Laser Jet Printers vs. Laser vs Inkjet

Dear all:

I have a cheapo lexmark printer that is an inkjet printer. I am
so displeased with the way that the ink dries up after a few months
that I would like to consider other alternatives.

Do LaserJet printers have ink that dries up just like InkJets? I
am not familiar with why thinks are called lasterJet and Inkjet. Not
sure what the difference is btw the two. The bottom line is that I
would like a printer which does not dry up even when there is plenty of
ink left in the cartridges.

Therefore, I guess my question is: Do Laser Jet cartridges dry
up? And if I want to have Cartridges that do not dry up, do I have to
buy a Laser printer or are Laser Jets good enough.

One last question: What about color LaserJet vs. Color Laser?
(ie: same question: do the color ink cartridges dry up?)

thx in advance
signed: FrustratedWith-InkJet.

Saylo1234 wrote:

Therefore, I guess my question is: Do Laser Jet cartridges dry
up? And if I want to have Cartridges that do not dry up, do I have to
buy a Laser printer or are Laser Jets good enough.

One last question: What about color LaserJet vs. Color Laser?
(ie: same question: do the color ink cartridges dry up?)

You're slightly mixed up in your terminology. "LaserJet" is a brand name
of Hewlett-Packard laser printers - HP are generally acknowledged to be
the best (print quality, reliability, networking etc) laser printers on
the market - though they are not the cheapest to buy. They generally
cost about the same to run as other brands.

All laser printers, whether they be HP or other manufacturers' devices
use toner (dry powder) rather than ink and so do not dry up. You can
leave a toner cartridge for years and it'll still work just as well as
the day you bought it. The main thing to think about with laser printers
is that if you leave them for long periods without printing, the roller
systems in the machine can develop a "flat" spot and this can cause a
band across the page.

Hope this helps,

--
Mushroom

Saylo1234 wrote:
Dear all:

I have a cheapo lexmark printer that is an inkjet printer. I am
so displeased with the way that the ink dries up after a few months
that I would like to consider other alternatives.

Do LaserJet printers have ink that dries up just like InkJets? I
am not familiar with why thinks are called lasterJet and Inkjet. Not
sure what the difference is btw the two. The bottom line is that I
would like a printer which does not dry up even when there is plenty
of ink left in the cartridges.

Therefore, I guess my question is: Do Laser Jet cartridges dry
up? And if I want to have Cartridges that do not dry up, do I have to
buy a Laser printer or are Laser Jets good enough.

One last question: What about color LaserJet vs. Color Laser?
(ie: same question: do the color ink cartridges dry up?)

thx in advance
signed: FrustratedWith-InkJet.

LaserJet is a trademark, owned by HP, it is a name - it isn't (TTBOMK) a
type of printing. For some reason HP are obsessed with the word 'jet' all
their brand names contain it - DeskJet, OfficeJet, LaserJet - you can ignore
the 'jet', the first bit of the name tells you what they are - DeskJets are
personal inkjets OfficeJets were (don't think they produce them any longer,
I'm sure Mr Headrick will be along in a moment to tell me I'm talking crap)
office inkjets and guess what LaserJets are...?

When considering lasers (like I'm currently doing) there are two types -
lasers and phasers. The former uses toner and the latter (which are, TTBOMK,
only produced by Xerox) use solid ink (they look a bit like wine gums). I am
currently looking at the Xerox 8400 as it pushes many of my buttons which
currently require pushing (including very cheap running costs).

Toner is a powder so, obviously, it cannot dry up (though, obviously, it
must be kept dry). Solid ink is, well, solid, and I don't believe that dries
up, either.

Just to clarify LaserJets are *NOT* inkjets. It is a brand name, *not* a
machine type.
--
In memory of MS MVP Alex Nichol: http://www.dts-l.org/

In message , Mushroom
writes
Saylo1234 wrote:
Therefore, I guess my question is: Do Laser Jet cartridges dry
up? And if I want to have Cartridges that do not dry up, do I have to
buy a Laser printer or are Laser Jets good enough.
One last question: What about color LaserJet vs. Color Laser?
(ie: same question: do the color ink cartridges dry up?)

You're slightly mixed up in your terminology. "LaserJet" is a brand
name of Hewlett-Packard laser printers - HP are generally acknowledged
to be the best (print quality, reliability, networking etc) laser
printers on the market - though they are not the cheapest to buy. They
generally cost about the same to run as other brands.

All laser printers, whether they be HP or other manufacturers' devices
use toner (dry powder) rather than ink and so do not dry up. You can
leave a toner cartridge for years and it'll still work just as well as
the day you bought it. The main thing to think about with laser
printers is that if you leave them for long periods without printing,
the roller systems in the machine can develop a "flat" spot and this
can cause a band across the page.

The other technology to bung in is LED. I'm sure someone will correct me
but my understanding is that it is essential the same as laser
technology except with an LED light source as opposed to a laser one.
The main people to use it are OKI.

To complicate matters further, lots of the print engines in the lasers
are made by other people, I think the HP ones are generally made by
Canon. You can see this physcially with the low end colour lasers, eg:
the cheap Xerox looks almost identical to the cheap Samsung, and the
same with QMS and Epson.


--
Timothy

I don't think lasers are ideal for photo work (I stand to be
corrected) but they are super for graphics and text.

Reason I chipped in was because, whilst browsing for a replacement
inkjet for Epson C62 I came across Dabbs Computers in Bolton, Lancs
in the UK and they had a Samsung ML1510 mono laser for about £48.00,
this being brand new, it's still going strong after three toner
refill's.

Some lasers allow you to refill the toner, eg. a new toner assembly
for the ML1510 would be around £50 or so, a bottle of toner is only
about £6, I got this so I could make Printed Circuit Boards using
'Toner Transfer Paper' not only does it do a super job it's become a
real work horse, my C62 is just ornament - I know you are after a
colour one, the only fault I found with this was it puts a small
crease in one corner of envelopes (I should know better and use
address lables).

Incidentally this is a LED printer as opposed to the Laser as we know
generally, laser is only polarised light after all.

One thing you need to bear in mind is the amount of heat used to fuse
the plastic (I did say plastic) toner particles to the paper, you
have to be careful on the type of paper/material you use to print on,
pretty sure you can not use the same glossy photo paper you use on
inkjets, some printers contain the drum in the toner assembley making
them expensive, and yet some don't. Hope Im of help.

Davy

wrote:

The other technology to bung in is LED. I'm sure someone will correct me
but my understanding is that it is essential the same as laser
technology except with an LED light source as opposed to a laser one.
The main people to use it are OKI.

You are correct. LED technology uses a series of tiny LED shutters to
expose the drum to light rather than use a semiconducting laser beam.
LED printers are lighter than laser and also smaller. However, they are
more unreliable (mind you, copmpared to HP printers, all other laser
pritner manufacturers are unreliable!) and there is a well known problem
with the most often user shutters wearing out. This is noticable because
the leftmost shutters wear out before the rightmost shutters because in
the western world we write from the left. In Israel, for example, the
shuuter on LED printers wear ouf from the left more quickly.


To complicate matters further, lots of the print engines in the lasers
are made by other people, I think the HP ones are generally made by
Canon. You can see this physcially with the low end colour lasers, eg:
the cheap Xerox looks almost identical to the cheap Samsung, and the
same with QMS and Epson.

Correct. However, the only other manufacturer allowed to use Canon
engines is Canon. They get great engiens but the software (firmware) in
the pritner is not as good as the HP pritners and so you get a better
pritner from HP. Lexmark do have some of their own engines but also use
those from Samsung, Minolta etc. Hitachi also make engines, although the
colour engine division of Hitachi has recently been sold to anotehr
manufacturer (can't remember who).

--
Mushroom