Re: Duplex printing (was Re: XyWrite 3+ Printer Driver forHP2100)

[Nathan Sivin nsivin@xxxxxxxx]

Eric van T. asks about duplexing on printers not really designed
for it. The toner will be set by the time the sheet comes out.
The issue is, rather, the slightish curling of the sheet caused
by the short exposure to very high temperature that fuses the
toner and makes the image permanent (well, more or less).

When you set a pile of sheets aside, they cool rather quickly,
but more gradually reabsorb the ambient moisture that lets them
lie flat. That's the point. You can sometimes speed up the
process by manually uncurling or slightly reverse-curling the
edge that goes into the printer, since it seems to be largely
responsible for the jamming. But with the LJ2100 I did not find
that very reliable.

I would say that someone who routinely does much printing on both
sides of the page but doesn't want to spend more than the 2100
costs has several options.

The first is to buy the newish NEC 1800, which has been rated
well above the 2100 for the same price (read the recent printer
review in PC Mag online). It comes with more memory (12 MB), is I
think a little faster, and has a built-in duplexer so it does the
job automatically. I didn't buy it because I don't have as much
faith in its durability, and don't want to take any chances with
the PCL emulation that is necessary in order for me to use the
old XYDOS LJ4+ driver. The second alternative is to spend less
and get a top of the line inket printer, now between $300 and
$400. They are slower (esp. for graphics) and the cost per sheet
of pigment is higher, but they don't heat up and distort the
paper. I never had any trouble with duplexing on the one I used
to have.

Cheers,
--
Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-6304
(215) 898-7454
nsivin@xxxxxxxx