Printer

Thanks for info - will do some more research... :)

We have 2 Epson tank ink jet printers/scanners(ET2650-WIFI). One in the sticks & bricks and one in the MH. The tank system makes ink replacement cheap.
When not used for a couple of months, I have to run the head cleaning routine 5 times to get every thing back to normal. The all is good.

Richard

Monkey,
Part of the problem is that you were never clear about what you needed/wanted to do and what you could count on for resources.
As a starting point, my now recreational coach started out as my mobile office/meeting room/tool crib and occasional restaurant and motel...
I had the color laser at that time and carried a separate scanner. Then came the problem. That printer would eat my inverter for a snack... Plus, it was heavy as hell. The weight damaged the dinette table. I have had that wonderful color laser for near 20 years, but it has developed a "rod knock" and the people tell me that parts are scarce.
When I found how impractical it was as a mobile printer, I bought an inkjet with scanner. This will run on the inverter. I think I could run it on flashlight batteries. Yes, it is a little expensive to run, but I always buy OE cartridges. The cartridges are the kind that include the print head. At first I did not like this because of the cost, but the advantage is that when you change out the two cartridges (one color and one black) you have a nearly new printer. That printer is about a year younger than the laser mentioned above and has had a hard life. It is still with me and now it is in the house until I figure out what to do with the 85# laser.
I never liked having to fire up the generator to print a quote for a client. This was back when a 1.5KVA inverter was expensive and LiFePo was for NASA.
Matt_C

We've always used ink jet, but it seems with reviews, ink jet now has lots of issues with clogging and paper-jambing as the most complaints. The last two we had - HP and Epson - have same issues.

Most of you recommended laser, so will take a look at a few of those. Laser has been expensive in the past, but it appears mainstream has begun using them more, thus price has gone down. Will look at the Brother as it has good reviews.

I have a Canon Pro printer for photos, so photos is not an issue, which seems to be the main print quality issue between laser and ink jet.

Thanks again for all your comments. M44

I have not found the moderate priced printers (say $200-300 or so) to be any more reliable or long-lived than the cheapies ($50 or less) at Wally's.

RLS7201 wrote:
We have 2 Epson tank ink jet printers/scanners(ET2650-WIFI). One in the sticks & bricks and one in the MH. The tank system makes ink replacement cheap.
When not used for a couple of months, I have to run the head cleaning routine 5 times to get every thing back to normal. The all is good.

Richard

We have a Brother laser printer and a little over a year ago bought an Epson tank inkjet ET3830 and since getting it we almost never use the laser printer. Epson says print a page a week to keep the ink "flowing", and we have not had any issues at all. It is much better than the old inkjets.

FWIW, I've had Brother laser printers for a couple decades now. Got rid of the 1st one, it still worked fine, but Peggy wanted an all-in-one. So we got a Brother all-in-one laser printer/scanner. We don't print a lot so the toner lasts us for years. I pull the toner cartridge out every once in a while and shake it up. I wouldn't hesitate a nanosecond to buy another Brother if I ever had the need.

Looks like Brother laser printers have plenty of love already but count me in. I bough the first 17 years ago when I retired from Xerox and didn't have free printing anymore. decided I wanted an auto duplex machine with bigger paper tray so sold/gave the first one to a friend that still uses it and its replacement is going strong. I tried cheap generic cartridges but the quality was not as good and didn't last as long so now I only use OEM cartridges. My current one got to the the number of copies it thought I needed to change the drum, did some magic stuff off the internet and it reset the drum to zero copies an is still going strong. I went with separate scanner printer because I wanted a better quality scanner.