The printer is broken

[Daskinor]

I am on the phone right now;


"I am having trouble with the printer"

ok what is wrong with it

"It's Broken"

broken how

"Wont print"

Is there printer putting out an error message, is it doing nothing, or are the print job sitting on your computer still.

"I don't know it just wont print"

can you check for me

"why its broken"

allright I will be up in a second




It was out of paper

[EricKei]

Back when I worked for IBM, we had the big HP's that had the huge lower tray that could hold 4 reams of paper at once, if actually filled up. The trays were big enough for 11x17 paper, or 2 complete stacks (8 reams) of 8.5x11 paper...

We had a line of those wonderful monsters (6 or 7 of them) back when I used to work at a print shop...All of them running simultaneously, on one huge job, was a thing of beauty...Provided, of course, that the database was compatible with FoxPro. If it wasn't, we had to do a Mail Merge in Word. One small problem with that: - No functional support (at the time, anyway) for multi-printer jobs, so we had to send out an individual job to each one, which also slowed down our network for some reason...and it was much much slower (picture a machine that could spit out a page every second or so running at one every 5 seconds or so instead -- it was simply criminal)...oh yeah, and if you tried to do runs of more than a few hundred, Word would freeze midstream.

I guess that's more than one. Damn you, Word. >_<

[Krivak]

After reading this thread today, i went to work, was doing ok. Near the end of the night, i needed to print the end of the night documents. After 2 documents, the printer stopped. I realized it, and thought immediately... "Crap, the printer is broken."

Then, i remembered reading this thread, got up and actually looked at the printer, and it said "Out of paper". So i complied and fed it paper. Got done early too

[Captain Trips]

After reading this thread today, i went to work, was doing ok. Near the end of the night, i needed to print the end of the night documents. After 2 documents, the printer stopped. I realized it, and thought immediately... "Crap, the printer is broken."

Then, i remembered reading this thread, got up and actually looked at the printer, and it said "Out of paper". So i complied and fed it paper. Got done early too

Congratulations. You can now get rid of your ID-10-T certificate, you no longer need it!

[underemployeed]

This reminds me of my co-op at a big oil corporation. At our terminals we have impact printers because the Bill Of Lading was a 6part form. Our service department recommended only factory original printer ribbons because they worked better and seemed to cause us less problems. The generic brand has a crappy constructed but cost half as much (and had twice the problems). These managers were so damn cheap they wouldn't listen to me on the phone when I said take the current ribbion out and THROW IT AWAY, not set it down to be used later since it still had ink THROW THE DANM THING AWAY it costs $20.

When a printer would break, we would send a replacement which was usually previously repaired by us, or if they wanted to pay extra %25 brand new. I knew something was up when I got a call I sent a broken printer which after I had them verify the serial # to make sure it wasn't the spare printer which was often also broke at one point so they put it on the shelf in place of the spare and never bothered to send it to us.

Turns out, they took the printer ribbon from the "broken" printer and put it in the new one. At which point, I got ready to send a replacement but they humor me and put a new ribbon in. Didn't call back for months with a printer problem.

Gotta love losing dollars to save pennies. To send a printer it ran like $25 for regular ground with UPS, no idea what next day air with FedEx cost the company, So to save $10 because the ribbon wasn't that old and was the source of the problem, at least $50 was spent on shipping.

end response, start tangent.

People can't do simple math, espeically when it a word problem!

For the electronics lab at my college they kept buying 20 crappy chairs at 50$ each. Which we literally would all have broken within a semester but we will say they last 6 months. because they didn't want to spend $150-200 on the old style chairs we have that actually lasted 2-4 years. So the Cheap chairs really cost them $100 per chair each year. While the other ones ranged between $37-75 PER YEAR but would be more to invest upfront.


Most cost analysis fails to recognize quality.

[earl colby pottinger]

Printer ribbons

Most cost analysis fails to recognize quality.

Or just ask WHY IS IT SO CHEAP?

Saving money is one thing, saving big bucks usually means there is real corner cutting.

I remember selling print ribbons for the Panasonic KX series, buy a Panasonic branded ribbon and not only did it last but when the ink started to dry you could re-ink up to four times and have it work fine. Inside the case was about 15 feet of ribbon so it would run out of ink before it would wear out.

The two dollar cheaper brand could only be re-inked once or twice before it failed with the ribbon starting to wearing out. It had about 10 feet of ribbon.

The cheapest brand that was less than half the cost of the Panasonic brand not only could not be re-inked, it usually wore out in shreds that could jam the printhead resulting in a $100+ repair. It had less than 3 feet of ribbon in it.

[EricKei]

Or just ask WHY IS IT SO CHEAP?

q...f...something ^_^

In our office, they recently hit a "monster sale lolz" and got toner and drums for less than a third of the (already-discounted) prices we'd been paying for similar items from our usual vendor. I think you all see where this is going...

DAY ONE! Bad toners, bad drums, streaky pages, random failures, jams, et al. Hopefully, they've learned their lesson...

[underemployeed]

q...f...something ^_^

In our office, they recently hit a "monster sale lolz" and got toner and drums for less than a third of the (already-discounted) prices we'd been paying for similar items from our usual vendor. I think you all see where this is going...

DAY ONE! Bad toners, bad drums, streaky pages, random failures, jams, et al. Hopefully, they've learned their lesson...

Well really you never know till you try it (but generally you do get what you pay for). Was having conversation about the same statement involving ammo at walmart. Why 50% more for remington? I have overlapped two .45 shots at 50ft But federal makes my gun make just as much noise and the melons react jsut the same but it might not be as accurate, really havn't had chance to try it jsut know BLAZER SUCKS!

[Fire_on_High]

"The cheapest NIC money could buy" is still going strong 12, 13 year later.

[Shalom]

For the electronics lab at my college they kept buying 20 crappy chairs at 50$ each. Which we literally would all have broken within a semester but we will say they last 6 months. because they didn't want to spend $150-200 on the old style chairs we have that actually lasted 2-4 years. So the Cheap chairs really cost them $100 per chair each year. While the other ones ranged between $37-75 PER YEAR but would be more to invest upfront.


Most cost analysis fails to recognize quality.

Sounds like Commander Vimes' "Boots Theory of Economics".

I don't have the text in front of me at the moment, but basically, he didn't have the money to spend AM$50 for a decent set of boots that would last over 10 years, so he bought the AM$10 boots that lasted a year. After ten years, he had spent twice as much on boots as the guy who could afford the better pair, and he still had wet feet.

[BeeMused]

Another fun thing regarding printing is cheap paper. Yeah you might save a dollar or two, but removing paper jams and paper dust from the printer will cost you a lot more and might even damage the printer.

[draggar]

"The cheapest NIC money could buy" is still going strong 12, 13 year later.

Longer if it is a good one.

Another fun thing regarding printing is cheap paper. Yeah you might save a dollar or two, but removing paper jams and paper dust from the printer will cost you a lot more and might even damage the printer.

Manufacturer provided paper is also tested to work with their inks and toners - they're engineered to give the best results when used together. Sure, multipurpose copy paper may be OK for memos, printing emails, etc.. but when you need a great looking presentation, you should stick with the manufacturer's paper!

(And don't get paper that is too thin - I've noticed some are a few mils thinner than regular paper - those tend to jam very easily, and often!)

Most people ignore the cost of consumables. When I sold printers (long time ago) I would show people the price of the printer and then the price of the ink as well as the (estimated) page yield on the cartridges. Some would almost faint when their $100 printer needed $50 cartridges that had a 300 page yield. Might as well go for the $250 printer with the $20 cartridges with an 800 page yield! (Just ignore the fact that the $250 printer was far superior, too!).

Ink printers mainly need to worry about ink cartridges or tanks and heads while laser printers you also need to consider drums (which can be a couple hundred) and fusers (which can be several hundred). Even though those might only need to be swapped every 25,000-100,000+ pages, it's still a cost to consider.

[Lurking Sockpuppet]

Quoth Eric the Grey View Post
Back when I worked for IBM, we had the big HP's that had the huge lower tray that could hold 4 reams of paper at once, if actually filled up. The trays were big enough for 11x17 paper, or 2 complete stacks (8 reams) of 8.5x11 paper...

We had one of those when I used to be a Marketing Analyst (over 10 yrs ago). The company had to replace the Department Manager and decided to hire this guy right out of college instead of someone that had actually worked in the real world. We were having to print our monthly reports that were hundreds of pages long and would take all day. The printer had developed a squeak. So Mr. MBA decided instead of calling the help desk to have someone look at it he went out to his car and got a can of WD-40 and sprayed it all over the inside of the printer.

I seem to recall it taking a few weeks to get the printer repaired.

[Rapscallion]

How long did he last after that?

Rapscallion

[Lurking Sockpuppet]

How long did he last after that?

Rapscallion

Not long, a month at most.