My LaserJet bit the dust...

[plankspank]

I was using an old HP MV4 Laser Jet for PCB pattern work -specifically PNP blue, now it's junk . Need a recomendation for a (cheap)replacement. How are the new laserjets? (HP P1005, ect..) I remember reading the new one's are not as good??? What are you using??
Thanks,

[tskullt]

Hey Plankspank (er),
  I picked this up:

http://www.buy.com/prod/samsung-ml-2510-laser-printer-25ppm-monochrome-laser-desktop-printer/q/loc/101/202878936.html

  Watch for sales on this, they just had this up with a $50.00 rebate last week.  I picked it up with the rebate about 3 months ago, it works great and I've PNP'd with no problems.
m.

[plankspank]

Thanks, Mike! price looks good....

[ayayay!]

Don't forget to check your dead printer for parts!  There's usually some trimpots in there. 

[tranceracer]

Is your laser printer totally dead?  Does the fuser still work?

Before you throw it out, maybe the broken printer could be modified to be used as just a heat roller to fuse toner and PNP to Cu plates.   

BTW,  Like tskullt said, look out for the sales!  The mini color lasers are coming down in price I just picked up a little Samsung color for less than $150 on sale.  This printer's gotten mixed reviews but it seems to work for me.  I also have a Brother HL-2040 I picked up for $99 about 18mos ago and I've seen this guy go down to $60 on sale.  The only problem with the brother was the prints were a little light on the paper but I was able to darken it up by playing with the printer gama settings in the printer properties section.

[rackham]

I got a HP 4100N for £7 off Evilbay a couple of months ago with a more than 3/4 full toner-thing.

Working beautifully so far. As soon as it doesn't I'll gut it like a fish and buy another using the same method

[tskullt]

good score rackham.
    This is the first laser I bought.  The last inkjet I bought was $70.00.  A cartridge set (color and black) was $65.00.  Unreal.  When I saw a laser for this cheap I jumped at it, it's not color but it is a huge improvement over the inkjet...
m.

[John Lyons]

Hey Plankspank (er),
  I picked this up:

http://www.buy.com/prod/samsung-ml-2510-laser-printer-25ppm-monochrome-laser-desktop-printer/q/loc/101/202878936.html

  Watch for sales on this, they just had this up with a $50.00 rebate last week.  I picked it up with the rebate about 3 months ago, it works great and I've PNP'd with no problems.
m.

+1 on the Samsung ML-2510
I was worried about it working for PCBs but it's fast and prints well for PCB work.

john

[arawn]

i PICKED UP A SAMSUNG clp-300 FOR 249 before Taxes this spring works really well print quality is excellent and to replace all the toners is only about 130 dollars plus they seem to last forever

[Exactopposite]

Hey Plankspank (er),
  I picked this up:

http://www.buy.com/prod/samsung-ml-2510-laser-printer-25ppm-monochrome-laser-desktop-printer/q/loc/101/202878936.html

  Watch for sales on this, they just had this up with a $50.00 rebate last week.  I picked it up with the rebate about 3 months ago, it works great and I've PNP'd with no problems.
m.

+1 on the Samsung ML-2510
I was worried about it working for PCBs but it's fast and prints well for PCB work.

john

I have one too but i haven't done any pcb work on it yet. I had to go with a laser prtinter because my girlfriend prints so much stuff for school.  It works great with linux.

[Minion]

I also have a samsung ML-2010 and it is a good printer for doing Transfers accept that it does have one small problem, it has problems with Thick and thin paper ,at least mine does...Photo Paper has to sometimes be forced through and Magazine paper has to be taped to a piece of Plain paper for the machine to grab it, No problems with PNP but I don"t use PNP much....

On a simular Note I picked up some Kodak Photo paper at a garage sale to try for PCB work and it was surprised as how well it worked....With most Photo papers I have used to Had to soak the Paper and PCB till the Paper disolved so you can remove it but with the Kodak ,It does not soak up water at all and gets very hard and firm after being ironed so you simply grab it by the corner and peel it of like with PNP (accept with more force) and you get a clean transfer without soaking and without Rubbing or paper residue...works great....


Cheers

[Gus]

I have repaired a number of HP laserjets over the years.

Is this the older big square laser jet 4 type? 

The older ones are not hard to fix you can look up the error codes on the web and also look around the HP site for information

What the problem with the printer?

[plankspank]

What the problem with the printer?

Looks like it's not heating up. I get error code 50.

[Gus]

What is the model number? and look on the back at the label do you see a  C followed by 4 numbers and maybe a letter?

Not heating is often a fuser.

Googled HP mv4 error code 50

http://www.advancedlaser.net/errorcode/error_50.htm

[tranceracer]

I used to repair LaserJet II (apple LaserWriters), Laserjet IV so if it's one of these it may be that the heater element is not getting good contact or is bad.  It looks like an oversized halogen bulb inside the fuser..  Relatively easy to get to.  The challenging part is taking the fuser apart to get to the tube w/out scratching the teflon coating.  (How do I know about scratching the teflon coating?  Dont ask...   )

[runmikeyrun]

my dad just got a new HP laser printer and the keypad for dialing for faxes looks like this:

4 5 6
4 5 6
4 5 6

instead of what it should look like:

7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3

they placed the wrong number keys on the keypad haha.

[raycroft]

I bought a year-old laser printer from a Hospice sale (Goodwill type- deal comes around N.C. once a year) for $15.  I couldn't believe they wanted $90+ for the toner, and went on Ebay and found it new-in-box for $33 shipping included.  Not bad!!!

[plankspank]

     Thanks to everyone for their input on this. I just bought the Samsung 2510- and it works great- etched my 1st board yesterday and it came out great- lots of thick toner on my PNP that ironed on well to the copper...
      I junked my old HP- it was a tank (picked it up for free although)... But I did gut it for parts  as someone sugested... found lots of JRC 4558's..