
I have Brother laser and continues to serve well as long one does not upgrade to Win 10 clean install. MS removed the driver! You can probably download the driver from Brothers' website.
I also have a Brother laser printer. HL-3170CDW. The thing works like a champ.
I would really love to get an 11x17 laser printer, but even used ones a pretty darn expensive.
One problem with old laser printers is that parts for them are getting tough because no one makes them. For the more popular models, you can get third party waste toner bottles, rollers, fusers, etc. But for the lower end stuff, the parts just are not there.
It used to be that way with inkjets too. I think I posted my story about a Deskjet 932C I bought back in the 90s. I used that thing for over a decade before it fell off a shelf, hit the floor and the paper tray broke.
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Andy Pastuszak
Member
Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Apr 4, 2023 1:22:47 GMT
So, here is an HP story for you. HP has a subscription service for ink and toner. You pay a monthly fee and toner or ink gets sent to your house on-demand. HP monitors your printer remotely and can tell when you're running low on supplies and just sends them to you.
If you cancel your subscription, HP remotely locks your printer, so you can't print.
It's funny. At work we "outsouced" our printers. Kyocera took over all responsibilities for the printers. They show up on request and deliver paper, toner and service the printers. And we pay them per-page printed. Then COVID happened. And for 2 years they got zero revenue out of us.
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angore
Member
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What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Apr 4, 2023 10:55:13 GMT
There is no win 10 driver for a Brother HL-1650 on Brother website. They point to Microsoft. On Windows 7, the driver is a generic driver with limited function. The driver works if you migrate a win 7 machine to win 10 but not if you do not do clean install. I tried to copy the driver from Win 7 that did work to Win 10 but did not work. The printer is over 20 years old and still works so my wife uses it on her migrated Win 10 unit. I had purchased a new laptop and noticed many fewer printer drivers available for old iron.
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Andy Pastuszak
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Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Apr 4, 2023 12:31:05 GMT
It really sucks that a perfectly working piece of hardware becomes e-waste because of a driver.
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Andy Pastuszak
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Praying for my family and everyone in Ukraine.
Posts: 1,533
What I collect: United States, Ukraine, Ireland
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Post by Andy Pastuszak on Jul 17, 2023 15:03:29 GMT
I thought I would post a followup on the Brother printer I bought.
I have not printed a lot with this printer, but I am pretty happy with it.
With as little as I have printed, with my Epson I would have needed to do a head cleaning. So far the Brother hasn't needed it.
It's gotten 2 firmware updates since I have had it, and both updates have had zero issues. The Epson had two updates that bricked the printer. Thank God both times it was under warranty.
It is an inkjet printer, with all the caveats that an inkjet printer comes with, including restrictions on paper type and the fact that print heads will dry out and need cleaning eventually if not used regularly.
There's no generic ink cartridges available for it yet. But it is a "tank" printer. When I did the math, it looks like with brother brand ink, it will cost me about US$0.01 per page in ink to print.
I really wish I could get an 11x17 laser printer at a reasonable price. But those cost in the thousands of dollars, and the toner for them is not cheap.
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