Re: [Leica] re: Printers

["Aram Langhans" <langhans@yakima-wa.com>]

Hey, Ted

I have an HP 970 and at school I have an HP 1220C.  They are outstanding
printers for general work.  We have a mix if Epson and HP printers of many
models at school running on quite a mix of PC and Mac computers  and by far
the most reliable are the HP's.  The Epsons are a pain in the neck.  I
should know as I am the tech specialist for the building so I get all the
maintainance calls. Mostly they suffer from lack of use.  In a school
district we have things called vacations (even though we don't get paid for
them).  If the Epsons sit for two weeks or so (Christmas) or longer (summer)
they have a tendency to clog the print heads.  Usually we waste about half a
cartridge with cleaning cycles to get them going, or have to put in a new
ink cartridge and throw the old one out.  There are a few we have sitting
around that we have never brought back to life.  So, the main tech person
for the district has pretty much said they will never buy another Epson for
school, and she was an Epson fan.  (so was I with my old dot matrix LQ80???
many years ago- a great printer)  The deal with HP is every time you change
the ink cartridge, you also change the print head.  They also do not seem to
have the drying out problem even after a few months of non-use.

Now, that said, for photos the Epson is slightly better off the shelf, if
somewhat slower.  It can be improved with after market inks so it is far
better than HP.  For me, however, who does a lot of document printing with
color diagrams, graphs, etc I will stick with my HP.  The photos are almost
as good as the Epson, but the text and mixed documents are far better.

I have tried a few B&W prints on HP and our Epsons and none of them look too
good.  Hard to get good black.  I know there are other inks that can be used
and I plan on trying some on the Epsons at school next year.  None are
available for HP as far as I know.  Someone posted awhile back that the
black ink for the HP is a pigment based ink rather than dye based, while the
Epson black is not.  I guess that accounts for the excellent text quality
from HP inkjets.

So, if you get an Epson, use it frequently.  Replacing the heads costs more
than a new printer, or at least that is what our district tech person tells
me.

So, there is at lest one HP user on the LUG.

Aram


> - -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Ted Bayer
> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 4:13 PM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica] re: Printers
>
>
>
> Thank you, Carl.
>
> I seem to be getting good input about Epson.  I find this very
> interesting as HP also has a "Name" in printer technology, but I am not
> getting any input about their printers.
>
> Ted in Olalla
>


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