Funny, I have a Lexmark Pro 4000 at the office here, and we don't experience that problem. Of course, it does get used fairly often, I'd say at least once every 48hrs. I don't know how often we replace the ink in it... office manager says each set of 4 inks lasts about a year to a year and a half. Note that the Pro4000 has a lot of options to fine-tune power savings mode, accessible only through the web gui.
The Brother definitely does the same thing, as will every "office"-quality printer; otherwise, the ink or the printheads dry out and when you go to use it, it won't print no matter how much ink you have left.
I don't print often at home (although I do tend to use large volumes of ink at a time), and I replace the ink cartridges about once a year. I don't think you'll find anything new and feature-rich that will hold on to its ink for more than a year. My parents have a slightly newer model than I do, and they replace the ink about every 18 to 24 months, so far.
Some inkjets have a "storage" mode which tries to prevent drying out, I don't think the Brother does... not sure what would, nowadays, or even if it's still a thing.
-Adam
On 05/26/2015 02:43 PM, Kevin McGregor wrote:
Adam,
I see that Brother now has the MFC-J6920DW and -J6925DW printers. They look pretty good. I'd buy one based on your comments, but my previous experience with an MFC was the Lexmark OfficeEdge Pro4000, which while free (I won it) BLEEDS INK CONSTANTLY. The ink is not cheap, and the unit seems to do a cleaning cycle of some kind daily while on standby, which I guess uses a ton of ink.
This is in contrast with my old Canon iP4500, which apparently could go for a year or so of disuse and still print fine and without losing any ink. Do you find your Brother holds on to its ink fairly well? I don't do a lot of printing, and I don't want a printer that goes through ink when I'm not using it!
And what did you pay for it? The newer models are listed as $300 and $350, but that's probably $US. Not outrageous, but I'd probably want to shop around for a sale.
Kevin
On Sat, Sep 28, 2013 at 4:17 PM, Adam Thompson <athompso@athompso.net mailto:athompso@athompso.net> wrote:
On 2013-09-28 09:16, Adam Thompson wrote: On 2013-09-28 06:19, Trevor Cordes wrote: Does anyone have big (like tabloid or bigger) scanner they want to sell? Even an ancient SCSI or parallel one might be ok. I just want *big*. Do they even make scanners bigger than legal or tabloid? I have a tabloid-size scanner built into my Brother MFC-J6910DW (which didn't cost very much). If you need wider, either use a camera or hack something up like this http://www.mpetroff.net/archives/2013/09/25/scanner-modifications-to-scan-large-documents/. To be a bit more specific (and laudatory), my Brother MFC 1) only costs around $300-$350 new (http://www.pricebat.ca/search.php?q=MFC-J6910DW) 2) prints/scans/faxes; has all the various slots and ports and features you could want 3) has both WiFi and Ethernet and USB 4) scans to USB-attached PC, SD/CF/etc slot, NFS(?), FTP, SMB, SMTP(email) - very handy. (Oh, it also can print from POP3!) 5) prints AND scans up to 11x17" (tabloid) 6) prints AND scans double-sided (all the way up to 11x17", including from the ADF!) 7) has a B&W cost per page comparable to most mid-sized lasers (it's cheaper to run than my HP LJ2200DN even using remanufactured HP toner cartridges!) 8) has a Color cost per page WELL BELOW most color lasers 9) automatically runs head-cleaning/flushing operations so the heads don't dry out 10) has XXL-sized ink tanks; I'm only on my second set of ink tanks after a year, even with item #9 above! 11) two paper trays, both can hold up to 500pp of 11x17" 12) can "snoop" on your phone line and intervene if it detects an incoming fax 13) has drivers for Linux (not open-source, though) Bottom line: although this printer isn't perfect, it's a darn good deal and after about two years with it, I'm very impressed with it. I wish it had three trays, not two. I wish it could multitask better (one thing at a time, mostly). I wish it had better photo output. (But it's only 4-color, and it's not Epson or Canon, after all.) And I wish it either had open source drivers or supported PCL3 or PS or something standard like that. FWIW, I've also been quietly impressed with *every* *single* Brother laser printer I've ever seen - I know of an HL-6 from ~1990 that's still working (although barely). I don't understand why they're the Rodney Dangerfield of the printer world when everything they make mostly just works. (One issue: their small/cheap MFPs tend to be unsupported for newer versions of Windows. Just like every other manufacturer's small, cheap MFPs.) YMMV; mine mostly hasn't. -- -Adam Thompson athompso@athompso.net <mailto:athompso@athompso.net> _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca <mailto:Roundtable@muug.mb.ca> http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
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