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Printers

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Rye1

Rye1

Civil/Environmental
Jul 11, 2007
108
I apologize in advance for being kind of off topic – there is a printers/plotters discussion in another forum but the posts are old.

I have opened my shop, part-time, doing general civil, hydrology and hydraulics, engineering. I need a printer. I bought a used Xerox phaser 790 from a graphics company that had recently upgraded (craig’s list)…the printer has some issues and will not work, the seller gave me my money back this morning.

All that said, I would like to know what kind of printers other small firms are using and would recommend. I will be printing general documents, color letterhead, marketing stuff, and 11x17 aerial photographs.

Just curious to see what others are using. Does anyone have a printer that they would recommend to others?

Rye
 
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There are very few 11 x 17 color printers out there. We use the HP. But we also have a color laser for documents-it's much faster and cartridge cost is less per page. And we can print double sided. We only use the HP for drawings. We do not need to print larger than 11 x 17.
Try photo shops-they have some large format printers.
 
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I use an HP Deskjet 9800 that's about a year old and it does up to 11 X 17 and color. Cost was under $300.00 at thetime from a local office chain store. There is probably a newer model out there though. You know HP. My brother-in-law worked for them for years. Good hunting.

Mike McCann
McCann Engineering
 
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For 8.5" x 11" color prints, we use HP desktop printers. For B&W piinting, we have a Canon Image RUNNER 2870. It prints up to 11" x17", colates, , numbers the pages, can scan to PDF, and can fax and e-mail. We like it very much. For plots, we have an HP DesignJet 500 color plotter and a B&W Ricoh 2400WD. Since we got the Ricoh, we have hardly used the HP. The Ricoh is roll-fed (as is the HP), can make colated sets of plans, and can scan large documents. We rarely have to run to the local printer anymore. One thing I do not like about the Ricoh is the software that runs the printing. Also, it needs a dedicated PC.
 
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I got a new Xerox Workcenter C2424, it was a bit pricey, but 40,000 pages later it is still trouble free. I do a lot of color and a lot of duplex, use it as a copier and scanner. Great printer for a small office.

For bigger stuff I bought a Canon ImagePROGRAF 5000. It will print up to 17X24 cut sheet and 17"X100' off the roll. I bought it to print photographs and it does that beautifully, but it also does a really fine job on engineering drawings (I've printed several thousand 11X17 drawings, and with high quality paper, imbedded photographs make the drawings really pretty). Again, it was pretty expensive, but I've found it to be darn well worth it.

David
 
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Thanks for the responses. It looks like HP, Cannon, and Xerox are good choices. Dell has not been mentioned or Epson.

I am thinking of going to a two printer system, a good color laser for 8.5x11 general office stuff and then an injet for 11x17s.
 
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