Portable Printer

Thunder Mountain wrote:
Over the years I've had really bad luck with ink printers that I use very infrequently in the RV. They clog up from disuse. Last winter I purchased a cheapo toner based printer. Can't remember the brand. It's packed away in the MH awaiting next winter.

X2

ALL inkjet printers suffer from the same lack of use problem, you MUST use them or risk loosing a set of extremely expensive ink cartridges.

Toner based printers do not suffer from this issue, toner will not go bad nor dry out, basically will outlast you, your children, grandchildren and beyond.

However toner based printers do have one quirk.. toner getting anywhere you don't want. Simply put, the bumping and banging around from traveling may cause some toner to spill on some of the internals of the printer. If that happens do not use air, nor standard sweeper to remove unless you want a cloud of black dust all over things. Otherwise a perfect choice for occasional printing.

I bring an Epson Small-In-One and a set of the smallest ink cartridges I can find for it. Not fast and the ink often dries out between trips (often works to just clean and then wrap in plastic), but works "good enough" for printing/copying maps, etc. when using the trailer as a base camp for hiking trips.

Steve

We also have the Canon PIXMA IP-100. It is small and we fit it into a laptop case to protect it while traveling. It must be connected by USB to the computer. It is full color (two cartridge system - black and color) and will print a regular 8.5x11 sheet of paper (or smaller or larger up to legal size). We use it for business while on the road. It can be used for photos also. It has good print quality. It is very rugged and made for travel. This is much better than dealing with an all in one that is much larger and you have to deal with remembering if the scanner head has been locked down for travel.

As to clogged heads. We pull it out every few months and print a test page to keep the ink flowing if we have not used it in that time. Cartridges last us a very long time.

Ok...take all the above suggestions and add that the printer needs to be wirelss to connect to a laptop and android phone...any suggstions there?

I carry a full size "home" printer Pixima IP 4300) I got it because at the time it was the only US home grade printer that could squirt ink onto Ink-Jet CD's other than Epson and I won't buy Epson after my daughter's C-82.

Today there are some others that can do that.

Works great.

M GO BLUE wrote:
Ok...take all the above suggestions and add that the printer needs to be wirelss to connect to a laptop and android phone...any suggstions there?

The HP model listed in my previous post has Bluetooth; many of the home/home office printers may also have Bluetooth, but most of them have Wi-Fi networking.