OT: Stand-alone printer

I'm involved with the local scout group (I'm a parent of a scout) and we have a need for a stand-alone printer that will work without a computer being connected. The plan is for scout leaders (and anyone else who may need to) to create documents at home/office/wherever, save them to USB flash drive and then bring that to the scout hut to print the documents on said stand-alone printer.

Because it won't have a computer associated with it, it'll need to have some sort of built-in LCD screen so that we can see which documents to print, and we don't forsee needing to print in colour, so a 'black and white' printer will suffice. Ongoing running costs (ink cartridges) will be a consideration as we don't have a great amount of money.

I don't normally like to impose on people and I'm happy to do my own research, but this is urgent and I just don't have the time to spend looking at the moment, so I'm hoping that the collective wisdom of the group will come to my aid on this ocassion ;-)

TIA

Reply to
Dave Smith
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The snag I see is that most cheap printers only accept sD cards and have expensive locked in ink cartridge requirements. They are also rather tetchy about being powered down gracefully or they waste ink.

Something old enough to have had its cartridges cloned and cheap enough to be sacrificial is your best bet. Perhaps something like:

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reads USB and other media. Laser is cheaper long term but costs more initially - with big advantage that wet laser toner stays put.

OK. Look for one that has cloned cartridges with at least 4* rating on Amazon. 3* or less spells pain and suffering. OEM spells $$$. Hardware is cheap they get you on the consumables. Consider refilling them.

Despite only wanting monochrome you are probably best off with an all in one that can do colour, scan and photocopying at the same time. We found that using the village hall PC as a photocopier was an unexpected bonus. Surprising how many people found it handy once it was there.

Reply to
Martin Brown

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> That reads USB and other media. Laser is cheaper long term but costs more

Thanks very much for that info Martin, much appreciated.

Reply to
Dave Smith

Seems to me if funds are tight you'd do better using an old desktop and a cheap laser printer. Basic B&W laser printers can be bought for about 50 quid and the PC should be free.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I was going to suggest the same. You'll have to find a keyboard, monitor and mouse too, of course, but even if you have to buy rather than finding something being given away, the savings you make with a more basic printer should even things out. A basic laptop from somewhere like Morgan's might be a possibility too.

Reply to
Bert Coules

Scrounging kit that is borderline past its use by date capable of XP only and a bit slow. Old redundant netbook and a laser printer.

A SFF desktop is less likely to go walkies than a laptop.

Reply to
Martin Brown

Judging by the local FreeCycle group even a complete older desktop can be hard to shift - laptops of any sort go quickly. Which also probably means a laptop is more likely to be nicked.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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>>> That reads USB and other media. Laser is cheaper long term but costs more

You really need to research the "cost per page" of various printers, and factor in your printing habits; most of the figures quoted as "cost per page" are assuming you're printing a hundred pages at a time when in fact you're losing extra ink every time you turn the thing off and on again - and this doesn't include the initial cost of the printer, the electricity or the paper. If you're only printing a couple of documents, or "photocopying" a single document 20 times, it might be just as cost-effective to use the local library or photocopy shop.

I don't like inkjet printers because of their cost primarily, and because I only used mine for printing the odd letter or photo. I realised that it was cheaper to upload the photos and have them printed off by a company (and far better quality) and if I only used the printer occasionally, I'd have to do a nozzle-clearing test page every time I tried to use it again, either that or the cartridges had gummed up and wouldn't work at all and had to be cleaned and/or replaced.

A random Google shows that you can print a B&W document for 15p at the library, then photocopy it for 10p a sheet. It's usually pretty difficult to find the "true" cost-per-page (in ink) of an inkjet printer on a manufacturer's site, there's a reason for that.

Reply to
Mentalguy2k8

Will they be able to provide print-ready PDF files, or are they going to bring along something done in MS Works 0.7 and expect your equipment to handle it? In which case you'd need a computer and software as most printers that print-from-file have limited file formats supported.

If you have internet access then an email to print service like HP eprint or Printeron might work. Printeron is $10 a year for home use (1000 pages). The business options allow for pay-for-print.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

I've got a B&W laser which cost under 40 quid. Doesn't object to being left unused for months. Produces perfectly acceptable text documents.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I agree in that I use a Dell 1320c and ML2550 laser printer for draft, but I do also have an inkjet printer for A3+. Our VH has a cast off HP Laserjet3 vintage still going strong with dirt cheap toner.

That Dell print engine is good enough for full colour brochures which on the right media are hard to tell from professional offset printing. The tedious bit is folding them up (but you have plenty of scouts).

The materials cost even at full price toner means that you win fairly easily by an order of magnitude even on consumables at full book price.

Eg. Paper £3 / 500 sheets Toner £ 80 x 4 / 2000 sheets @ 5% (500 sheets @ 20%)

Material cost per page is therefore 0.6+0.2 = 0.8p to 1.0+1.0 = 2.0p (these are an upper bound)

Don't let people design artwork with large blocks of solid saturated colour especially not red, green or blue (which hammer two toners/inks).

Shop around and you can usually get the compatible toner for £20 each or maybe even less in sets. Better paper at £5/500 probably worth it.

Things get more expensive if you are busy enough to burn out the print engine but the printers are getting cheaper so fast that it is easier to replace them as they burn out with a new best buy bargain deal!

Laser toner also doesn't dry out, but any printer or electronic kit might not enjoy being kept in a damp scout hut.

Inkjet consumables are more expensive and the heads will gum up if they get left unused for a while and also do not like a dusty environment.

Reply to
Martin Brown

On Tuesday 05 February 2013 10:50 Dave Smith wrote in uk.d-i-y:

I'm happy with my Samsung CLX-4195FW and that will do what you want (in colour, laser).

USB print, copy and WiFi Direct (that would be smartphone -> printer with no WiFi infrastructure).

And yes, it's got a screen.

Can also scan to USB drive.

Reply to
Tim Watts

At somewhere north of 250 quid I'd hope so.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Your first difficulty is what do you mean by "documents"?

Most printers that can handle stuff straight from a media card or USB drive will typically print a number of image file formats, but they are less likely to handle application file formats.

So a collection of jpeg pictures, will pose no problem, but a word document or someone's speadsheet you are not going to be able to print without a computer and the appropriate software to rasterise the file and make it printable.

Reply to
John Rumm

Why not use an old laptop with the printer. It would be much easier. However, I seem to remember that some programmes can 'print to file', producing a file that a printer can use in the absence of the program used to create the file.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

That requires a printer driver for the printer to be used to be installed on each PC generating a file. Not insuperable, but it isn't a "one size fits all" solution. I've also had trouble printing the files in the past, even on the system that generated them.

The easiest and most reliable solution would be to use a very cheap, old PC to drive the printer, with the only program on it being a copy of Adobe Acrobat reader. There are many free virtual printer drivers to produce a .pdf file on just about any OS in common use nowadays. Most office suites have an option to output direct to .pdf as well.

Reply to
John Williamson

+1

My HP Laserjet 5 (about 12 years old?) came from ebay for about £40 delivered about 3 years ago, and I buy replacment cartridges from there

- only original, sealed HP ones, which are obsolete but still readily available, for about £1 to £2 +postage; they last for about 8,000 pages of A4.

As stated, for your intended use it would need a PC too; although free or costing peanuts, that would add a layer of complexity.

Reply to
Lobster

I still have mine, dating from 1995 IIRC. I don't use it much any more, except for long print runs. ISTR paying around £10-15 for toner, but that was some years ago. It's dead cheap to run, AS LONG AS IT IS SWITCHED OFF WHEN NOT IN USE. Standby electricity consumption, especially with an old PC, will be rather high.

Reply to
GB

So not like ARW then? ;-)

Reply to
Part Timer

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