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

[Jim Battle]

Stroller wrote:
...
> I have a similar conundrum here.

I fail to see the conundrum here.

> 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.
> 
> These are / were fantastic printers - I think the 4-series had a monthly 
> duty-cycle of 65,000 pages, so I assume these are similar in 
> specification. The HP engineers intended for this part to be easily 
> replaceable, and you can easily pick up a roller set on eBay. 

Sounds great so far -- you have a supply of fantastic printers that have 
a minor problem.  You aren't looking to sell them it sounds like ... you 
simply wish they'd work better so you could use them.  OK so far.

> Unfortunately the price comes to about £12 per tray - or perhaps £25 
> shipped for rubbers for both lower trays plus the manual feed pickup, 
> too - and these printers have a resale value of only £35.

You lose me here.  Who cares about the resale value.  What matters is 
what is the value to you.  If you can get a fantastic laser printer back 
in operating condition for £25 with little effort, it sounds like a no 
brainer to me.

> I think it's tragic to be throwing out such decent & solidly-constructed 
> printers in favour of cheap plastic rubbish - in the event a repair is 
> necessary the kind of printers we can get for less money will complain 
> about disassembly with the "pling" of flying broken-plastic sproggets - 
> but it makes little economic sense to do otherwise. I've been meaning 
> the last week to try & find a source of Laserjet rollers where I can 
> purchase 10 or 20 at more sensible rates, but I'm not overflowing with 
> optimism.

This sentiment only reinforces the idea that *you* value your printers 
at much more than £35.

Here is the way to think about it.  Say you had no printer, and someone 
offered you one of two deals

	(1) A used but fully functional HP laserjet 4+ for £25
	(2) A cheap plastic rubbish printer for £35

That really is your choice.

Even ignoring option #2, you say you can get your printer back in 
working shape for £25, and the market value of that repaired printer is 
£35.  OK, repair yours and you save £10.

I don't see the conundrum.

> 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?

Pick option (1) above.