Latest projects (restorations & customs)

[misterpop]

Oh I just managed to squezze one of those Ferraris in your box Joe....On me..

[Tinman]

Oh I just managed to squezze one of those Ferraris in your box Joe....On me..

TinMan love Ferrari shark nose.

[Tinman]

I like ice cream.

[Tinman]

I guess my Ghia should go here too. White base and interior simply had to go.

[Tinman]

I've made some new display stands. This time it's the G2b featured.

[misterpop]

All good.....Great printer you have there...What make and was it dear?.....

[Tinman]

All good.....Great printer you have there...What make and was it dear?.....

The printer I am currently using for my decals, reproduction boxes and the above work is a Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901. It is an all-in-one type printer that has a flat bed scanner, auto document feed (for copying or scanning) and all the common deluxe features like two side printing , collating, advanced settings and so on.  It does a nice job and is comparable with an HP All-in-one.  It uses one black and three color ink cartridges: Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow.

When I received the printer the three color inks cartridges were dried out. I found an ink source that sells two magnum size black cartridges and the three color cartridges for under $10.00 USD (that's total for all five cartridges).  That's a bargain any way you look at it. Some inks are better than others at printing on glossy photo paper, vinyl and decal paper. These bargain inks do a nice job (much to my surprise) and I'm on my second set of cartridges with the same level of quality printing. Color representations of reproduced items (copies and reproductions of digital images) are fairly accurate.

As to price, I have no idea (and have not looked it up). My color laser HP had gone south and all the toner cartridges (except black) were empty. Cost to replace the toner cartridges was almost $400.00 and there was a part that had to be replaced and that part was $250.00 so it went to the recycle center.  The wife had bought a new HP all-in-one that would not do photo paper, decal paper or anything glossy as it handled the paper in an S pattern to deposit it in a tray in the middle of the printer body (no receiver tray sticking out). All the handling to make the paper go through the S turns would smear the ink on anything that had a slick finish.  So it is unusable for my needs.

I was speaking to a friend about my situation and that I was currently in the process of shopping for an new printer to suit my needs. He said he has this Lexmark that he bought and it was rated very good. However, he could not keep the printer hooked up via his wi-fi. He got pissed off and boxed it up and bought a different printer.  He said it's brand new, practically unused and that I could come get it out of his way.

Normally, my luck does not run that good. Free nearly new printer with all the features I need, cheap and decent ink and fairly compact design.  The ironic part is that he must have a weak wi-fi signal as I hooked the thing up and connected it via wi-fi and it's never given me one lick of trouble.

https://www.lexmark.com/en_us/printer/6 ... cle-Pro901

[Tinman]

OK, since you asked the "how much $" question I did some research.  Looks like the printer can be purchased (in the USA) from walmart for about $250 USD.  I also looked over some reviews on Amazon.com and it seems people either love it or hate it.  There were a few complaints about wi-fi connectivity (which was the main factor that landed this printer with me) and some complaints about paper jambs.

I had some issues with paper jambs early on but resolved that problem.  I took the printer apart and found a small scrap of paper gumming up the feed. I removed that and gave everything a good cleaning. Also the feed tray is not the best design. You have to push in the tray fairly hard to make it lock into place. There is an adjustment in the tray to keep the paper tight in the tray.  The small plastic lever is at the outboard edge of the tray, you push that lever forward to take up the slack in the tray and the adjustment lever does not have much resistance.

If you load a fair amount of paper in the tray, the force to lock the tray in place will cause the lever to slide back and leave about 10 mm of slack and all the paper moves away from the front edge of the tray.  I simply made a small cardboard wedge to place between the adjustment lever and the outboard edge of the paper tray. That keeps the paper all the way forward (and in the correct position to be picked up by the feed rollers). Once I did those two things, no more paper jams.

Would I recommend the printer? For general use and the ability to obtain decent super inexpensive ink - yes. Just ,make a little spacer to keep the paper tight in the tray and you are good (it may even be a flaw Lexmark has corrected for all I know). However, if I was going back to my original plan of getting a dedicated printer just for this kind of work, I would spend as much as twice that and get a model that has an ink tank and is highly rated for photo reproduction on glossy paper.

I did research on some high end printers that print white toner. There are a couple that can be had between 5 & 6 hundred (USD) but the toner was very expensive and the white toner was as much as $225.00 for a new factory cartridge.  I'm sure refills would be much less expensive, but white refills would be limited on the source options.  If your burning through lots of ink/toner, it becomes less than economical for hobby work (unless your wealthy or have a large expendable income which neither apply to me).

When working on a project, I print down a bunch of test results to get sizing correct, for color and quality inspection and so on.  If the ink/toner is that expensive, it would jack up the price of just getting something fine tuned enough to print the final item.  Even if I was to bite the bullet and go for the expensive printer, that last issue would make it unacceptable on my budget.

[misterpop]

Thanks Joe I hope a few people on here find that very useful...For my part I have been using Canon since I started in 2001 and my second printer was an HP that I was not happy with as it kept prompting me to buy there ink and I was used to filling my own as I am a cheap skate so got rid and got another Canon...I will give the Lexmark range a damn good looking at for my next printer that should be coming up shortly as I need a new project..Cheers good buddy.

[Tinman]

I made a new "display stand" and this time it's using the G1b box cover.