So about that failed printer ....

[unixronin]

We could have really fallen on our feet here.

As I previously mentioned, my twelve-year-old LaserJet 4M+ died on Sunday, and we were looking at potentially replacing both it and our balky DeskJet 2500CM with a Color LaserJet 4500DN assembled from eBay.  (Also during the associated discussion, the person we bought the 2500CM from made the offer that, since we'd had so much trouble with the 2500CM, if we ended up with a LaserJet 4500 he'd give us a free set of supplies for it.  I regard this as a pretty creditable effort on his part to make good.)

Anyway, while in the process of looking for the best shipped prices on printer and parts yesterday, I stumbled across one of those occasional deals that makes your jaw drop: a complete Color LaserJet 8550DN (with duplexer and 2,000-sheet bulk feeder), fully tested, serviced and cleaned, in basically showroom condition, guaranteed fully working, including toner and 192MB of RAM (almost the maximum it will hold), for $199 — with no bids, and only a few hours left on the auction — from Computer Liquidators in London, Ontario, who just want it out of their overstocked showroom.¹  (These typically sell for $2000+, refurbished.)  The page count on it is under 57,000 — that's less than a month's worth of its rated duty cycle.  (The 8550DN is rated for 60,000 pages per month.)  It'll print on up to 58lb paper, including glossy papers and vellum, in sizes up to 12"x18.5", and can do CMYK press emulation.

So, after some discussion with cymrullewes, I bit the bullet and bid on it ... and got it for minimum bid.  "But wait!" said the seller.  "Don't pay for it yet.  Our technician just discovered a minor fault in the fuser mechanism, so we're ordering and installing a replacement fuser.  We don't want you to pay for it until the problem's resolved."  Wow.  Talk about going the extra mile.

The only catch is it'll have to be freighted to us from Ontario.  But that's not that far, it's only about 600 miles, and for a deal this good, it's worth the freight charges.

[1]  Fear the might of my run-on-sentence-fu!

Comments

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

Indeed, that deal was literally too good to pass up.

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

Simply: WOW
I used to use a LJ2100TN when I still lived with my parents, but now I use a little dinky LJ1020 - because 98% of the time it's all folded up and in the closet, because I don't need it or have space to keep it out.

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's huge! What's the current draw on that look like?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The spec sheet says 750W printing B/W, 375W printing color, 190W idle, and "less than" 45W in power-save standby. By comparison, the LaserJet 4M+ draws 300W when printing, 80W idle, and about 30W in power-save standby. So it draws significantly more power than the 4M+ when actually printing, but only a few watts more on standby (and, interestingly, only a few watts more when printing color than the 4M+ printing B/W). We'll have to see whether I need to give it its own circuit (I may need to).

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was that latter bit I was wondering about. 750W isn't -quite- a microwave, but it's close.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Jehosephat! I don't contest your right to have a printer like that, but what in god's name do you need it for?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, we don't precisely need that much printer. But when we can get that much printer, that'll do everything we need a printer to do, for less than the cost of repairing the 4M+ (which basically does everything B/W that we need but can't do color) or of building a 4550DN (which would do color, but not large-format color), and would let us eliminate the DeskJet (which has never worked right, and doesn't have good enough color print quality to be much more than a map printer anyway), it's a no-brainer.

We originally bought the DeskJet 2500CM because we thought it would let us print photos, and make saleable-quality prints from my paintings. It turns out to be capable of neither. The 8550 will do both without working up a sweat, and it'll let us add photos into the Caer Llewys Cookbook and print copies for sale.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Also we have a friend in Brighton, MA who has made a living selling neighbourhood newspapers. This printer will print those no problem. So it'll bring in some income there.