A sign of the times. (Laserjet 4000s here)

[Zane H. Healy]

At 10:19 AM +0000 1/26/08, Stroller wrote:
>My father & I have about half-a-dozen Laserjet 
>4000s which fail to pick the paper properly. The 
>problem can easily be isolated to the rubber 
>"pick up" roller at the front of the tray - 
>measured with a micrometer a good one is a 
>hair's breadth larger in diameter than one that 
>is worn.

I'm responsible for the Unix Printing and 
Plotting at work, so I know the problem.  We had 
this with either a 4100n or a 4200n that a lab 
was running cardstock through.  What I see die a 
*LOT* and what can't be cheap to replace are the 
blasted NIC's for the various types of HP 
hardware.  If I have a dead piece of HP 
printing/plotting, that's a good first bet.

>the manual feed pickup, too - and these printers 
>have a resale value of only £35.

I should see what these go for in the US...  I'd 
like to upgrade my 5mp to something with built in 
ethernet and a duplexer.

>I'm inclined to think that in a few years time 
>our current consumerist practices of throwing 
>away hardware rather than repairing it will 
>begin once again to look foolish, but in the 
>meantime what's one to do?

HP dropped support on a *LOT* of plotters in 
2006, they did this without any warning.  In fact 
I'd placed a service call on one and had them out 
*after* the drop date, without anyone saying 
anything to me.  I'm responsible for a lot of 
plotters, HP wants us to replace almost all of 
them and refuses to work on them.  IDIOTS!  As a 
result I found a third party repair outfit that 
responds faster to any problems I have and costs 
less than 1/3 what HP was charging.

I've done a good job of convincing management so 
far that HP can go to H***, and that we're not 
buying the exact same plotter just to be 
"supported" by HP.  Still at least HP can provide 
me with usable plotter paper, unlike a certain 
company....

And before anyone asks why I'm not repairing 
these things on my own, I did in the past, but I 
no longer have time.  Printing and plotting isn't 
my real job, and my real job keeps me way to busy 
these days.

Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
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