What printer?

[Dave Monk]

I currently have an Epson Eco Tank 2850 that is a bit over a year old.  I really like it other than I recently discovered that it does not print my patterns accurately. I worked with support but got no where.  If I print a square it is out of square.  I do a lot of printing so I want a printer that is fairly economical to run. Do you have any suggestions?

[Tom-in-Ashland]

I've had good luck with Canon.  

[Dave Monk]

3 minutes ago, Tom-in-Ashland said:

I've had good luck with Canon.  

What model do you have?

[Wichman]

I use a HP 7740 wide format.

I cannot recommend HP products though, if you don't buy genuine $$HP$$ parts they can brick your printer. If you run out of one color of ink it will brick the printer as well, including the scanner.   I bought the printer before they started getting nasty with the bricking. I really like the 11 x 17" printing and the 11 x 17 scanning. 

[BadBob]

You can't get much cheaper than a laser printer.

		Printer Type Black and White Color Laser 2-5 cents per page 15 cents per page Inkjet 5-10 cents per page 15-25 cents per page

Brother laser printers are great. I have been using them for years. My first one got killed in a lightning strike. I now have a Brother HL-3170CDW I purchased on November 26, 2015.

I print all my patterns on this printer. If the pattern is 3-1/8 x 4-1/4 inches in Inkscape, it prints that size precisely. I'm using third-party toner cartridges in it, and I'm on the third black one and a second set of color cartridges. If it died today, I would not hesitate to buy another Brother printer and would not consider anything else.

I am 100% Fedora Linux OS here and never use any Microsoft products.

 

 

[Sycamore67]

I have three Brother laser printers and all print accurately. My main one is a multifunction one.  It scans and copies  accurately and prints accurately.  I have tested it by scanning and printing a ruler in both directions.   

I had HP inkjets before the Brothers and will never get an HP again.

[TAIrving]

10 hours ago, Dave Monk said:

What model do you have?

I use the Canon TR8520, several years old now, and have been happy with it for printing patterns (as well as other printer functions.)  

[Rolf]

I have three printers. A Brother HL 2360DW laser. That is on the network so my wife can print from her laptop. It is a workhorse.  The next is a multi function Epson ET-4750, it is my scanner, copier, fax. It uses the ink tanks absolutely love that. For large scale printing I have an old Epson Artisan 1430 it will print 13 x 19 inches. I did not pay the crazy price that it now sells for.

 

Dave Monk regarding scaling issues, are you sure the printer setting are not set to "FIT Page" 

Or another possibility is the program you are using to print your image. 

[Dave Monk]

3 hours ago, Rolf said:

I have three printers. A Brother HL 2360DW laser. That is on the network so my wife can print from her laptop. It is a workhorse.  The next is a multi function Epson ET-4750, it is my scanner, copier, fax. It uses the ink tanks absolutely love that. For large scale printing I have an old Epson Artisan 1430 it will print 13 x 19 inches. I did not pay the crazy price that it now sells for.

 

Dave Monk regarding scaling issues, are you sure the printer setting are not set to "FIT Page" 

Or another possibility is the program you are using to print your image. 

I've made squares in Inkscape and paint and both have printed out of square. I have also sent the same files to other people and they print square. 

[Dan]

I have a Brothers H L3180CDW laser. When I print in Inkscape it's pretty much on the money. I printed a square, a 45 degree rotated square, and a circle. All came out with the measurements from Inkscape. I saved them as a PDF and, at first, they were square but a bit smaller. Then I realized that I had reduced to fit page. Once that was fixed it printed the PDF from Adobe Acrobat perfectly.

That said, the Brothers is a little slow at loading the file into the printer to print. It may be because I send the file over wi-fi. It's also a loud printer. Not a problem for me because my computer is int he basement and the printer is upstairs. I get my exercise running up and down stairs when I have lots to print.

[BadBob]

14 minutes ago, Dan said:

I saved them as a PDF

Why would you do that?  Just curious.

[Scrappile]

I say anything but HP.  You buy from them they think they own you.  I am using my last HP EVER.

Edited August 12, 2023 by Scrappile

[Dan]

1 hour ago, BadBob said:

Why would you do that?  Just curious.

Some folks don't use Inkscape and saving them as a pdf allow them to open and resize the pattern to fit their need. 

[ChelCass]

We have the Cannon G6020. Bought it about a year ago and I have yet to need to add ink.  We do quite a bit of printing, especially a lot of patterns and I have no problem with it printing properly .  With my other printers I would go thru cartridges like crazy this one is so much better.  

[OCtoolguy]

Dave, do yourself a huge favor and buy Brother all-in-one color laser printer. I love mine. I'm still using the toner cartridges that came with it after 3 years. I mostly use black. It gave me a warning that the black toner was low so I found a trick on youtube to override the warning. I bought another black cartridge but have never opened it. I bought mine when on sale from Amazon for about $230. I'd pay double that just because it's so reliable and no farting around with ink. 

 

[kmmcrafts]

I agree with Bob, Ray and Rolf.. I have the Brother HL 2360DW laser printer and I do a fair amount of printing with the business receipts and packing slips etc.. No longer print shipping labels on my big printer because I got a Dymo thermal printer specifically for that. I used to spend several hundred on both my old HP and Epson inkjet printer ink.. I bought this printer a couple years ago and have went through only the original ink it came with and then I got a high yield ink refill and just recently put in the 3rd one which is another high yield. I only have two complaints.. one being it's only black and white.. and I do miss the large format that my old Epson was.. To do over I'd buy the same set-up but in a color printer and possibly the large format.. Can't beat the value in a Brother laser printer.   

[Tom-in-Ashland]

My Canon is a G3200.  It is 2+ years old. It has refillable ink tanks and no expensive ink cartridges. The bottles of ink are very reasonably priced. Each bottle will refill the tanks a few times.

[FrankEV]

I have the Epson ET-166600.  It has tanks and prints up to 13x19.  I print a lot also.  

I do not print directly from Inkscape.  In Inkscape I do a SAVE AS,  and select PDF.  I then print from Adobe.  

I found glitches when printing directly from an SGV in Inkscape, but not from the PDF using Adobe. 

As Badbob said, PDFs are eaiser to manipulate on many printers to resize, etc.

So far I  have not seen any distortions in the prints I make.  Sounds like your printer may not handeling the paper properly.

JfYI.

 

[BadBob]

3 hours ago, FrankEV said:

As Badbob said, PDFs are eaiser to manipulate on many printers to resize, etc.

That wasn't me.

I disagree with this.

[FrankEV]

Sorry

[crupiea]

I have a brother color laser printer.  

Nice thing about it is i can print hundreds of pages without worrying about ink.  Plus if I do need toner I can get all the colors and two black ones for about $50 which will last another 1000 pics or so.

So if I print something out and its not exactly the size i want, i just slightly adjust it and print it again.

To adjust the sizes i use excel or an equal spreadsheet type program. 

You can just use the little grabby corner things to adjust the size until its what you want.