Cant decide if a laser printer is right for me. Please help.

[fish]

bex3,

The Brother 2140 goes on sale at Office Depot for about $60. I purchased the wireless version (2170) for about $100 and have been happy with the results. This printer sits in my family room and is shared by my family for very good B/W document printing. I normally use a Canon MP830 for my reports (with photos) and an i9900 for photo printing.

Hope this helps.

 

[ghwellsjr]

The Brother HL-2140 is on sale from 1/17/2010 through 1/23/2010 for $69.99 at Office Depot and for a penny less at Staples. If you have been saving up your Staples rewards you can get it for free.

Also, don't forget the Staples Double Sided Matte Photo Paper for $1 during the same time interval.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Here's the nozzle check. My apologies for the delay.

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/1953/nozzlecheck.jpg

First you need to make some dye ink cleaning cartridges. Take a set of your empty compatible cartridges, one of each color. Turn them upside down and slowly dribble some Windex into the outlet ports until you start to see the Windex dripping into the space between the sponges and the top (now at the bottom) of the cartridges. Turn them back right side up on a paper towel to absorb any Windex/ink that leaks out. Put these cleaning cartridges in your printer. Leave the working wide BCI-3eBk cartridge in the printer.

Now you are going to start a cycle that you will repeat many times (you do not need to be connected to your computer):

1) Open the printer cover.
2) Remove one of your thin cleaning cartridges that has an empty reservoir.
3) Close the cover and reopen it.
4) Replace the cartridge.
5) Using a syringe/needle or an eye dropper or a pinched straw, put some Windex on the square pad off to the right where the print head parks.
6) Close the cover.
7) Print a nozzle check by holding in the top button on the front of the printer until it flashes twice and then release it.

Do this at least ten times and see if there is any improvement with each iteration. As long as you see improvement, continue to repeat all the steps. Don't skip any.

If, after many cycles, you don't see success or any improvement, stop at step 6, (don't do a nozzle check), wait until the noise stops and unplug the printer. Leave it this way for several hours or overnight until you are ready to continue.

When you are ready to continue, plug in the printer, turn it on and refill the cleaning cartridges with more Windex and then continue the steps. After you have refilled a cartridge more than once with Windex, test it to make sure there is still some ink in it by blotting the outlet port with a paper towel and making sure that it makes a visible stain. If it doesn't, put the cartridge in your stack to be recycled at Staples and make another empty cartridge into a cleaning cartridge.

 

[fish]

The Brother HL-2140 is on sale from 1/17/2010 through 1/23/2010 for $69.99 at Office Depot and for a penny less at Staples. If you have been saving up your Staples rewards you can get it for free.

Also, don't forget the Staples Double Sided Matte Photo Paper for $1 during the same time interval.

Wish we had Staples (and Fry's) in Hawaii.

 

[bex3]

I will probably buy Brother HL-2140 from Staples, but before I do, I'd like to know if the starter cartridge can be refilled with 3rd party toner.... does anyone know?

 

[fish]

Yes it can. But you also need to purchase the flag gear for the starter cartridge. I purchased replacement toner and gear from:

http://www.inkfilling.com/

 

[bex3]

ghwellsjr, I did what you said, and there is some improvement in the nozzle check. All colors print accurately but they look somewhat faded.

The problem that is very apparent is when printing the nozzle check, the letters 6C, 6C, 6M, 6M, 6Y, and 6BK print out BROWNISH RED instead of black like they are supposed to be. The black bars on the sides are indeed black though for 6BK. For 6C the small bars on the sides of the letters print out brownish red as well! Although the long bar is blue like it's supposed to be. I printed out a few sample images... In one image the printer couldn't accurately reproduce green trees in the background making them light brownish with just a bit of green. Basically summer trees looked like trees in the fall. I printed out an image with lilly leaves in the pond which are supposed to be very green. They printed out quite green this time, but with too much yellow.

I spent a whole day with this printer and my patience has now completely ran out. If it was more cost effective for me to "fix" this printer as opposed to buying a new one, it'd be one thing, but it's much cheaper for me to get a new printer, both money and especially time wise. All of a sudden all that "sentimental value" is down the drain.

If anyone wants to buy this printer from me, I'll gladly ship it for the cost of shipping + $20 if that sounds fair. (Printer is loaded with a new set of 3rd party carts from Megatoners.com. Carts are a little drained because I ran a few cleaning cycles)
If whoever buys it cant get it to work well, I will refund the $20 in full through paypal. My heatware/ebay feedback is available upon request. Local pickup is available in New York City.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I'm going to guess that you have an electrical problem with the print head. It is very difficult to tell with the normal nozzle check. Can you do the extended nozzle check as outlined in this post? In these directions, follow steps 1 through 4 and then hit the resume button once followed by the power button once.

It would be best to do the extended nozzle check on photo paper and examine it under a magnifying glass. You will be able to see clearly if there are any missing nozzles. I'm predicting that you will be missing half of one or more colors.

 

[bex3]

I followed the directions exactly, yet the printer simply turns off when following these steps.