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BabyVi ,

My Brother printer was literally a barn find, it's still working too.

BrownianMotion ,
@BrownianMotion@lemmy.world avatar

Tbh, get a Brother printer for any OS. At least they don't buy into the shitfuckery that HP and others do with ink and firmware updates.

I_LOVE_VEKOMA_SLC ,

They are starting to now.

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

I got a Brother Laser Printer from goodwill for dirt cheap that has run great for a long time, havent even put new toner in it yet.

ShankShill ,

I been through about 10 TN-450 cartridges in my Brother printer and can count on one hand how many jams I've had. And I'm pretty sure they were all because my kid would take paper out and leave a page sitting crooked in the tray.

Recently had to replace the drum.

ptz OP , (edited )
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

Ha, nice. My one and only jam was because I completely failed at life trying to load an envelope.

CrayonRosary ,
Hootz ,

Mines just been sitting in my closet hooked up for like 10 years now, she works whenever I need her.

ToyDork ,
@ToyDork@sh.itjust.works avatar

That said, we really need to keep printing paper hard copies of important stuff. Like, why do archival projects not charge non-personal (business & government) users a subscription fee for access and provide free personal use to library card holders?

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

dot matrix printer or nothing at all

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

I can still hear them.

And it was also cool that when it seemed like it was out of ink, you could pop open the cartridge, spray the ribbon with WD-40, and get another 200-300 pages out of it.

fidodo ,
lud ,

Teletype or bust!

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

I remember trying to print HUGE gamefaqs guides on my dot matrix printer back in the day. Thing literally ran for over 24 hours to print some of the larger ones.

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

and printing out the long banners in the banner programs :)

dog_ ,

My brother printer didn't have drivers for arch and it took me days, and the community to help me get it up and running.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

I used mine with the old, reliable "HP LaserJet 4200 PS" driver for the first year or two. I only installed the official drivers because I wanted the duplexing to work. lol

With a laser printer, the HP LJ 4200 driver is pretty much universal (have only seem a very few cases where it didn't work)

ikidd ,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

Put your model # in the search box on the AUR and you'll get the driver every time.

dog_ ,

Didn't work. Searched and searched, but no luck. Anyways, I got it now, so no need.

Feugnis ,
@Feugnis@lemm.ee avatar
HeapOfDogs ,

Legit solid printer. Would highly recommend

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

This post is a reminder that I might have to take another look at used printers for sale, get something that won't suck whenever I need to print RPG character sheets and other stuff for tabletop gaming

Michal ,

It's funny but i did find a brother laser printer in trash. It was working fine so i sold it since i already had a newer model.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

Someone actually commented that in another post the other day (may have even been you lol). I absolutely had that comment in mind when I used it as a caption 😆

doubletwist ,

The only reason I ever got rid of my original brother laser printer is because computers stopped coming with parallel ports, and the adapters I tried all sucked.

2nd Brother laser printer is still going strong after 15yrs.

lemmyvore ,

Heyyy, mine just turned 16. Cheers.

poinck , (edited )
@poinck@lemm.ee avatar

I think mine is at least over 15 (hl2150n released in 2007). It had 4 toner replacements so far. It gets used less and less. It could be that I still did not print a single page in 2024, don't remember.

neurospice ,

Just don't update the printer's firmware! Mine's being going great for years now, but I'm scared that I might accidentally update it and the toner will be labeled unauthorised

FiniteBanjo ,

Canons are probably the best consumer grade, but you'll save money in the long run by just buying an Ink Tank printer instead. Just make sure you do regular maintenance so it doesn't explode ink out the bottom, used to be a big issue in the 90s.

Ajen ,

Are they a good choice if you only need to print a few times a year? I thought laser printers are better for that since there's no ink to dry out.

FiniteBanjo ,

I've never had a cartridge dry out but if you're not printing a variety of things from glossy photographs to courtroom documents then you should probably just get the cheapest per-use option like a brother laser printer, yeah. The canon cleans its own printheads automatically, idk how common that is.

Diplomjodler ,

Ironically, the last time i needed a Windows PC was to set up my Brother laser printer. You needed to do it with some utility that was only available for Windows.

ptz OP ,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

That's weird. I didn't have that issue with mine (though I've seen Canon and HP printers require something like that -- or a smartphone app).

Mine is an old 2013 model with ethernet and wifi. You could find it's DHCP address from the panel and configure everything through its web UI. It even lets you enter the wifi SSID/password on a very tiny, awkward onscreen keyboard lol

Diplomjodler ,

Yes, mine has one of those. I tried to set up the WiFi with that but that just drove me nuts.

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