Tektronix
I'm being given --GIVEN, mind you -- a Xerox Tektronix color laser printer with only about half its "ink" (wax, actually) used up. It needs a minor tweak to the little light thingie in the feed mechanism, but other than that, all I have to do is get a coupla friends to pick the thing up for me and find a spot for it in my studio. Am I asking for trouble with this thing? Will I regret taking it? Or is this karmic payback for the nicest thing I ever did for someone? Advice?
Mara
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and when the wax is done
can you like get MORE wax? :)
"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda
Yep.
Xerox sells the whole package for $200 or so. You can shop around for better deals. One load does about 7,000 copies, so I should be okay for quite a while. I would only use the printer for my own projects, not to do color printouts for walk-ins, a la Kinkos.
Mara
The refills look
The refills look EXPENSIVE:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3442318&Sku=R122-4108&SRCCODE=GOOGLEBASE&cm_mmc_o=TBBTkwCjCVyBpAgf%20mwzygtCjCVRqCjCVRq
Dye-sublimation printers like this one are good for "proofing" but not for mockups. Make sure it serves your purposes before you shell out for more ink down the road.
Dye Sublimation Printer (Wikipedia)
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Powerpoint is not a design application
don't think this is a dyesub
don't think this is a dyesub printer. it's a wax thermal printer. pretty much an "office color" printer.
Isn't it the same
Isn't it the same process?
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Powerpoint is not a design application
i don't think so, but i
i don't think so, but i could be wrong.
as you mentioned, dyesub printers were considered the high-end proofing printers back in the day (8-10 years ago) before high end inkjets got the quality/price ratio much better. the wax thermal printers sold by tektronix (then xerox after they bought them) were a much lower-end printers that did "business-quality" graphic printing and they were heavily marketed to businesses as workgroup color printers (when i worked for price waterhouse, we bought them for the consultants to use to print out powerpoint files in color).
it's possible the process itself is similar, but the dyesub printers i used back then generally worked on transfer rolls (very expensive) and these wax thermal printers melt wax blocks and squirt the wax through nozzles, IIRC. the cost per page is significantly less than dyesub (as is the quality).
Which printer are you
Which printer are you getting?
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Powerpoint is not a design application
Which one am I getting?
Don't know for sure. It's one of those "for free, don't ask" things. It is the thermal wax type of printer. It's terribly heavy, according to the people who are giving it to me, if that's any indication of the model. I think it's like the one my old service bureau used for when I needed large-format proofs that I couldn't produce myself. (Remember Visual Systems in Alexandria, gwells?) They were selling it for about $4500 when they finally went out of business a few years ago. (Or was it $2500? I forget.) It made awfully nice copies, IIRC. Not Iris quality or anything like that, but way better than the crappy Epson Photo 2200 I shelled out too much money for a couple of years ago and that never gave me a decent printout despite all its supposedly wonderful features, which included printing any length of 24"-wide rolled paper. Phooey! I thought this Tektronix does sheet feeding, up to 11x17. Not sure. The owners are out of town until the first week in August. Sounds like I need a lot more answers from them before I commit. Meanwhile, I welcome advice/insights.
Mara
i remember visual systems,
i remember visual systems, but never used them. did they go out of business or get bought out?
if it's one of those, it sounds like it may be like the old behemoth we had in the design dept at PW before we got our first color copier (think early 90s). loud, slow, and probably not worth your time. but it's hard to give too much advice w/o knowing which model. if it's too old of a model, it's probably not worth the hassle.
Three votes against buying
Three votes against buying it:
1. You don't need it.
2. It's going to be more expensive to run it than you're actually paying for it
3. You're not using it to make money so it won't pay for itself.
Seems like enough reasons not to do it IMO. :)
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Powerpoint is not a design application
Well...
I'm not buying it. It's a gift. I'll probably be retired before I use up the "ink" that's in it now so I'll probably never need to deal with the replacement cost. I have the space for it. I work alone and won't use it that often, so noise isn't a serious issue -- my ancient heating and air conditioning system's fan will probably drown it out. It might, however, in efficiently eat up a lot of electricity. That could be a problem.
I will find out exactly what model it is before committing to it.
Thanks, everyone. You've given me food for thought.
Mara
Switch it off when. . .
. . . not in use! Lol But I figured you knew that already!
:)
"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda
Understood.
Understood that you're not buying it; sorry. :)
I think you're underestimating the ink usage. They BURN through the stuff. Had a phaser printer in the 90s and it was a hog.
So, we still haven't heard WHY you want this printer beyond it being free?
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Powerpoint is not a design application
I need a reliabale color printer...
...and can't afford to buy a good one. I bought an Epson 2200 Photo printer a while ago and it's been a huge disappointment. It's too late to get Epson to swap it out for something that actually works. Meanwhile, to "make do," I run my jobs over to my local Staples for color printouts. It's a pain.
Supposedly, this printer (yes, it would be one of the Phasers) prints up to 7,000 copies on one "ink" load, or whatever they call the all-in-one wax thing. The person giving me the printer says it's half used up on about 3,000 copies, so it's running true to form.
Sure, I can turn the thing off and on when needed. I do that with most of my peripherals anyway.
Mara
You can get a good hp
You can get a good hp printer for $200. Save up your profits from your biz and write it off. :)
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Powerpoint is not a design application
My humble opinion is to pass
My humble opinion is to pass on the offer. It is outdated technology that will either break down or cost you an arm and a leg to run. And you only have one arm to give right now. It will turn into a massive paperweight and a blight on your studio, and then you will need five people to help you haul it to the dump.
Just an opinion based on past experience...
AMEN to mbennett2. Been
AMEN to mbennett2. Been there, done that, lasered the T-shirt.
And personal colour printers that do a not so bad job are so cost-effective nowadays.
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
— Frank Zappa
The cheapie HP printers
The cheapie HP printers can't handle large format output, which is 90% of what I do. (I want to be able to offer color proofs of 11x17 jobs that bleed, so 12x18 or larger capacity is key. That's why I got the Epson 2200 Photo --- not laser, but pretty expensive and supposedly capable of near-laser quality, good enough for draft proofs. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a horrible lemon.
I'm hearing ya'll about the old technology issue, though. And gwells, pretty funny about the "only one arm to spare" line -- I enjoyed that.
Cast comes off next Wednesday, supposedly. Can't wait!
Bottom line, I'm going to ask more questions about this printer and see/hear it in action before I say yay or nay to it. Sounds like I'll be saying nay.
Mara