Xerox "wax ink cartridge" printer

[HMCTech]

We had a look at a Xerox Phaser 8400N yesterday and we are thinking abour buying a few. Does anyone have any experiance with running costs compared to standard ink based printers?

[FN-GM]

Well i know you can't laminate the print outs (wax melts again) but the quality is excellent.

[ChrisH]

They produce nice glossy printouts but it can scratch. I have just replaced two 8400 and I would say there running cost is the same as a normal laser. Print speed is excellent. Edited November 24, 2008 by ChrisH

[jamesb]

I remember the running costs as being a bit cheaper, and disposal of used toner is much, much easier (involves chucking a small bit of wax in the bin rather than sending off a load of toxic cartridges).

 

You can actually laminate the printouts, if you don't mind everything having a green tint after it goes through the laminator, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[john]

I like the look of them from the concept, but a -ive for teaching staff is the no hot laminating, you need cold laminators for it which will be fine though.

[Theblacksheep]

They are the only colour printers in our school outside the art depts. We must have nearly 20.

 

Can't really go through a laminator and they can be scratched, but pretty good solid printers and cheaper to run.

 

They can take uptio 15 mins to warm up, but these can also be set to warm up for a set time so first prints dont take ages, not that i've set that up for all of them yet.

[ChrisH]

Our 8400s were quite intelligent and learned a pattern of usage and woke up for when they were usually needed. The only thing about these printers is you cant turn them off without losing some wax. It keeps some ready all the time to print and if you turn them off, it dumps it to the waste tray. Edited November 24, 2008 by ChrisH

[dhicks]

We had a look at a Xerox Phaser 8400N yesterday and we are thinking abour buying a few. Does anyone have any experiance with running costs compared to standard ink based printers?

 

This month's PC Pro has a whole supplement on printers, with the Xerox solid wax ones featured prominently. I think running costs are quoted as something like 2p per colour page, but that figure is perhaps to be taken with a pinch of salt. We have one Xerox Phaser machine, I don't know its exact age but it must be at least 2 years old. Was working well, but suddenly developed colour problems, i.e. the colour on printouts was very off. I seem to remember I tried fixing this by applying a colour profile via the driver on Windows XP but simply got a "could not apply this profile" error of some kind. I'll try again with a shiny new Windows 2008 print server.

 

If the printer's nozzles clog you get a banding effect on the printout, missing lines on the paper. It seems that you can't un-clog nozzles, although there are several hundred of them so you specify replacements instead.

 

--

David Hicks

[contink]

This month's PC Pro has a whole supplement on printers

That piece of junk is a case in point of corporate sponsored propoganda so take it with a huge piece of salt (like the dead sea for example!)

 

I got PCPro yesterday and nearly ended up spitting out my dummy at the level of hypocracy and glossing over that went on in it.

 

That said the Xerox wax printers are supposed to be quite good and cost effective but there's some questions as to the longevity side of things.. I'd be interested to see if the "ink" gets brittle and flakes off over time for example. Most of the issues won't affect a short term school environment but I'd go with mono laser for important docs that need storage just to be on the safe side.

[Zimmer]

We have a couple of the Phaser printers here, the running costs are lower compared to Inkjet printers. The cost of the Phasers versus the Xerox colour copiers is almost the same to be honest.

 

However the quality of the prints is far better on the Phasers.

[Sirbendy]

We've had an 8400 waxjet in this office for..nearly 3, maybe 4 years now..lovely unit.

 

Ours has learned it's usage patterns, and we always cold laminate any prints from it. No probs jet.

 

It can be a bit offputting when you're sat in the office on your own and it starts whirring, clunking and boinging behind you as it cleans itself.

[Daleus]

At our primary we have a 8400N, an Epson Aculaser C1100 and a lexmark (bumf that was free from ijt).

 

The 8400N is actually cheaper to run than the aculaser due to the fact that the fake inks are dead cheap and just as good.

 

The print quality is great.

 

However ours has recently started dropping off the network when a huge wad of data is sent to it, but its old and we're just gonna run it into the ground.

 

 

overall, Fast Speed, Cheap ink, Great quality, and you get to listen to it make the sounds of satan himself as it warms up.

 

cons: Uses ink when you turn it on, uses ink when you turn it off, uses ink when you you walk in the room, uses ink when your curser goes within 50px of the print button, uses ink when you change paper, uses ink if its too warm, uses ink if its too cold, fills the 'ink tray' with ink for the fun.

 

Also, I don't think its *ever* jammed.

[jsnetman]

We used to have a few xerox phasers, nice printers when they work but they are just so complicated inside and very expensive to repair. Took one apart once it was like a car engine inside and could not get it back together again. For me wax printers are just not reliable enough and break down too often.

[HMCTech]

I decided to order two to test the water. Will be put into a geography and a maths classroom so we will see how they do.

[contink]

I decided to order two to test the water. Will be put into a geography and a maths classroom so we will see how they do.

 

If possible I'd be interested to get some real world data on how well they work and the actual consumables cost vs' marketing on these printers. Plus any other intel' you generate... Always worth knowing how the market stacks up.

 

Cheers.