Hey lemmy. I’ve been paying out of pocket to get stickers printed from online printing companies. But its getting expensive and I think I’d like to get a printer to do the job.
HOWEVER, I’ve been avoided getting a printer, because, well, the whole thing is just a shit show. Our household went through like a printer a year for almost four years. Between ink prices, and the printers just failing, we threw our hands up and said fuck it. Not playing this game, so we shifted to printing services or the local library.
So I’m looking for a very basic (I think?) printer. Honestly, a black only printer might even be fine. I’ve heard I think that maybe Canons or Brothers are the ones you want and HP’s are to be avoided. The purpose of the printer will be to print stickers on sticker paper. What printer should I buy?
My brother color laser is decent, but the toner is expensive. So expensive that i buy knockoff toner. Which 95% of the time is solid. Until every once in a while a kid needs something printed that’s a photo. Not sure why, but it is absolute garbage at photos. Like not even close. Streaks and bands of color everywhere. I’m not even trying fancy photo paper, just trying to get details. A caffeinated adhd toddler with fistful of crayons could do better.
But if you want to print a worksheet in color? Does fantastic.
Advantage being you only have to buy one toner cartridge and drum.
Could be this.
Depending on the age, you may need a new drum unit, but I think that may also just be a deficit of laser.
Laser printers are usually lower resolution than ink printers and half toning is usually more difficult for laser printers. However, the results shouldn’t be THAT bad.
Agreed, i’m not expecting good. But I’ve had pictures come out that look like an inkjet with the worst case of dirty print head you’ve ever seen.
I’m not sure which technology Brother uses but it kind of sounds like a damaged OPC to me. The printer might have multiple of them for the different colors. I think in consumer printers the OPC is often replaced together with the toner as a single unit but again, I’m not sure what brother uses.
Yea, someone else mentioned my drum might be dying, which could explain it.
It’s not inkjet but you can get passible color on laser. You need to go into settings and tell it it’s a photo and you want max quality. I have a Brother color laser.
Yep, tried that. Made no difference. Tried linux and windows in case it was a drivers thing. No difference. Though on linux if I use a generic driver instead of the model specific one it’s marginally better and will win against the aforementioned toddler. If it took another similar jump in quality it would be in the realm of what I’d expect to come out of a laser printer for a photo. My google results only showed people complaining on brother’s forum and they responded with “use genuine brother toner”. And someone replied saying that fixed it for them.
Knock off toner can be hit or miss. Even if it sticks to the paper it might not be the best quality.
You could also try adjusting the paper weight settings. The weight settings control fuser heat levels by adjusting the print speed. That can sometimes have an impact on color quality.
I use fake toner in my brother.