Laser Printer

[laynedaggett]

I pastor small inner city church and need a new printer. I do about 60 legal size bulletins per week and pay $12/week for photocopies.
Any suggestions for a laser printer? Will they print double-sided? How does the cost compare to having print shop photocopy them?

Thanks ... and God Bless

[[Director] Joseph B]

Well, at the price your paying I don't know that you could print them yourself for as cheap as your printer is giving them to you.
The way things work out is this:
Most Expensive to Use+Cheapest to Buy
Ink Jets are most expensive to use, cheapest to purchase.
Lasers come in second, more expensive then ink a little cheaper to use.
Solid Ink Printers are third. About $600 for the cheapest but also the most cost efficent (you can print color with it for the cost of a B&W laser.
Black & White is always cheaper then Color.
Cost wise, I don't think you'll save a lot of money but it'll be a lot easer to do what you want without having to run back and forth to a printer.
Quality wise I like HP printers, I just gave away a nice Konica Magicolor (also very nice). You can get a decent color laser for under $600.00 watch out for those $200 one's though I got one and it wouldn't do cardstock (even though they said it would). I believe it was a samsung.

[Sysmom]

We print full color, full duplex (both sides) legal sized paper every week from our Konica/Minolta Bizhub (It's the middling model) for 8.5 cents per side - plus the paper. (which I buy by the case)

But we also pay around $199/month to lease the machine. It was brand new a couple months ago, and has all the bells and whistles on it, so you can certainly get it less expensive to do the same things.

Get some price quotes from local name-brand equipt. resellers, and talk turkey to them about used machines that come back in from a lease that are a year or two old. You'd be amazed how inexpensive that might be! If anyone in your congregation has an 'in' with one of them, you might be able to get a better price, or, better yet, a donation.

There are also sometimes places that need to bail out of a lease, watch Craig's List or local business classifieds for those.

I'm a huge Konica-Minolta fan because the color imaging is perfect. We don't outsource *anything* anymore. This is the second Konica-Minolta color laser we've had. Thousands of postcards for a mailing? Yup, we do it in-house. 12x18 posters, full color? Yup! Formal invitations on embossed stock? Yep! Oh, yes, it'll even print your weekly Sunday programs

deb

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

you should checkout www.freecolorprinters.com and see if their program would be worthwhile to you.

[shayward]

I did all of the research and factored costs of various all-in-one laser printers before finally deciding on the HP2840 (because of the less-expensive cost).

Let me tell you, this thing is so expensive to run. When they declare X copies at Y% coverage, it seems to be an absolute false-hood. And, from what I understand, most manufacturers are about the same.

Depending on how many copies you're doing, $12/week for your bulletins could be a bargain.

[Sysmom]

Originally Posted by shayward

I did all of the research and factored costs of various all-in-one laser printers before finally deciding on the HP2840 (because of the less-expensive cost).

Let me tell you, this thing is so expensive to run. When they declare X copies at Y% coverage, it seems to be an absolute false-hood. And, from what I understand, most manufacturers are about the same.

Depending on how many copies you're doing, $12/week for your bulletins could be a bargain.

We replaced every desktop printer in the office with our one networked BizHub. Ink and toner was a PAINFUL expense. Between the ink & toner, and what we had to pay to outsource important things ... we were money ahead PLUS could print the bulletins on Sundays in full color. Up to that point, they were B&W. So even with color bulletins, we were still money ahead.

deb

[[Director] Joseph B]

Most (if not all) printers list the cost with 10% page coverage. If you print a photograph your (most likely) at 98-100% coverage. I like the phaser because of the print quality and so far I seem to be spending less on expendables. The drawback - it's a "solid ink" which translates to "wax" so I can't print a bulletin shell for my church to finish on their laser printer or copier. The fuser bar melts the wax. On the plus side, I can print (up to 8.5x14) some of the most beautiful color prints I've ever seen.

[laynedaggett]

That's great ... my first post and I got a some great help.
You're the greatest. I'll keep you "posted"

[ryan hayden]

Try a brother hl-5250 dn. I use it every week to print out about 200 bulletins. It prints double sided, is reliable, and works with your network. I think we pay about $60 a month for toner cartridges, but we probably use it more than you would, so you could expect to pay less. You can pick one up at staples for around $200.

[bggowing]

Before you purchase a laser printer also check to see if the toner cartridge is available from an aftermarket toner refiller. It will save you money over paying the price for a new toner cartridge.

[tedanderson]

Ink Jets are most expensive to use, cheapest to purchase.

Unless you use a continuous ink-feed system. Essentially you use a standard $79 to $99 inkjet printer and then the ink flow system has a series of hoses coming out of the cartridges which are connected to external ink tanks. You buy the ink for pennies on the dollar compared to buying new cartridges and you fill up the tanks every so often depending on the amount of printing that you do.

I do CD duplication and print full-color labels on to printable disks. I typically print about 150 discs at a time without using a significant amount of ink stored in the system. With traditional cartridges I probably would have gone through 2 to 3 sets within a week's time.

Before you purchase a laser printer also check to see if the toner cartridge is available from an aftermarket toner refiller. It will save you money over paying the price for a new toner cartridge.

This is very good too! I have a Minolta 2300 and I found an overseas distributor that sold me the toner (pennies on the dollar) and a set of tools and instructions on how to hack the cartridges. They have a mechanical "counter" that can estimate the amount of toner that is still in the cartridge based on the number of uses and rotations. Sometimes you can manually wind it back and get more life out of an "empty" cartridge. Even though they also sold refillable cartridges, they supplied a free kit to hack the factory cartridges with the purchase of a full set of toner.

[stevegoad]

I use a Brother HL 4040 laser color printer as well... the cartridges are about 60 a piece and get me a good long time in the studio - good quality too. Both in color and black-and-white, the Brother printers seem to be really cost effectient.