Any experience with HP CLJ 3600 or 3800?

[Fred McKenzie]

I'm looking for a small-footprint color laser printer. I prefer HP,
primarily because of availability of supplies and repair parts.

The HP 2605 may be nice, but the 3600 has larger cartridges. The 3800
is apparently a newer version of the 3600.

I haven't seen the HP 3600 or 3800 mentioned here except for one of my
own posts a few months ago. I know a repairman who has serviced one
brand new 3600 for a warrantee repair. He didn't have a high opinion of
it, but is used to servicing the larger, high-volume printers.

Does anyone have any experience with reliability of the HP CLJ 3600 or
3800? Does either have any unusual quirks?

Fred

 

[Ivor Jones]

I'm looking for a small-footprint color laser printer. I
prefer HP, primarily because of availability of supplies
and repair parts.

The HP 2605 may be nice, but the 3600 has larger
cartridges. The 3800 is apparently a newer version of
the 3600.

I have a 2605dn and apart from a quirk with the occasional jam on duplex
printing (which I suspect is down to configuration rather than an actual
problem with the printer itself) it's been faultless. I added the second
paper tray as well, which pushed the price up a bit but makes for easier
paper handling if like me you do a mixture of plain and letterhead
documents.

Ivor

 

[Fred McKenzie]

I have a 2605dn and apart from a quirk with the occasional jam on duplex
printing (which I suspect is down to configuration rather than an actual
problem with the printer itself) it's been faultless.

Ivor-

Thanks for the response. My experience at work on larger HP machines,
has been that duplexers sometimes mess up, but are nice to have when
they work. If I don't have to share a printer with other users, manual
duplexing works OK.

The 3600n in a local store does not have a duplexer. The 3600dn model
is special-order. Both also cost more than the 2605dn, which is why I
may break down and get the 2605dn instead. It just bugs me that its
smaller toner cartridges equate to higher per-print costs.

Fred

 

[Alexander Gran]

Does anyone have any experience with reliability of the HP CLJ 3600 or
3800? Does either have any unusual quirks?

I have a CLJ 3600. Works quite well, no trouble so far.

regards
Alex

 

[Fred McKenzie]

I have a CLJ 3600. Works quite well, no trouble so far.

Alex and all-

Thanks for the comments. I downloaded the spec sheets from HP for
several candidate printers and discovered that the 3600 does not have
PostScript capability.

Comparing prices, I decided the HP CLJ 3800dn was just too expensive. I
settled for the HP CLJ 2605dn, which I found discounted 20% at CompUSA.
(The local store is closing.)

I'm very impressed with the little HP CLJ 2605dn. It is sort of a
miniature version of the 4600. I just printed the 228 page user guide
using duplex without a hitch.

It will meet my needs for a limited use printer, since it doesn't have
print heads to get clogged after sitting unused for a while!

Fred

 

[Ivor Jones]

[snip]

Comparing prices, I decided the HP CLJ 3800dn was just
too expensive. I settled for the HP CLJ 2605dn, which I
found discounted 20% at CompUSA. (The local store is
closing.)

What was the price, just for comparison..? It was £299 at Staples here in
the UK.

I'm very impressed with the little HP CLJ 2605dn. It is
sort of a miniature version of the 4600. I just printed
the 228 page user guide using duplex without a hitch.

It will meet my needs for a limited use printer, since it
doesn't have print heads to get clogged after sitting
unused for a while!

I'm very impressed with my 2605dn. I added the second paper tray as well,
which is useful. Why didn't I get the 2605dtn which already has it..? Well
I don't need the photo card slots and there were none in stock at my local
Staples anyway.

Fred, let me know if you encounter any duplex printing problems. As you
appear to be in the US you may not encounter the same problem I have had a
few times, as it's to do with the default paper sizes, but I'd be
interested anyway. Basically, the paper size here in the UK is A4 not
letter, and when I set this and tried to print an email that ran to 3
pages duplex, the printer jammed on page 2. It does it every time on long
emails, but not on any other type of document. I too printed the user
guide without a hitch and have done over 500 pages since I had the printer
a month ago, but it's a strange one that not even HP tech support can
figure out.

I can live with it (don't print emails duplex..!) but if anyone else has
come across it I'd be interested to find out if/how it was resolved.


Ivor

 

[Warren Block]

Fred, let me know if you encounter any duplex printing problems. As you
appear to be in the US you may not encounter the same problem I have had a
few times, as it's to do with the default paper sizes, but I'd be
interested anyway. Basically, the paper size here in the UK is A4 not
letter, and when I set this and tried to print an email that ran to 3
pages duplex, the printer jammed on page 2. It does it every time on long
emails, but not on any other type of document. I too printed the user
guide without a hitch and have done over 500 pages since I had the printer
a month ago, but it's a strange one that not even HP tech support can
figure out.

I can live with it (don't print emails duplex..!) but if anyone else has
come across it I'd be interested to find out if/how it was resolved.

Most likely you are printing email attachments that are formatted to
letter. Since you have A4 loaded, the printer detects that there is
still paper going past the sensor in the printer even when a shorter
letter-sized page would have ended.

Save those email attachments to another file, load them into whatever
program created them, and change the page size. Then they will print
without the error.

 

[Ivor Jones]

[snip]

I can live with it (don't print emails duplex..!) but
if anyone else has come across it I'd be interested to
find out if/how it was resolved.

Most likely you are printing email attachments that are
formatted to letter. Since you have A4 loaded, the
printer detects that there is still paper going past the
sensor in the printer even when a shorter letter-sized
page would have ended.

No, I am printing normal text-only emails. They just happen to be longer
than 2 pages. I always ensure that the paper size is correct, so I'm sure
it's not that.

It seems to me from listening to the mechanical sounds as the paper moves
through the printer that sheet 2 is being drawn from the tray before sheet
1 has fully ejected, but I'm not sure. The only way to be sure though
would be to try letter size paper, but it seems to be unobtainable here.
Anyone know of a UK source..?

Ivor

 

[Warren Block]

[snip]

I can live with it (don't print emails duplex..!) but
if anyone else has come across it I'd be interested to
find out if/how it was resolved.

Most likely you are printing email attachments that are
formatted to letter. Since you have A4 loaded, the
printer detects that there is still paper going past the
sensor in the printer even when a shorter letter-sized
page would have ended.

No, I am printing normal text-only emails. They just happen to be longer
than 2 pages. I always ensure that the paper size is correct, so I'm sure
it's not that.

Your headers say you use Outlook Express, so the easy thing to try would
be another email program--any other email program. Thunderbird seems
okay.

It seems to me from listening to the mechanical sounds as the paper moves
through the printer that sheet 2 is being drawn from the tray before sheet
1 has fully ejected, but I'm not sure.

If it was a mechanical problem, the software used wouldn't matter.

The only way to be sure though would be to try letter size paper, but
it seems to be unobtainable here. Anyone know of a UK source..?

Cut some A4 to 11", and feed it so the cut edge is the trailing edge.
You'll likely have to change settings in the printer, driver, and
application to get all to agree.

 

[Ivor Jones]

[snip]

I can live with it (don't print emails duplex..!)
but if anyone else has come across it I'd be
interested to find out if/how it was resolved.

Most likely you are printing email attachments that
are formatted to letter. Since you have A4 loaded,
the printer detects that there is still paper going
past the sensor in the printer even when a shorter
letter-sized page would have ended.

No, I am printing normal text-only emails. They just
happen to be longer than 2 pages. I always ensure that
the paper size is correct, so I'm sure it's not that.

Your headers say you use Outlook Express, so the easy
thing to try would be another email program--any other
email program. Thunderbird seems okay.

I tried Thunderbird and got the same result with the same messages that
caused the problem in OE. I haven't tried Outlook proper yet but I will.

If it was a mechanical problem, the software used
wouldn't matter.

It might if the software is telling the printer to start on sheet 2
early..?

Cut some A4 to 11", and feed it so the cut edge is the
trailing edge. You'll likely have to change settings in
the printer, driver, and application to get all to agree.

This is where I think the problem may lie. This always seems to me to be
unnecessarily complicated, why can't the print settings be set in *one*
place, rather than three..?! I never recall these problems with DOS, or
even Novell NetWare come to that.

Anyway, as I said it's a minor issue as pretty much everything else prints
ok duplex and I don't print many emails. But I would be intrigued to know
the cause.

Ivor

 

[Warren Block]

I tried Thunderbird and got the same result with the same messages that
caused the problem in OE. I haven't tried Outlook proper yet but I will.


It might if the software is telling the printer to start on sheet 2
early..?

Low-level hardware control from the application is very unlikely.

This is where I think the problem may lie. This always seems to me to be
unnecessarily complicated, why can't the print settings be set in *one*
place, rather than three..?! I never recall these problems with DOS, or
even Novell NetWare come to that.

More features mean more complexity. DOS didn't care about paper size,
but each application had to have its own internal printer driver.

Anyway, as I said it's a minor issue as pretty much everything else prints
ok duplex and I don't print many emails. But I would be intrigued to know
the cause.

Boot a Linux liveCD on the same computer, retrieve the email, and print
them to see what happens.

 

[Fred McKenzie]

What was the price, just for comparison..? It was £299 at Staples here in
the UK.

Ivor-

CompUSA regular price was US$499.99 for the HP CLJ 2605dn. I paid the
discounted price of $399.99.

I just checked the Hewlett Packard web site, and find they are selling
it for $374.99 with free shipping, after their "instant rebate" is
considered. I didn't get such a good deal after all!

On the other hand, the HP CLJ 3800dtn that I might have ordered, had a
discounted price of $1,399.99 at the HP web site, and shipping isn't
free. So I saved about $1000, depending on how you look at it.

It is too soon to know if there will be trouble with the duplexer.

With regard to your problem, it is possible to have the rear portion of
the paper tray stretched out for legal, and the center adjustment pushed
in for A4. If that were the case, the paper size sensors might get
confused. The system might try to print more lines of unformatted text
than the actual paper size can hold, even though it prints formatted
text OK.

Try resetting the paper tray. Move the center limit out to its extreme,
and then make sure the "Legal" rear portion of the tray is all the way
in. Then reset the center limit to your A4 paper size.

I've never seen a paper tray quite like this one, with the separate
slide-out assembly for just the legal size.

Fred