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[personal profile] kengr
Tektronix Phaser 850 DP actually.

I finally have a high quality color printer that *won't* suffer from ink drying out.

I've thought the Phasers were neat ever since I first heard about them, years back. And a year or two back I saw one at Stuff (a local electronics resale place).

Recently I saw it was still there and got the model number to check the spec and availability of supplies. Turned out that I didn't have quite enough info to pinpoint the model, but it was enough to tell me that it was *at least* 800 dpi. And possibly 1200 dpi with double sided printing capability.

the ink sticks are available from a bunch of sources and relatively cheap (most often $99 for 3 color ink sticks with one or two black sticks thrown in for free) Compared to inkjet prices, that's a *great* deal.

So, while out shopping with Chrissy today, we checked and it was still there (and if I'm remembering correctly, marked down from when I last checked). It was also the 1200 dpi model with double sided printing. And had a network card installed.

Wasn't fun getting it up the stairs, but we managed.

Only took me a few minutes to get it set up and working right. And it has a fair bit of ink. I'll probably order some spare sticks since it looks like each slot will hold 3 or 4 sticks. Have to see if it's worth getting the hard drive and expanding the RAM from 64 meg to 256 meg. (sheesh, I still use computers with less than that!)

Now if I can only figure out how to set it on vaporize and aim it at a few politicians. :-)

Date: 2006-10-03 10:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] freetrav.livejournal.com
I've always been quite impressed by the crayon (those aren't ink sticks, they're CRAYONS! :) ) printers; in addition to the 'no dry out of ink' issue, the printouts don't get icky blurry muddy if they get wet.

The downside is that they are VERY friendly with the local electric utility, moreso than standard laser printers. And yes, they are HEAVY.

Date: 2006-10-04 04:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] freetrav.livejournal.com
I don't think you CAN get them hot enough to go tacky without deliberately trying. Not even by leaving them in the car on a sunny summer day with the windows closed. The temperature 180F seems to stick in my head, and not for one of the standard powdered-toner lasers. As far as scraping, well, I've never actually tried, but I do have a picture somewhere (can't find it at the moment) that was printed with the 8400 or 8500 on standard copier paper, which got wrinkled several times, and came through with the colors wonderfully intact. The picture was a photo of the lower Manhattan skyline with the 'Towers of Light' - the one that probably EVERYONE in the world has seen, now. (http://www.aaari.org/WTC.jpg is one copy of it)

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