Counting the cost

[Chippygeoff]

For most of us little or no thought is given to the cost of printing off the patterns we use but for people like me who more or less scroll full time some thought has to be given to the best options available. I expect most scrollers use an ink jet printer and only print off one or two patterns a week. For me I may print off 20 patterns a day so the demand on ink is quite high.

With ink jet printers replacing the cartridges with originals can often outweigh the cost of the printer itself. Many will opt for compatible cartridges as the cost is then greatly reduced but usually the quality of the printing takes a plunge, especially if printing off photos or a pattern with several colours, on top of this the cartridges for ink jets don’t seem to last very long before they need replacing again. For me the best option has always been for a laser printer because I am just printing out a series of lines and when used in draft or greyscale mode is very economical.

Back in November my laser printer packed up and with me I cannot afford to be without a printer, not even for a day. Replacing the drum and the toner was quite an expense so it was off to PC World. They had a clearance section and there was a laser printer for £60 instead of £180 so I grabbed it. I was very pleased with it and it did the job.

A few days ago the toner ran out and reading the blurb it highly recommended that the drum be replaced as well as the toner, the cost of these two items was staggering so on the way home from the craft fair I called into PC World, there was only one printer in the clearance section and that was an inkjet so I ended up buying another laser at full price, but even then it was still a lot cheaper than buying a replacement toner and drum. With the new printer the cost of replacing the toner with an original cartridge is very reasonable, I checked this out before I parted with my money so now I have a total of three laser printers. Maybe one day I will find the cost of replacing the toner and drums on the other two has come down in cost and I can have them up and running again as they are perfectly good printers.

 

[boboxsi]

If you print a lot and you just print lines for scroll my be you can buy jet printer with extension unit.
Colours for jet printer is on alibaba for Europ cca 20-50 USD for 250 ml all 4 basic colour

Laser print price is cca 0,08 eur A4 Full colour
Black & White cca 0,01 eur A4 Full colour

 

[jonluv]

I really am a miserable old man--- I hate buying printer cartridges and spend hours on the internet getting the best deal and occasionally get it wrong and buy a pup.

So a few years ago I analysed what my best sellers were and I decided to make as many templates as possible out of 2mm MDF sheet, over a period of years my template stock has developed so I can add names, dates etc and all my toys, segmentation ( intarsia) and free standing jigsaws are drawn on to the wood using templates. In fact this afternoon I have cut 2 Angels using templates that are years old

It is worth a mention I no longer cut fretwork but when I did a template could be used on some pieces

John

 

[ardenwoodcraft]

As per boboxi's post try looking on Ebay for CIS (continuous ink supply) systems.

It's a set of compatible cartridges linked to a set of ink tanks and works on a vacuum system to continuously supply the ink heads. You just fill up the tanks from bottled ink as they get low so no need to buy cartridges and works out very economical if you do a lot of printing. There are systems for most Epson, HP and Canon printers and others as well.

Hope this helps.

 

[Dominik Pierog]

18 GBP

1L Black > 9GBP

I bought 3 x Canon IP1900 for family.