It's on sale right now at OfficeMax. What I like is that it can do stand-alone fax and that it prints via a LAN connection, not via that dreaded printer sharing that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Toner seems to be around $50 for a 2500 page cartridge, not cheap but ok. I couldn't quite find out from the downloaded manual whether it can remain in the 10W sleep mode to receive faxes. If not it would hog a lot of power.
Anyone using it or its predecessors? If so, what's the happiness coefficient with it?
One thing you have to watch with Brother is the cost of the drum as it can be very expensive. I have an MFC8300 which I've had pretty good luck with as a fax/printer from Linux. I haven't tried it as a scanner from linux.
For my model, it is cheaper to find a new printer on sale that uses the same drum and throw away the rest of the printer. Cheaper from an economical sense. I'm not condoning this, just giving the facts. I was lucky to find someone who wanted the blank printer and I wanted the drum. So that worked out well.
Other than that issue, I haven't had any troubles with mine for 5 years or so. Admittedly, I don't print a whole lot. But that is actually harder on some parts of the printer than printing large runs where things get warmed up and it runs continuously for long periods of time.
For FAXing, why not just use a laser printer and a scanner?
If you use a router like an SMC Barricade the printer plugs into it instead of a parallel port or USB, and is available to all on the LAN.
I presently have an hp LaserJet 1320 which can do two-sided printing... love the paper-saving.
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
It\'s what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.
Thanks. Yes, it has the drum separate but that can also be a good thing since a toner cartridge sans drum is by default less expensive than one with drum. From what I researched the drum unit is between $80 and $90, supposedly lasting 12000 pages. The toner is rated at 2500 pages, or four toner cartridges until the drum needs to be replaced. Of course, that whole equation won't compute anymore should a grain of sand in the paper scratch the drum early on.
Same here. Much of my biz is all-electronic transfers. I often only print schematics and docs that I need to study or check in great detail. Come to think of it, the instances where I need to send a fax is maybe once per month. It used to be several a day but now everybody has email. But with such a multifunction unit there is less clutter, I can get rid of the fax machine and the old copier. IOW the number of spaces needed goes from three units to one which would be cool.
Hmm, not so encouraging. What went wrong? So far I have heard good things, mostly from family members using Brother printers (but not multi-function versions).
I've tried that. It's a hassle. Have to fire up the scanner (which in my case is part of a color inkjet printer), then the PC, scan one page after the other hoping XP doesn't croak halfway through, dial via the PC keyboard. The scanner doesn't have a feeder so multiple pages is a real hassle. I like the convenience of a stand-alone fax where you place the stack of docs in the feeder, dial and walk away. I rarely use it these days but when I do it's usually a big stack of docs such as a contract where they'd rather see a signed and faxed copy instead of a scan.
Receiving faxes is even more of a pain. Murphy says then just when a fax wants to come in I will have done something crazy with the uC compiler and hung the whole machine.
I have the same router as you do. Probably I could get the proper driver into it. However, it's going into the basement hub soon and the printer need to be close. Meaning lots of exercise for me ;-)
Then there is the problem that many 'modern' printers lack a parallel port and that's what the Barricade provides. Nowadays many are USB-only. The nice thing about this Brother is that it can be plugged into an Ethernet jack anywhere.
Cool. I do it via print even pages, then odd pages. But when my main HP printer goes some day I'll look into a 1320 as well.
Hi Jeorge, I have an older Brother HL-720 that has been working (sometimes) for the past 5 years. My biggest problems with this unit are:
It is noisy. I have to turn it off at the switch when not printing. Then, when I turn it on, it has a problem with WinXP getting sync'd up again, so I have to play a little game of Reset Printer/Resend Page until the computer and printer like each other again.
I have had to have it repaired once already due to a paper jam that jammed it up good. Mis-aligned something in the paper guides or something.
It now has a scratched drum, and the toner cartridge is just about empty.
Going to be moving into my new house in a few weeks, so I think I will be replacing it with an all-in-one unit myself. If I can afford it, will go with HP, although they aren't as good as they used to be either...
I use WinFax which has junk fax filtering capability... incoming faxes simply get written to HD.
Many of my outgoing faxes are simply files.
But I can sign a contract and fax directly from the scanner.
The printer driver is simply the _printer_ driver.
The Barricade install CD has a _very_simple_ installation procedure which maps the printer of choice to "port"=PRTMATE.
RTFM already ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
It\'s what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.
Noisyness is what I read about the MFC as well but it doesn't bother me much. Some of the lab equipment next door sounds like a little jet engine all the time anyway, it'll drown it out since the doors are usually open. Then we are at end of a runway, so....
On teh newer MFC you can set the min sleep drop to 5mins after which it goes into a 10W sleep mode, no fan.
Scratched drum is what occasionally happens, including on my HPs and a Canon copier. The trusty old Canon that was always good to me just croaked and that's why I need a replacement of some sort. With a drum scratch it is an advantage when the toner comes with a new drum. However, the toner cartridge (with integrated drum) on the Canon cost a whopping $100+, twice as much as the one on the Brother and still more than its drum replacement.
Well, long story short I just bought the MFC-7820. Let's see. Our OfficeMax had exactly one left so they must have gone like hot cake (sale started yesterday).
Well, that doesn't help if the machine that's supposed to receive the fax froze up just before the line rang.
Yes, that's certainly an option. But as I said, I'd have to dedicate a machine for "fax only" since I have a propensity to crash PCs. I have an old one which could do that but it'll occupy additional space.
Sure, I could make it work. Even an HP5L emulation would do just fine. However, from the LAN closet to the nearest practical printer location is more than 20ft of beeline, through one wall and one floor that has 2" concrete on it. No sweat, really, but 20ft with a parallel printer connection is a stretch. More like 30ft if I don't want to string it right in front of the furnace filter access path. A network printer can go anywhere.
Long story short I just bought it. Came with a one-year warranty and usually stuff that hasn't broken by then lives on. There was another enticement to do it: On the way back we had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, along with a nice Dos Equis from tap. Delicious, except that they still serve the beer a bit too cold.
Why is that? Too much surfing the girlie sites ?:-)
I previously used an hp6L, but it had been repaired twice and settled into grinding noises last summer.
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
It\'s what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.
Nah, I'm past that age I guess. I just have very little patience with sluggish Windows sometimes, type and click ahead of the game from memory and then it chokes. Then there is the typical Acrobat hard-crash. Sometimes those require holding the power button for a few seconds to do a hard reset. Usually the first thing I do with a desktop that doesn't have a reset is find the connection on the MB, drill a hole and mount a nice big push button.
They aren't like the old printers anymore. Lots of plastic gears. The Canon FC-5 (copier) sang it's farewell song this weekend. It went something like this: Rat-tat-tat-KACLUNK.
Ok, guys, so far: Nice machine, makes crisp copies and that's what it's primary purpose is, to replace the copier. The plastics are a bit on the flimsy side IMHO but, oh well, the price was right. Installation of the drivers takes a long time and they don't let you select directories (not so good).
It auto-configured on the LAN without a hitch. And it prints really fast.
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