Linux friendly continuous ink supply system.

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 08:11:54PM -0400, Alex Volkov wrote:
> I'm thinking of getting one of this system, I have considered colour
> laser printer,  but I do need higher resolution graphics without
> breaking the bank. So I have a couple of question -- Is there an
> Linux-friendly inkjet printer that would work nicely with a
> continuous ink supply system and have anyone ever used it? Or should
> i just shut up and get a Phaser?

I am going to assume that by phaser you mean the solid wax printer,
not one of the laser printers that xerox also uses the phaser name on.

The solid wax phasers do have very pretty output.  They can be very
cheap to run, if you use them the way they are intended to be used.
Otherwise they can be extremely expensive to run.

You have to print a lot.  30000+ pages a month.

You have to have reliable power.  A power failure costs you about $5
in wax.  A large UPS is not a bad idea if your power isn't reliable.

Don't turn it off.  If you turn it off, there goes $5 in wax again.
It's standby mode keeps the wax in the head just hot enough to not need
flushing.  Unless your voltage is a bit lower than nominal, in which
case it sometimes needs to flush anyhow, in which case there goes $5 of
wax again.

You have to accept that the printout can be scrathed off the paper in
many cases.  It is wax after all.  The printing sitting on top of the
paper is a really pretty look, but it's not as robust as laser printing,
and to some extent not even inkjet I guess.

I have dealt with one of these a few years ago, and it was painful to see
how much wax it wasted because of power issues and not being used enough.
Xerox did update the specs to put a minimum usage in on newer models,
and it was very much needed.

As for continuous ink, there are companies that build those for lots
of inkjet printers many of which work with linux.  I have an epson R260
printer that works great with linux, and I see that getting a continuous
feed for it is not difficult.  I don't print very much though so no
point getting one of those for me.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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