Printing... DIY or copy shop?

[eggrolls]

DIY is obviously more tedious, but that aside... I'd like to know how printing at home with lowest quality settings, black n white compares to 7 cents a page at the shop? That's their flat rate.

I can get an black ink cartridge for about $25, or a "refill kit" for $15. So how many pages should a full cartridge last?

Thanks

 

[jadinolf]

Too bad you don't have a laser printer. That would be the way to go.

 

[bruceb]

A lot depends on how many pages you need to print, if you want Single or Double Sided,
how fast your printer is, etc ... while my printer can make photocopies, come tax time, I
bring my forms to Staples to photocopy for my accountant .. I can do that in under 10
minutes (we are talking about 36 double sided pages) plus some singles .. if I do it at
home, it takes 20-40 seconds to scan & print each page & I have to flip over the original
and refeed the first side to print on the other side .. newer printers can do the Duplex
by themselves .. I may replace my printer next year

 

[Zepper]

You should be able to get under 1 cent for ink per b/w page with normal coverage and under 1 cent per sheet of paper. And that's either laser or inkjet. So you tell me how under 2 cents per page compares w/ 7 or so cents per page. The only advantage is that the print shop photocopier/printer goes a lot faster. And you possibly wouldn't have to be there to keep an eye on things. I pay under $4. for my clone Canon text black tanks and I'm sure they get a minimum of 400 pages per tank. And spot color doesn't add much to the cost but it makes a lot of difference to the appearance of the output. I doubt you can do that for 7 cents a page at the print shop.

.bh.

 

[eggrolls]

Well, I'm printing sheet music, so it's probably gonna be single sided to prevent show-through. Several hundred pages at least. My own printer is very old, so I'm planning to get a new all-in-one anyways. Or I can always borrow someone else's printer and pay them back for the ink and paper, but it's probably best if I do it myself. Any recommendations on a good, cost-efficient all-in-one? As long as it's cheap and doesn't jam when printing at max speed. Other than this particular task, I'm probably not going to use the printer much except for an occasional print or copy.

 

[Zepper]

The Canon MP530 is at $160. from Amazon right now w/ free shipping. It has basically the same print engine as the iP4000/4200 (under 2000 nozzle print head). While the iP4300 has a similar engine to the iP5200 (over 3500 nozzles in the printhead) and the MP830. For most practical purposes you won't see much difference. I'm not sure if sheet music would have more ink coverage than a normal page of text, but it's possible. And it will be mostly graphics which tends to use a bit more ink as well. And a new printer comes with OEM ink tanks which cost 4 or more times the clone tanks. on the 530 for example you are paying ~$75. for the ink tanks and ~85. for the rest... On the iP4300, you're basically getting the printer thrown in with the ink tanks for free...

And I got a ream of Staples top inkjet printing paper (28#, 97 Bright) for under $10. (2 cents a sheet) and I doubt anything would show thru that if you want to print duplex.

.bh.