I don’t mean one you’ve got laying around somewhere, or one that’s been hooked up but has no ink or just hasn’t been used in ages.
Its use doesn’t have to be too regular, just enough that you know that you could go to it now and print and it would just work. And I decided to separate out those using it because they work at home vs. those who still have a personal use for one.
The reason the question came to me is that I’m having to RMA (return to the manufacturer) a (name-brand) power supply after only a few months, and they tell me to print out a label. And, since we don’t have access to the library’s printers, I don’t really have a good way to do that (without asking around).
Note that I’m not asking you guys (yet)–I’m hoping to get someone who can drop the label by the house.
I do. It needs toner.
It has needed toner for a few years now.
I think I end up printing about 5ish sheets/year these days (when I got it, I printed much, much, much more), but it is hooked up and if I needed to print something right now, I could. And it would tell me that toner is running low.
I’ve owned many printers. At least half a dozen. All inkjet (except for the first, which was a 7-color 9-pin printer). All crap, from the cheapest to the most expensive. Haven’t used one in more than 10 years. The last couple of times I have needed to use one, I hadn’t used one for so long it was completely clogged and I had to buy new ones.
Try taking out the toner cartridge and shaking it. That seems to redistribute the remaining toner so that you may be able to squeeze out a few more pages before you have to replace the cartridge,
Hope you understood and voted “No” as this is exactly the scenario I meant for that. I figure most people bought a printer at some point, and may still have it kicking around, but unusable.
Inkjets are all unusable, IMO. My nice little wifi enabled Samsung three in one laser printer, on the other hand, is freaking awesome and I use it all the time and so does everyone else in the neighborhood. Thing cost me $70, toner is under $25 per cartridge for OEM and it’s quick as can be. I’m still patting myself on the back for finally jettisoning the goddamned POS Canon inkjet that I bought SPECIFICALLY because it could use an outsized black ink cartridge that I never once used for color printing but one day it refused to print a plain black text page because it didn’t have enough YELLOW so I bought the Samsung next day and the Canon is lucky I didn’t take an axe to it. What a pile.
Heck yeah. I have a B&W laser printer which I use often, for printing crossword puzzles, and mailing labels, and various other things. And it’s a scanner, which comes in handy every once in a while.
I have a combination printer/scanner. I use the scanner more often. I use the printer mainly when I have to manually sign and then scan a document. I also print out boarding passes and itineraries as back ups.
I have a black and white laser printer. I use it a few times a month. I used to use it more to print out concert tickets. I last used it to fill out a form that needed to be scanned. I also use the scan function from time to time
Yes, I own an inkjet printer, and it has fresh ink cartridges installed a few months ago. I don’t use it very often, but when I need it, I really need it. Last year I had a fairly complicated personal financial transaction that would not have been possible without being able to scan and print certain documents.
As of Wednesday we have a printer again. It’s been a couple of years since the last one broke but my wife could print stuff at work so it didn’t matter for a while. She’s been working from home except for a couple of days a month since March so we were starting to miss having a printer on hand, but not so much that we actually bought one, she just brought one home from the office.
We just got a new one several months ago. We had one that saw rare use. Then, when coronavirus hit, we needed it occasionally for school and work and random things, but it had sat unused for too long, and also I had trouble making it connect with my work devices in a way that was acceptable for our device policies. So, we got a new one. Like our old one, it’s a 3-in-1. We regularly use it for scanning and printing.
I have an HP all-in-one scanner/printer. We use it fairly frequently – I print out stuff for my RPGs, and my wife uses it for sometimes printing out recipes so she can bring a hard copy with her into the kitchen. It probably gets use once or twice a week.
The software is a little flaky – sometimes my computer loses the ability to print on it in color – but overall, it works pretty well.
Not only do I own a little old HP inkjet (it’s fine, I use it lightly mostly for printing text - I’ll eventually replace it with a laser), but I am seriously considering buying a semi-fancy dedicated photo printer. So far I’m hesitating and can’t quite bring myself to pull the trigger. But I bet I will give in when I finally retire.
The problem is the commitment required. It’s whole 'nother rabbit-hole of hobbyism to fall down into and its not like I really have any real use for prints or that I’m that great of a photographer to begin with. I just want the satisfaction of playing with them . They’re pricey to run, can be finicky to use and require use essentially every week to keep them in working trim. We’ll see, I suppose. I just fear throwing money at a hobby I may tire of.
Same laserjet for about 7 years now, works fine but lately is making a bit more noise when printing so who knows. Either my wife or I use it for probably 3 to 5 pages per week so if it does stop working I will definitely get another.
In the other category, I still have the Epson dot-matrix that was the first printer I owned and half a box of perforated fan-fold paper, although I’m not sure why…
. They’re pricey to run, can be finicky to use and require use essentially every week to keep them in working trim. We’ll see, I suppose. I just fear throwing money at a hobby I may tire of.