Re: [PLUG] printing

[Steve Litt <slitt@troubleshooters.com>]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2016 08:16:44 -0400
jeff <jeffv@op.net> wrote:


> I know HP plays nice, driverwise. People have said Brother is good
> too. Can anybody recommend a current AIO that hasn't shot its drive
> belt out the scanner glass?

I've used the Brother MFC-8810dw monochrome Printer/Scanner/Copier for
two or three years now, and before most of my books became eBook-only,
I was printing a lot of books on the thing. Enough that I had to
replace a drum.

As a printer, a modern Linux distro just pretty much interacts with it,
no driver-foo. As a scanner, drivers are available as rpm and deb, but
if you use a non-cookiecutter distro like I do, getting the scanner and
computer interacting is extremely difficult. But you can plug a thumb
drive into the printer itself, scan to the thumb drive, and sneakernet
your image. This isn't appropriate when scanning is part of your
everyday procedures, but for every-once-in-a-while scans it works great.

It's fast: 40ppm for simple documents. I think it's jammed less than 10
times in 3 years, and some of those were bent/curled/iffy paper.
Subjectively, it's quite a bit more reliable than the HP 4050 it
replaced.

PROS:

* Fast
* Linux compatible printing, thumbdrive scanning
* Reliable
* Fairly low per page consumables cost
* Huge 50,000 page per month duty cycle
* Can buy it at Costco (or could earlier)
* Excellent networking capabilities
* Full featured, high quality, no jam duplexing

CONS:
* Scanner drivers iffy
* Supply tray only 250 sheets
* Output tray less than 500 sheets
* Draws a lot of current on motor startup
* Overheats and rests on long print runs (600 pages)
* Paltry 50,000 page per month duty cycle
* Wifi capabilities I don't want

All told, I'm very happy with my Brother MFC-8100dw. If you get one,
you're probably going to want to buy a Uninterruptable Power Supply
(UPS) for all computers on the same wiring run as the printer, if that
wiring run is either long or is wired with 14gauge. When my printer
motor goes on, the lights dim, the fan spins slower,and my computer's
UPS indicates a wall voltage of 108. Which is no problem because of my
UPS.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
September 2016 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
http://www.troubleshooters.com/28


___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug