Inkjet printers (slightly OT)

[newshound]

I occasionally want to print drawings at A3, but my ancient Laserjet

8000 has just died. I swore I would never buy another inkjet, but all the refurb A3 mono lasers are large, expensive, or both, whereas there are several smaller, cheaper colour inkjets on the market. I guess I might use one occasionally for photos or posters but I'm not worried about exhibition quality. What *really* worries me is print head dryout because I might only use it once a week.

Does anyone have any views / experience on current Epson / Canon / HP or other A3 printers?

Don't need duplex. (A3 scanning might very occasionally be handy).

TIA

[Bob Minchin]

I use Epsons - cheaper the better and often have a week between printing and rarely have trouble that a head cleaning cycle won't sort out. However if you stick makes that have integral printheads with the ink tanks, eg HP then if you had one dry out that would not submit when cleaned, then all you would have to do is chuck the cartridge rather than the whole printer. Epsons have fixed print heads and usually are beyond economic repair when they have problems.

[R D S]

Had a few Brother MFC A3's, they've all been great until as you say, if not used in a while the printheads pack in and they are bricked.

If you are using it weekly i'd have thought you'd be OK.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I think you'll be ok with any, if it really is used at least once a week. It leaving them for ages that causes the problem. And modern inks may be better anyway.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I have a large A1 inkjet that dries up... spare

But suggest refurbed laser for this job. Some nice old HP and RICOH sets out there ex company etc.

[Savageduck]

[newshound]

I think I paid just over £100 for my last LJ8000, but the reasonable stuff now seems to be around £250, and is also larger than the 8000. One of them weighs 65 kg. Don't think I can justify that for my very limited use.

[newshound]

Thanks to all for the helpful comments. Still musing over the options.

[Savageduck]

BTW:

I have two Epson printers, a dedicated photo printer and an all-in-one. Neither one has had clogged nozzle issues due to dried out ink cartridges.

[The Natural Philosopher]

price is as you say, but these machines work

[Chris French]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

I've got a Canon Pixma MG7100 series printer/scanner (always forget which one) It can go for weeks without being used sometimes and we've never had a problem with print heads drying up.

Ours is an A4 printer, but I'm sure the A3 printers use similar technology

[newshound]

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

We had a couple of similar (possibly the same) Ricoh's in the office of my last employer, before I retired. About once a month, one or other of them would go down and have the service engineer in all day. They were not particularly intensively used (each typically servicing 15 engineering consultants). They were probably a bit better after the first year, but by no means infallible.

I don't disagree, if I had sufficient use I would consider one. But I already have two full duplex A4 laser printers (mono and colour).

[nospam]

clogging is no longer an issue.

consider a multifunction epson printer. the workforce series is excellent, prints very fast and the cost per page is relatively low.

[android]

comp.periphs.printers might be helpful if you need more input.

[dennis]

I have a Brother A3 printer and it hasn't dried out in 4 years. However it is on all the time so it does periodic head cleaning.

This wastes a bit of ink but as I use compatible carts its peanuts.

[Keith Nuttle]

I had an HP932 printer, that I bought about 2000. It was used for basic document printing, and pictures. It was not used a lot but when it was used we would print a lot business cards with photo backs and brochures. Before mom died we printed a lot of photos.

Point being we needed the cards and brochures about once per year, and documents less than that. In the 15 years I have had the printer I never had a problem with the print heads. I have bought its replacement, as the HP5704 printer/scanner combination was the price of the scanner. Since I have an inventory of ink for the 932, I will use it for several more years

[Brian-Gaff]

I always found the HP ones better on the clog factor and Epson the worst. Brian

[tony sayer]

In article , newshound scribeth thus

Yes we have a HP Officejet 7110 for that very A3 reason. Can't grumble about it. Bought it direct from HP, cartridges seem to last a sufficient time its a "bit" noisy in operation farts around a bit but otherwise fine. Print quality is fine:)

Handles paper very well to it replaced an 8600 which was in use for years doing A3 and A4 sizes

I think its got wireless in it but we don't need that....

[Savageduck]

Epson has pretty much solved the ink clog issue on recent and current inkjets. Some 10-12 years ago it was so bad I swore I would never buy another Epson. My old Stylus 870 became a boat anchor quite quickly, clog after clog, cleaning cartridge after clening cartridge. I moved to Canon, and they were OK, but nothing special. I relented when I couldn't get decent color rendition from my Canon i9900. The solution was a move back to Epson, a move I have never regretted. Not a single clogged nozzle since 2008 with an R2880, and my XP-610 all-in-one has performed flawlessly for the last 18 months.

[Andy Burns]

Not sure if it's still true, but with HP the heads were a disposable part of the cartridge, while with Epson the cartridge is just an ink tank (plus revenue protection chip) and the heads are part of the printer.