It happened again. I use my HP Deskjet only rarely, I mean months of disuse, but when I need to print, it’s usually urgent, like taxes are due! It seems that every time I go to use it lately, I have to rinse the cartridges under hot water and wait a day for them to be dry before I can get good printing. The hplip “clean” routine is not adequate.
I’m curious, are laser printers any better when only used rarely? Or do they just get blocked, too?
A niche problem, I know, but if anyone has info, thanks in advance!
I was in the same situation with printing that you are–I rarely need to print, but when I do, I really need to print–and I kept running into the dried up inkjet cartridge problem you describe. So I switched to the least-expensive HP black-and-white laser printer I could find in ~2008. It lasted until 2015, at which point it was still printing fine on the first and only cartridge I ever had for it, to give you an idea of how infrequently I printed, but the scanner broke. I replaced it with another HP black-and-white laser printer, and it has performed fine since then with no blockages. I last used the printer about two weeks ago, and it printed just fine without any drama. I’m still on the cartridge that came with it and never had a blockage.
In my experience, the laser printers are more expensive up front, but since I rarely print, and never have to replace dried-up ink cartridges like I did with an inkjet printer, it has been worth the extra expense to me.
I’ve had a Samsung ML2525W for about a decade, - used occasionally. Absolutely flawless performance. Lasers are amazing! For the cost of a £70 toner cartridge over a decade? Well and truly worth it.
Laser printers don’t have to be expensive. You can get a Brother laser fairly reasonable. I have had one for years and it always prints. I’ve only replaced the toner cartridge once but I don’t print that much. Usually ink cartridges and toner cartridges when new are not the same as a full new cartridge either. They usually only give you about half the ink if that to get you started.
Thanks, everyone. Apparently “there can be only one solution”, but I got something from each of your replies. Great advice!
[Update] Based on this advice, I ordered and installed a Brother DCP-1612W scanner/laser printer. Black and white looks great! Converting color docs to print on it may require some preparation, at least so it seems so far. In case it helps someone else with a Brother printer, the trick is to install all the drivers from AUR, THEN connect and power up the printer. That way it sets itself up! Thanks again, all!