New Laser Printer ?

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SYE

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My old HP Laserjet 4 is getting a bit long in the tooth and requires almost constant attention to make it print anything reliably so I thought I'd invest in a new laser printer.
I need something that will...
  • Has the ability to feed single sheet transparancies and print as black as black can be
  • Has the ability to print a hundred or so pages without me needing to hover over it and collect them
  • Monochrome is fine, I don't really need colour (unless it's cheap enough)
  • Something with a paper feed that will take a whole ream not just a few sheets
  • A4
  • I don't need a network printer and would prefer parallel connection to USB

Anybody got any recommendations ?
 
SYE said:
Probably not but I was kinda hoping to replace like for like as my olp HP is an excellent printer (when it works).
Click to expand...

Surely you have USB?.

My only experience of Laser Printers is a Samsung Colour one we have in the office at work, it's only cheap, but it's colour, a scanner, a copier, a fax machine, and network enabled as well. Nice enough machine, but running costs are pretty high - it eats toner
 
Yep, plenty of USB ports and a USB hub but they're all full, and I guess I'm just a bit old fashioned , parallel port connection is pretty low on my list of priorities, the most important thing is the ability to print good quality transparancies.
 
is it a LJ4 office printer, or a 4M (small home printer)? i have a LJ4+ office printer, and while it's a big old beast, it keeps cranking away with little or no trouble. the reason i'm asking is because if it's one of the office printers like mine, all it probably needs is to install a preventive maintenance kit (new rollers, switch and sensor levers) which is supposed to be done every 250,000 pages, or the fuser kit (all of the above plus a kit of parts to rebuild the fuser) which is supposed to be done every 500,000 pages.
 
It's the smaller 4M.
It had been used in an office and had already had a hard life before I was given it for free 14 years ago, I reckon I've probably had my money's worth out of it.
I've checked the price of refurb kits and I think that I can probably get a new printer for less than it would cost to sort this one out.
 
a 4M isn't an office printer.... see if you can get one of the 4+ or 4SI machines. ..... on second thought, you might find it hard to get anyone with one to part with their workhorse... but, seriously, if you can find a full size LJ4 or LJ5, they will last a very long time, as they are nearly indestructible. the print engines were made by Canon, so you don't have to pay HP's prices for the maintenance or rebuild kits....
 
I tend to judge a printer by its weight. I replaced by LJ4 with an LJ4101mfp. It works just about like the LJ4, but you can still get parts for it. For example, if the little Toshiba 6GB hard drive goes out, you can get a new one form HP for about $900. Such a deal.

I think I would get something else.

John
 
You might look into "upgrading" to a LaserJet 5 or 6 (M/P depending on what you need); I purchased a 6M a long while back (10 years?), then later got the postscript cartridge. Not counting consumables, I've spent about $200.00 total on it. I have a 5MP in my shop that I picked up at Goodwill for $15.00 (only 25,000 page count on it - a baby). I would stay away from color unless you absolutely need it; cartridges, etc for those aren't cheap (and depending on how and when they fail - they can be pretty messy, too - depending on the model, of course). You might also want to rethink that refurb kit. Sure, it might cost more than a new printer, but if it kept your old printer running for another 10+ years, it's probably going to be worth it far more than any "new" printer made today (throwaway pieces of junk, mostly).
 

You make a good point there. It was an excellent printer in it's day and most of models i've been looking at online dont' look anywhere near as solidly built as this one.
I'm still open to suggestions but you may have convinced me.
 
If I were to buy another laser printer for PCB making it would be a true 1200 dpi in both directions. Most of the printers that claim 1200 dpi are faking it.

I ran into problems trying to print fine pitch parts with the HP1020, thinking it was a 100 pin PIC. The spacing between the pins were wrong in on direction, thinking down the page. Not sure as it was a while ago.
 
I never had good results making transperancies for PCB exposure. Until someone here came up with the brilliant idea to make 2 copies and overlay them. It worked, and I felt stupit! E
 
SYE said:
You make a good point there. It was an excellent printer in it's day and most of models i've been looking at online dont' look anywhere near as solidly built as this one.
I'm still open to suggestions but you may have convinced me.
Click to expand...

I've never used this site, but if my LaserJet ever broke down, I would probably try them - I've heard good things about them on other forums in the past:

**broken link removed**
 
I just picked up a Samsung ML-1865W for $49 on sale about a month ago and it works great for making boards.

jer
 

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I still haven't decided what to do yet.
Most of the PCB's I make are very fine pitch double sided SMD (TQFP 64 etc.).
I like the idea of a 1200 x 1200 dpi printer but I'm not sure that it would improve the quality of the printout's I'm already getting with my 600 x 600. Fine traces come out very well whereas large ground plane areas are usually quite faint so I have to sit with a marker pen and a magnifing glass repairing this before exposure. I don't think this is a problem with my printer, more a combination of the film used and laser printers in general.

Has anybody used a 1200 x 1200 dpi printer for PCB's and what kind of result did you get ?
 
Hi Steven,
I hope you dont mind me asking you a few questions, (or anyone else that has some suggestions) since you seem to be making some pretty advanced boards this way. What drafting program are you using ? and what type of transfer paper are you using ? I also have a LJ4 I use for making boards but my drafting software is > 20 years old and DOS based. I was looking for something newer that would print to a LJ4.
Thanks.
 
Last edited:
Many laser printers have difficulty with the ground planes. Eagle allows you to choose a hatch pattern instead of solid.
 
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