27 Jul
2002
27 Jul
'02
9:05 p.m.
On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Philip Pemberton wrote:
I don't know if they are AS reliable since I don't have any experience
with the LJ-II, but in my estimation it was damn reliable, having printed
probably at least a hundred thousand pages in its life with only minor
servicing required once or twice (and its still good to go, just needs a
new drum like yours).
Mine doesn't need a new drum - the OPC is fine, I just
needed to empty the
waste toner bin on the side of the OPC.
We used
one of these extensively at the company I used to work for,
printing telephone service invoices. It was a very reliable printer.
That's
good to hear. Are they as reliable as a HP LJ-II? > > At any rate, Marilynn, our office manager,
used to just dump the waste
> > toner out of the collector bucket. It never seemed to adversely
affect
> > the printer, even though you're not
supposed to do that.
> I couldn't get the collector buchet off - only one screw on that side,
took
> it out and it wouldn't pop off. So I pried it
apart slightly and shook
the
> junk into a sheet of newspaper. The green OPC
drum was wrapped in a bin
> liner for protection and light proofing. Put it this way - I'll spend
?40
on
> four toner cartridges but I'm not going to
spend ?75 on an OPC drum
module.
Oh wait. You're talking about a different model than the one I am. I'm
talking about the 4420. I've never heard of the 4400.
Damn. The 4420 is a
totally different beast if the manual is correct - looks
like an LJ-II. The KXP4400 is a small (about 30cm high, 70cm deep and 12cm
wide) machine with a fold-down paper input tray on the right hand side and a
fold-out paper output tray on the top. It looks like it had the option for
an RS232 interface, too. But I can kludge one of those with a PIC16F84 and a
few connectors. And a PCB.
> > I had two of these (the one from the office
and another one I picked
up
> > subsquently). I just got rid of one I
believe as I have no more use
for
> > it since I got my very nice Xerox XD125f. I
still have the other one
but
its fate is nearly decided.
Damn... Could have
used it as a parts machine... > Does your one remaining KXP4400 have a RAM
upgrade fitted? I need one
for
> mine. 1MB is not enough for the sort of printing
I do, Panasonic want
$400
> for a 4MB board and most companies over "the
Big Pond" don't have any
left
Nope. That's one upgrade we dearly needed but never got around to
getting.
Curses... Looks like I'm going to end up spending GBP70 on the 4MB
module...
Oh, well. The printer was a reasonably good deal for GBP10 second-hand. At
least it was in one piece and had the drum and some toner. I had to replace
the toner cartridge soon after getting the machine, but ?10 per cartridge
(1500 page life IIRC) is hardly going to break the bank. And when I got it,
it only had 3000 sheets run through it and the drum had been replaced -
current drum only has a few thousand pages on it.
Considering this thing was made in about 1994, it's in pretty good shape.
Just FYI, there are some KXPs that use the same printer engine - the
KXP4401, for example, is an exact clone of the 4400 with the addition of a
PostScript module. Hardly makes much difference; I can live with PCL3.
Anyone got some docs on HP's PCL3 "Printer Control Language"?
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/