Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs
Subject: laser printer reliability
Message-ID: <11649@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 24 May 88 16:50:31 GMT
References: <17394@cornell.UUCP> <314@elan.UUCP> <2524@kitty.UUCP> <568@hscfvax.harvard.edu>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 32

>In article <2524@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
>>	A $ 1,650 laser printer is simply not that rugged or reliable.
>>Period.  You get what you pay for.

In article <568@hscfvax.harvard.edu> pavlov@hscfvax.harvard.edu (G.Pavlov)
answers:
>I dunno about that.

Larry is mostly right; just change the last statement to: `You get no
more than you pay for.'

>We have been running a LaserJet II pretty hard ....  It has held up
>just fine ....

I am not sure what engine the LJII uses; the LJ I uses the old Canon
write-black engine that is also used in the Imagen 8/300 and a number
of others.  The Canon engine has a brass gear which, after a few
hundred thousand pages, becomes a pile of brass filings.  100000 pages
is not very many: to me, `medium volume' means around 10000 pages a
week.  At that rate the Canon printers need service every two or
three months, and are on their last legs before a year is out.

Most people using LaserJets, LaserWriters, and other low-cost engines
are doing what copy shops would call `extremely low volume' copying.
The phrase `high volume' (or `pretty hard', as above) means different
things to different people; I would advise you to use real page
estimates (how many thousand pages per day, or per week, or whatever).

(As a home printer, an LJ or LW is wonderful, of course.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris