HP Printers are no good with me

[SimpleSi]

I officially giving up on HP business inkjets

I have been a champion of these in the past and have stuck with them since the 2200 though thick and thin but they have too many faults to carry on.

Although it hurts me to put in "low cost" colour lasers, I don't have the time anymore to nurse the HPs - I'm currently looking after 1000s K5400 and Officejet 8000's and they all have issues (in case of 1000 its that they don't have network and that I have to site them phsyically at servers - part from that they are OK

K5400s are bad and the Officejet 8000's are complete and utter %^&*(((*&^^%^%

Unless you want to play the" how far can you get a piece of paper to shoot across the room" - they are very good at that!

regards
Simon

[localzuk]

The only issues I've had with the K5400's and 8000 series is the PDF printing issue, a few publisher printing issues and that's about it. What issues have you been having?

[laserblazer]

I agree. Up to the 990 series that took 45 and 78 cartridges, they were great but since then...

[stevenwba]

we have some 1200 which have been good, but i have K5400 and K550 which always seem to give me problems, one of the K5400 has completely died, which im thinking it has something to do with the rollers, as paper kept jamming more and more often, and now it wont pick up paper at all

Personally i would opt for set printing points and have lasers, rather then giving everyone an inkjet, too much time taken up and too much cost involved!

[dhicks]

we have some 1200 which have been good

We're still buying 1100s off eBay. They are reliable, you can add network capability for £20 or so extra, if a print head blocks up you can simply replace it, with separate colour ink cartridges they are reasonably priced to run, you can make them into CIS devices if you want and print quality on photo paper is okay, too. I have a k8600 which is okay but fiddly to change paper sizes on. From the sounds of things I think we'll stick with our second-hand approach to printer acquisition.

Edit: Sorry, that's 1100s we're buying off eBay, not 1200s. The 1100 takes a slot-in HP JetDirect card that you can generally get for £10-£20 off eBay, the 1200 either comes with network facilities built in or it doesn't. The older machine is, ironically, better desgined from the end-user's point of view. Print quality seems the same (they take the same Number 11 print cartridges and heads, after all). There's plenty of multi-sheet feeder trays available on eBay for the 1100, too, and all the 1100s we have seem to be duplex capable. The 1200 does look a bit snazzier, being a nice, glossy white - some of the 1100s have a rather faded 60s-bakalite-after-6-weeks-in-sunshine feel to them, but otherwise the 1100 is the better machine.

--
David Hicks

[webman]

Inkjets = rubbish, lasers = much better.

We have HP colour lasers all over the school and never had a problem. Our oldest at 7 years has only just developed a fault.

[tmcd35]

Inkjets = rubbish, lasers = much better.

Unless your textiles dept want to print T-Shirt transfers

They have a colour laser at the moment and we're fed up trying to source laser compatible transfer paper. I've just got them a Epson Stylus Office B40W to try out. Haven't been too impressed with HP myself for some time.

[dhicks]

Inkjets = rubbish, lasers = much better.

Now all we have to do is convince users of that...

--
David Hicks

[TheLibrarian]

Avoid the "Host Based" printers if you are going to set the print queues on servers.

Once you figure that out HP laser printers are still good.

[stevenwba]

Inkjets = rubbish, lasers = much better.

We have HP colour lasers all over the school and never had a problem. Our oldest at 7 years has only just developed a fault.

we would all love to replace all inkjets with laser, but cost wise its still out of the question, nice to see some colour lasers dipping below £100 but even still, the quality of those are questionable.

Been looking at replacing inkjet at home for laser too, but just dont drink enough to make it worth while, which i think is the same reason some of our teachers still just have an inkjet too!

[SimpleSi]

The only issues I've had with the K5400's and 8000 series is the PDF printing issue, a few publisher printing issues and that's about it. What issues have you been having?

K5400s
2 are dead - One leaked ink and I gave up trying to clean it - the other one died last week - says paper jam but I can't find it - Don't have time anymore to spend a week dismantling it
You can't even remove the paper tray without a tool!!!!


Officejet 8000s
I cannot network them - I mean I can't set one up on a server and then share it out. Basically, the client machines will not pick up any default settings (such as using A4 paper!) and to say its tricky and time consuming to go around each machine and configure the print settings is the same as saying we've had a little bit of snow last week!

I ended up making up scripts to install it as a direct network printer and then overwriting registry settings !!!!

And it has a lovely little feature of turning off all the lights (to save electricty) so when it runs out of ink - no-one knows!!!!!!
$%^*&*()&**(&^*^*))_(+)_*)

I wish my schools were private and able to buy off ebay

regards
Simon

[contink]

I was looking at the 8000's today as I hit a problem with the Auto Reset Chips for my K5400's (and compatibles) and was wondering if it was worth sourcing the 8000 ARC's as well... Your post and quite a few others like it makes me think that HP have lost he plot with their Officejet line.

Epsons B300N and B500DN lines aren't all that great either with various issues reported, not least the bit where the B300N has been deliberately blocked from using the highest capacity cartridge for black. Epson need to be shot for that little marketing ploy!

If you ever want to shoot one of those 8000's over my way so I can figure out what might be going on and/or some additional work-arounds I'm game but if you've had no luck I doubt I'd come up with more than you have.

As for the paper jam K5400... chances are that that's simply a buggered feed wheel while the ink leak printer has probably had a fubar'd tubing clamp give or the printhead failed... Once that happens it's a complete b****d to clean up as you found.

Not much help I know but in many ways I feel your pain...