Buy it for Life

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A place to share practical, durable and quality made products that are made to last, with an emphasis on upcycled and sustainable products!

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Things that are well-made and durable (even if they won't last a lifetime) are A-Okay!

Unlike that other BIFL place, Home-made and DIY items are encouraged here, as long as some form of instruction is included in the body of the post.

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The item must be made with sustainable or recycled materials.
If electronic in some way, the item must be open-source.
The item must be user-serviceable (if applicable).
You cannot be a large corporation.
The post must be clearly marked with a [Self Promotion] tag in your title.

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Laser printer recommendations (midwest.social)

submitted 5 days ago by sxan@midwest.social to c/buyitforlife@slrpnk.net

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Recommendations for a color, full duplex, laser printer?

Another printer company (Brother) has fallen to the allure of "remote disable" if they object to you using your own device in a way they don't like: trying to self-service, use third party inks, whatever. It's at their discretion. Given printers are the sorts of devices to which you tend to want to have network access, preventing this is a lot of work.

I've been looking at color duplex laser printers, and Brother has been at the top of the list, until they recently announcement that they'd disable printers using third party inks.

BIFL to me implies that the company isn't going to actively sabotage self-service, or restrict your usage of the thing, so I think this is an appropriate question for this c/.

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[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

I've had good results with Canon printers. They accept 3rd party ink/toner just fine, will still print even if low, and the software interface looks like it hasn't changed since the Windows 95 days. Which means no extra BS included cause it's too outdated for that. Just everything you need to print and scan, and nothing more.

My only complaint is that the initial setup is a major pain in the ass, but once you get the printer to stop whining and finally connect to the network, it just works, and works flawlessly with any device. I can effortlessly print from any PC or phone in the house.

[–] Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago

I second the Canon printer. Although I have no idea what people were talking about with the difficulty of the setup. I saw it repeated in reviews. I was expecting a huge time commitment. I think it took me longer to unpack. The setup was a breeze. Didn't even need a computer. Still very new, but the printer is functioning well.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Tell me about the set up? The printer I've been looking at was, indeed, a Canon.

People are recommending waiting to see how the Brother controversy plays out, but I'm not opposed to Canon. I've always been happy with their products.

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

Mostly straightforward but it didn't want to recognize the printer at first. Don't remember the details cause it was over a year ago at this point, but IIRC it involved trying different USB cables and/or messing with WiFi settings in the router.