Hello, could anyone please recommend an afforable and good color laser printer that I can use to print out CD labels. Also, how many copies can I make before the printer requires maintenance? Thanks

If you are talking about the peel and stick CD labels then you shouldn't use a laser printer for those. Laser printers use heat to print and that will melt the labels. Can get really expensive if you wreck the drum inside of the printer. Maybe someone else knows better but that is what I was told when I bought my color laser. You can't use the Shiny photo paper either. Basically if it doesn't say LASER on the package don't run it thru a laser printer.

Ok thanks, how about this, how many copies can a laser printer make on average before it needs to be maitenanced? Thanks

That depends on the printer. I have one that came with FULL CAPACITY toner cartridges and drum. The cartridges are supposesd to last for about 4500 pages. I can't recall how long the drum should be good for. I have been using the printer for almost a year and my consumables are: Black= 40% remaining. All colors 62% remaining. My printer is rated for 15,000 pages a month. The higher that rating, the more economical the cost per page will be. That is because the cartridges will be bigger. When you get into the really big ones you refill the toner using quart or even bigger bottles. So I guess what I'm saying is they are all over the board. For home or home office use expect to pay $400 to $600 for a color laser printer. Just as more expensive inkjets will be faster, that jolds true for laser printers too. The Real plus is the color quality. Google Color Laser printers and see what comes up. I have a Konica Minolta 2300DL. This is a network capable printer. Connects either Ethernet, USB, or parallel.

My sister-in-law has the same Konica Minolta 2300DL. However our consumable costs are out of this world. In a year we probably gone through 3 sets of toner cartridges and is now waiting for a new developer unit (special order - not stocked locally). Unfortunately it is used for mostly full color pages and the cost per page probably exceeds 30 cents per page. 80% density is a lot higher than the rated 5%.

I've heard one of the most economical color laser printer is the Kyocera, but this is an office capacity printer with an office price.

Someone gave me a Lanier/Ricoh 206 color laser because it was too expensive to run. I haven't had to get supplies yet, but a full set will be almost $500.

With regard to CD labels, if you do enough you might consider an inkjet printer on white CD's. Easier than sticking the label on and no out-of-balance problems.

Wizard

30 cents a page really isn't that bad if you consider a buck at Kinkos. If you shop online I think you can do much better on the supplies for the 2300DL. Have you thought about trying the refill kits?

OtheHill:

Do you know of a source for compatible color toner for the 2300DL? I would hate to contaminate the system with non-compatible toner. I use to work on a Xerox color copier and it was basically replacing all the color handling supplies and cleaning the whole paper transport.

The cost is not bad for one copy, but not for several hundred.

"With regard to CD labels, if you do enough you might consider an inkjet printer on white CD's. Easier than sticking the label on and no out-of-balance problems."

Dont inkjet printers run out of ink about ever 50 copies or so? They can print directly on the CDs?

I use an inkjet printer on CD Stomper labels and apply them with the provided apparatus and haven't had any out of balance. The label has to be perfectly centered in order to go onto the apparatus. The only bad thing I have read about peel and stick labels is if you use them in your car on hot days the lables could come loose during use. I live in Michigan but I don't have any person knowledge of this ever happening.

In addition to inkjet there are also thermal printers. Surprisingly prices have come down since I first saw them. Epson has an inkjet just under a $100 and Casio has a thermal at about the same price. The cost of the inkjets depends on the coverage. Each CD is about 1/4 of a letter size page.

There are some that can print on plain CD's. I think only solid colors would work best.

You seem to be worried about cost. How many CD's are you planning to produce and how many per batch? There are commercial duplicator that can make CD's with artwork and sleeves starting at about $1 each at quantity 1000.

Yeah but those commercial duplicators need a minimum of 1000 CDs created but I need some created on the spot when an order is placed.

Wizard

I was hoping you knew if these generic toners worked OK. I am afaid to be the guine pig. There are also some places that will refill the cartridges for you. I have found that you can buy the branded cartridges cheaper online than locally. You need to be careful of what you buy though. There are cartridges with different rated sheet capacities. I was buying ink tanks for cheap prices online. I found a vendor and ordered Canon generic tanks, but not too many. They worked great so I went back to the vendor and ordered a bigger order. The tanks weren't the same. I don't have alot of confidence regarding generic supplies.
One other thing, do you know anything about resetting the counter on the drum? There are vendors charging $29.95 for a program to reset the counter on the drum to supposedly give you one or even two more turns with it. I don't know a whole lot about Laser printer mechanics.

I've used toner reloads, but only black. Local reloader as well as office supply houses. Quality is spotty. As the drum wears the quality goes and the printout is definitely not as sharp. If you only use letter size the drum lasts a lot longer. The edges of smaller size paper puts nicks in the imaging area. Better reloader may replace the drum but then the price goes up.
There seem to have a greater chance of toner leaks.
I've refilled inkjet tanks but not the new ones. The inkjets I buy usually have individual tanks for each color. If you fill before it gets empty and not overfill the service life is fairly good. The only problem is the leaks when the gaskets and seals become worn.
The new Epson ink cartridges also has a counter chip. There is a device to reset that also. I haven't seen the counter on the lasers. They are marketing the lasers the same way as the inkjets to force you to buy their supplies. You sometime can buy a new printer for less than the price of the ink.