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About time!

HairyMcbiker
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Registered: ‎16-02-2009

About time!

My trusty (rusty?) Canon IP5000 printer decided it was time to die on me (print head blocked and even an overnight soak with IPA didn't clean it), so I was looking for a new printer. (I have had it for a couple of years having gotten it from Freecycle then)

So found an Epson XP-245 on Amazon for £30 bargain as they are £45 on Ebuyer. It EVEN HAS LINUX DRIVERS, specifically mentioning Linux Mint 17/18 on the download page Smiley

Not had an Epson for many years now, so will be interesting to see how it performs. I am by no means a heavy user, probably why my Canon died on me. I tend to use my laser for normal printing and only using the inkjet for any that need colour.

 

So nice to see that printer manufacturers have woken up to the MILLIONS of Linux users out there.

12 REPLIES 12
7up
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Re: About time!

My last experience with epson was a cx3600. Print quality was ok, scan quality was superb but the ink life was awful.

Just turning it on would see around 1/8 of a cartridge being drained. Imagine living in an area with frequent power cuts!

It's irresponsible of these companies to keep doing this to their users. I lived in a place once where we had powercuts almost every two nights. It would cause havoc with the answering machine and VCR.

Anyway back on topic, yes its good to see that device manufacturers are waking up to supporting linux. Years ago I tried SuSE and gave up on it as i couldn't get a basic (and popular) wifi card to work. I thought that was pretty poor so stopped bothering when windows could do it with ease.

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HairyMcbiker
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Re: About time!

I had that with a Brother MFP, every time it was swiched on it did a clean cycle, result drunk the ink quickly.
I've not had an Epson for about 10 years now maybe more.
7up
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Re: About time!

Yeah it's a pretty feeble way of forcing users to cough up cash isn't it. Sadly they all seem to be at it now.

We have a canon printer sat here. Good print and scan quality and the document feeder makes scanning multiple pages a breeze however it also goes through a cleaning cycle every time its powered up. If we lived in a place where we had a power supply that gets chopped briefly every other night then it would be empty within days and that in my view is unacceptable when they could easily put a cleaning solution tank in there that you could top up to save the cartridges.

 

Had a deskjet 720 years ago (HP) and it never went through a cleaning cycle everytime it was turned on. The cartridge would last months at a time and was only about £7 to replace. Mysteriously the print head did not get clogged up either.

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Pete11
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Re: About time!

I used to have the same problem with the early Epson's, although this doesn't seem to be a problem with an Epson I bought recently (3 or 4 months back), it's a XP335 wifi. The inks seem to last as I haven't changed them yet from new and the ink monitor is still showing 2 thirds full on each cartridge. Maybe Epson has got that problem sorted.

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Alex
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Re: About time!

I had two inkjets and two lasers. One colour dot matrix before then in my Amiga days. On my second laser now. I will never buy an inkjet again.

First inkjet was Canon, was alright initially but the constant cleaning annoyed me. The cartridges were seethrough and I could see they would empty when I hadn’t used it.

Well it printed off my disseration but slowly. That was a hairy moment. Head blocked in the end. It was detactable (I know cos you have to take it out of the packing and install it). Asked for a new one. Told it wasn’t treated as a consumable, and they could supply one for £100 even though the printer cost me £200 (this is 1997 prices). That was a quick No from me and got rid of it.

Epson next, that didn’t last too long either.

Went to a colour laser Minolta which as much as I didn’t use it lasted a while. That had to be scrapped when it kept jamming papper and not printing. Scrapped that.

Now on a HP colour laser and it has been fine. Still don’t use it often but when I do it works.

For me it has to be a colour laser with Ethernet and it is fun setting it up with a static IP (outside the DHCP range). Then you can check its web interface for toner status and anything else.

Got it setup on my PC and Mac. As it is postscript based and OSX is UNIX based too I’d be very suprised if someone hasn’t gotten it to work on Linux.
HairyMcbiker
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Re: About time!

I've still got a LJ III that I bought back in late 80's, think it was ~£1700! ;-0
I used an LJ 6 but it had paper feed issues, now I have a small Brother Laser that I got from freecycle - needed a new toner - it had a "new" office supply one fitted and had lines on it. Cost me ~£12 for new toner.several years ago.

I have used inkjets (Canon) to print on DVD's for several years but don't do that anymore and the inkjet is just for printing colour. I have a LARGE Samsung colour laser that I have never used as the toner is too expensive for it. (and a baby one that has issues with the toner drums. not worth repairing)
These days it has to be a) CHEAP and b) with cheap ink/toner to be even thought about by me. This Epson I can get ink for £6 a SET so no bad as long as it doesn't drink them.
gleneagles
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Re: About time!

No need to pay out a lot on printer ink or powder.

I have no problem resetting and refilling inkjet cartridges for my Canon MP 610 which I only use for printing photographs.

No problem in filling and resetting my Brother laser HL3150 printer either.... great printer but useless for printing photos to a good standard. Prints photos to a similar standard that you get in a newspaper.

For anyone interested in refilling and resetting a laser printer would find useful advice at www.urefilltoner.co.uk along with some useful videos

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HairyMcbiker
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Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: About time!

I used to refill my HP's but that was before chipping came in. The hassle of refilling inkjets compared to buying complete cartridges made it uneconomical for me. I used to be able to get 2 complete sets for £8for the old Canon.
Strat
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Re: About time!

Many moons ago I worked in an office.

The office had a laser printer which took a large cartridge of black toner powder.

Also inside the printer was a container where waste toner was collected and stored ready for disposal.

One day a message popped up on the printer screen advising that the waste toner store was full and needed replacing.

A lady in the office offered to do the honours and she took the container out of the printer and outside to the rubbish skip.

What she apparently didn't know was that the container was disposable so she opened the end and proceeded to let the powder escape into the skip.

It was a windy day and she returned to the office covered in black powder from head to foot.

She had to go home for a bath and change of clothes. They gave her the afternoon off.

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Alex
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Re: About time!

Similar thing in my old company,

The PA's ordered the cheap unofficial toners. I believe the suppliers encourage them to as they make more money on them than the official toners.

Sysadmin gets called to a broken printer. Said one of the unofficial toners exploded on him and went everywhere. He moaned that they shouldn't be ordering them and had a nickname for them which I better not go into.

twocvbloke
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Re: About time!

I wouldn't want to refill my printer's toner cartridges, the ones it came with had two that were almost empty, and you could tell they were worn out from just being used, the lines on the colour prints were just awful indicating a problem with the transfer rollers, and of course, when I got some more cartridges (from buying another similar (non-duplex) printer for naff all!) I inspected the duff cartridges, and yep, the transfer rollers were scratched up, meaning refilling was a pointless endeavour without a total rebuild of the cartridge...

 

Besides, I print so infrequently (the reason I bought a laser, they can sit unused for months, but spring into life without so much as a cough, unlike inkjet where you have to change the cartridges every time you use the damned things!!) that the remaining toner in that printer will last for years I'm sure... Smiley

HairyMcbiker
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Re: About time!

OK Printer has finally arrived.

Installed the s/w and wouldn't print. Switched to W7 and installed the s/w (NOT from win update not found there) and it printed/scanned so back to Linux Mint.

Changed the port from <why> (default from Epson installer) to network and it suddenly sprung into life. 

Scanner was something else though. The default app is imagescan, which doesn't detect the scanner. Downloaded iscan  1.04and it worked first time.

So all connected and working fine under Linux Mint 18.3 as a wifi printer/scanner.