Current printer models suitable for toner transfer

[glops]

For me a Brother printer is priceless. The first one I had last literally for 10 years. It actually still worked except for the USB port got loose from the circuit board so that I had to jigger the cord a certain way to get it to print which I did for a couple of years until the connection was completely severed and then I even took it apart and was going to fix it but then thought I would rather spend my time doing anything else and just bought a new unit. The ink cartridges are expensive and it's really annoying to have to buy new ones but the new printer (and the old one) works so well for me that I don't mind paying since it's going towards something I love doing. BUT, I usually use an Inkjet printer for whenever I need to print documents and not my Brother but I actually don't print much of anything these days. When I first printed with the new Brother, I thought the toner transfer didn't look as heavy or thick but it works just fine. I mostly reverse etch enclosures and I like the etch to be pretty deep so I need a toner transfer that can take the heat and then some. Here's a couple of etches where you can see some depth. I also did some pcbs last week and they came out perfectly outside of some user error. All that said, I don't think you can go wrong with any of the current Brother printers. I think mine was less than $100 USD, likely to last another 10 years. Sure the cartridges are pricy but I'm just a dumb but happy consumer.

Wasn't there a time when Brother brand printers were the one to avoid for our needs?

I never heard that. I wonder how I ended up with the 1st Brother I had. I would assume that it was recco'd for this purpose when I was researching printers for toner transfer many years ago. Or maybe I took a chance and bought it because it was an affordable laser printer at the time. Totally works for me.

[glops]

That's also what I had heard — that the temperatures required to melt/transfer the toner were higher and harder to achieve with household tools like clothes irons than with other brands.

The transfers from both printers seem to iron on just fine and I can't tell any difference from the old model and I have and the new one. I think I started etching in 2010 and probably have etched 200+ enclosures with transfers from these printers and lots of PCBs, as well. I wonder if all of these years I couldn't have used a different printer and saved a bunch of time not ironing as long. That would be devastating to find out. I don't think I want to know!

[Mick Bailey]

You lost me in the page counts. Not sure why you are computing that.

Difference £52.90 full-fill and £33.90 starter is £19-, no?

On a £130 printer, another £19 is 1.146X, or 14.6%.

The £19 is the difference between a standard fill (1200 page) and the extra fill (3000 page). This enables the toner cost to be calculated because the cartridges are the same. It can be seen that the additional £19 buys 1800 pages. The starter cartridge is  700 pages, so we need to calculate the cost of the additional 500 pages to bring this up to the page count of a standard cartridge. The toner cost per page is £19 divided by 1800 = £0.015. Multiply this by 500 and this gives £5.28, which is 4% of the price of a new printer.

Supplying a full cartridge reduces the premature disposal of an empty cartridge which contributes to plastic waste.

[Fancy Lime]

Well, the toner material actually costs next to nothing to produce. It just happens to be the only thing that the printer companies make money on. The printer machines themselves are often sold well below what they cost to produce, in the expectation that the overpriced toner will more than make up for that over the lifetime of the printer. Hence the chipping of cartridges. It's kind of an odd business model but it seems like the printer manufacturers have all backed themselves firmly into that weird corner of capitalism. Probably because consumers are really bad at planning ahead and will take the cheaper printer nine times out of ten, even if they only save a few bucks, while completely ignoring running costs down the line. Let's face it, humans are kind of morons, most of the time and especially when we go shopping.

Andy

[Kevin Mitchell]

Fun fact some may already know
Due to the recent semiconductor shortages companies such as HP, Canon and probably others are manufacturing their consumables without authenticity chips. Without these chips the printers will display a "counterfeit item" alert. Typically some machines allow you to bypass this message while others cannot. But due to the shortages of their chips they have been providing firmware updates to disable these authenticity screens. That being said, the flood gate is open for aftermarket new-build products which are way less expensive than OEM or even remanufactured products.

I'd happily suggest a printer for you guys but there's many variables to consider for what's best for you and the market is vast right now as more folks are working from home. What I will suggest is that you try to find a printer than can do 1200DPI appose to the standard 600DPI as it can lay down more toner in a given space and of course you get better images. The downside to this is if you're not used to doing heat-transfers with thicker toner images the chances of smearing the toner increases as you press for an even transfer. However this wouldn't be a problem with Press-N-Peel transfers.

Edit:

I'd happily suggest a printer for you guys but

I feel like I'm doing a disservice to my day job as I wear my Canon polo in a printer dealership 

[PRR]

Mick: Thanks.

All: Note that H-P is pushing an "update" on the LaserJets. AFAIK, this only tightens their grip on the toner cartridge. AFAIK, if I refuse this month's "update" I can use 3rd-party toner; if I install the "update" my printer will refuse to work.

I have only used 3rd-party ink once, 20 years back, and never again? But the cloners must be better now, and the way prices have gone up ($400 for 4 carts) I am tempted.

[Mick Bailey]

In a previous job I was responsible for 1200 laser printers and also awarded contracts for supplies. Because these were government contracts there were strict rules to follow and meant that no printer manufacturer was able to compete on price, which had a high weighting in the evaluation. Aftermarket 'remanufactured' cartridges gave so much trouble and whenever we had a fault with print quality the engineers temporarily swapped in a genuine cartridge and in nearly every case this fixed the problem.

The problems arose mainly from the drum and seals in the combined cartridges. Basically, the cartridges got a wipe over, a refill with toner and a label stuck on them and there were no other parts replaced, which meant that the drum could be at the end of its service life. The biggest change I think since then is having the drum and cartridge separate, rather than the combined units of older printers. Maybe these are a better prospect for refilling.   

[Fancy Lime]

Been doing some digging. The Brother HL-L2350DW seems like a reasonable choice. Does anyone have experience with that? I need something that runs with Mac and Linux, mostly for normal paper printing but if it does transfers well too, that would be a plus.

Andy

[John Lyons]

(as stated above). That's the one I just got and have been using for a couple weeks.
Nice prints for paper, Decals and toner transfer.