John,
I have a HP photo quality printer. I have a HP fax copier. I have a
HP 11 x 17 printer. I have had no problems with any of the
equipment. They work flawlessly.
Ron
67 Malibu
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 4:59
PM
Subject: [Chevelle-list] OT: printer
notes - hope this is useful
Some of you know that I have been having printer problems. Here
are a few
things I've learned. I hope this is useful to somebody out
there.
1) At epson.com you can buy factory-refurbished printers for
about half the
retail price with free delivery and a 1yr mfr warranty, and
they do come
with the ink cartridges and cables.
2) The HP printers
where the paper loads from the front and also comes out
the front are not
good for certain forms like perforated business cards. The
180-degree turn
makes the cards break apart and the paper jams, and you have
a hell of a
time getting it out (in pieces). I also had several other paper
feeding
problems with the one I bought, picking up several sheets at a time
(my
personal record was 13) and not always picking it up in the same
place,
causing forms like checks and shipping labels not to line up
properly.
3) The HP "Vivera" inks are not as saturated in color as
Epson's "DuraBrite"
inks, and the printing on mine was also not as sharp as
the Epson.
4) The HP printer did not come with a USB cable and only
came with "starter
cartridges" that ran out in less than a week. Obviously
the plan here is to
get you to buy more ink right away since the markup on
the ink is what they
make most of their money on. The Epson printers come
with the cable and also
with full ink cartridges.
5) There are
several web pages that show how to clean the Epson printer head
if it
clogs, and you can even buy a cleaning cartridge that is supposedly
the
same thing they use at Epson to clear a clogged print head. This looks
like
an ink cartridge but it has some sort of solvent in it instead of
ink.
Unfortunately I took mine apart and really screwed it up before I knew
this.
Otherwise I could have probably fixed it.
6) Another bad thing
about Epson printers is that some models are known for
having a problem
with the "ink purge tube" disconnecting itself over time,
which will make
it stop printing. There are also web pages that show how to
reconnect it if
that happens. Hopefully that has been solved on newer
models. This did not
happen on mine.
7) Epson's help site worked great and I got an
immediate reply. Sending a
support message through the HP site resulted in
an error message and I never
got a reply.
I have to say that despite
the head clogging problem I am going to buy
another Epson (refurbished) and
just be more diligent about cleaning the
head once in a while "whether it
needs it or not".
Again, I apologize for the OT post and I am not
really trying to start a big
discussion on this, but hopefully some of you
can benefit from what I
learned the hard way.
John
Nasta
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- Re: [Chevelle-list] OT: printer notes - hope this is useful Ron Malespin
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