Laser Print Recommendations?

fractal33

Active member
I'm looking into getting a laser printer for printing decals, etching some homemade PCBs, and general day-job-related documents. I've been trying to look around, but haven't really seen a general consensus on a good one. My budget is probably upwards of $500 but obviously would love to spend less than that if possible. Does anyone have one that they can recommend? Thanks!
 
There won’t be a general consensus besides don’t get a Brother haha. I had a little cheapo Samsung M2020 that worked just fine. It was all about what kind of paper I used.
 
Are HP assholes when it comes to toner replacement? I can't remember which brand it was, but I'd read that one of the printer companies would only allow you to print a certain number of pages on a given toner cartridge and then shut the printer down till you replaced the toner, even though there was still toner remaining on the cartridge. Like say the cartridge was rated for 1000 pages, it would count 1000 pages, even blank ones or ones with very little toner on it, and then shut it down till you replaced the toner again.
 
There won’t be a general consensus besides don’t get a Brother haha. I had a little cheapo Samsung M2020 that worked just fine. It was all about what kind of paper I used.
Are Brother's really that bad? I usually have had HP printers in the past and never liked them and was leaning toward Brother because of the price point/good review ratio online for a color laser.
 
Are Brother's really that bad? I usually have had HP printers in the past and never liked them and was leaning toward Brother because of the price point/good review ratio online for a color laser.
I use an old Brother laserjet for my decals and it works well. It did not work well for masking off ferric chloride, though, at all ,but that could have been the paper. I need to give it a proper test one of these days.
 
I have a Brother. I'm happy enough with it, but it's only black and white so limits the decals I can make.

I've used some inkjet decals (leftover from my previous printer) in it for some of my builds and they turned out fine.
 
I have a Brother. I'm happy enough with it, but it's only black and white so limits the decals I can make.

I've used some inkjet decals (leftover from my previous printer) in it for some of my builds and they turned out fine.
Good to know. I have access to an HP inkjet that works decently well most of the time, but it is a shared printer. I want the laser for toner transfer etching and it sounds like it cuts down the process of decal making a little since you don't have to seal the ink. Also the no-film waterslides have intrigued me but it doesn't seem to be possible with an inkjet.
 
Are HP assholes when it comes to toner replacement? I can't remember which brand it was, but I'd read that one of the printer companies would only allow you to print a certain number of pages on a given toner cartridge and then shut the printer down till you replaced the toner, even though there was still toner remaining on the cartridge. Like say the cartridge was rated for 1000 pages, it would count 1000 pages, even blank ones or ones with very little toner on it, and then shut it down till you replaced the toner again.
I use knock off toner, works fine as long as you don't let HP do any upgrades
 
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