[Scottish] OT Printer Spares

[Colin McKinnon]

Gavin McCord wrote:

>On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 12:35, Graeme Boyd wrote:
> =20
>
>>I've got an Epson Stylus Photo 700 which is not printing as well as it=20
>>used to.  I think the problem may lie with the belt which seems to slip=
=20
>>occasionally.  Does anyone know where I might purchase a new belt for=20
>>this printer in Glasgow?
>>   =20
>>
>IMHO, Epson printers aren't designed to be fixed, but thrown away and a
>new model purchased. I've a Stylus 500, nearly 6 years old and had a
>devil of time trying to open it up to reposition a little plastic clip
>that had fallen out, causing paper loading to fail. But it still works
>after a fashion, so get it up you, Epson :-) (Oh, and I don't buy your
>official ink anymore either.)
> =20
>
Most printers on the user-friendly side of =A31000 aren't intended to be=20
maintained any more. If you've had 6 years out of one you've done quite=20
well. Last time I looked Epson inkjets were relatively cheap in terms of=20
TCO (since they use a non-disposable print head - but beware cheap=20
inks). At the mo, we're not running large amounts of ink jets, but have=20
found Epson FX980/2180s to be the most cost effective low/medium=20
capacity dot matrix printers (although we are currently trialling a=20
ND-100 which although twice the cost is proving very reliable and cheap=20
to run) In use, they last us about 18 months to years, then we chuck=20
them out and buy new (or at least that's what we used to do!). This is=20
compared with similar specced hardware from Panasonic, Star and  IBM.=20
BTW we use Kyocera 3750 / 3800 lasers.

We get spares from Express Terminals if we need them.

Colin