Printer Cables

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jack Bruss
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Jack Bruss

Question - for a basic home computer user who typically uses inexpensive
printers, does it matter what type of cable is used? I buy them online for
$2 or $3, and don't have any apparant problem with them, and yet I see them
in the stores, in their gold plated splendor, looking like some kind of
space age wonder cable for what seem to me to be ridiculous prices.

Do these $20 to $35 cables have any value over the cheapies I can get
online?

Thanks,

Jack
 
Jack Bruss said:
Question - for a basic home computer user who typically uses inexpensive
printers, does it matter what type of cable is used? I buy them online for
$2 or $3, and don't have any apparant problem with them, and yet I see them
in the stores, in their gold plated splendor, looking like some kind of
space age wonder cable for what seem to me to be ridiculous prices.

Do these $20 to $35 cables have any value over the cheapies I can get
online?
Click to expand...

For the average user the printer cable will not mater. There are some that
do not have all the wires in them and you might not be able to do some
often unused things. It only cost a few bucks to make the cables and more
to package and market them. Then you can get the special gold plated fancey
looking ones for looks. Reminds me of some audio magazine I saw for a power
wire to run from the amplifier to the wall. Over $ 100 as it was some
"special wire" to make it sound beter. Now what could six feet of wire
have in it to make up for the differance of 40 to 100 feet of plain old
wiring in the house ?
 
the only thing that really matters is if it says "compliant" or
"compatible". compliant=good compatible=bad.
 
Jack Bruss said:
for a basic home computer user who typically uses inexpensive
printers, does it matter what type of cable is used? I buy
them online for $2 or $3, and don't have any apparant problem
with them, and yet I see them in the stores, in their gold
plated splendor, looking like some kind of space age wonder
cable for what seem to me to be ridiculous prices.

Do these $20 to $35 cables have any value over the cheapies
I can get online?
Click to expand...

Only decorative, and if you're operating in an environment where
corrosion is a problem, the gold plating would probably eat the metal
from any non-gold connector and it would be better to simply spray
silicone lube on the connectors before plugging them in (includes
card, power, and memory connectors).

The only important differences among cables are the types of the
connectors (laptops usually have mini connectors), the length, and
IEEE-1284 compliance, and you should buy something with "1284" printed
on a connector or, better yet, all along the cable itself. Most of
these cables are also described as "high speed" or "bi-directional."

IEEE-1284 cables contain twisted pairs of wires, where each signal
wire is wrapped with its own ground wire, giving much better signal
quality than cables with unpaired straight-through wires, and this can
matter at the high transmission speeds used by laser and jet ink
printers (even the cheapest). If the cable doesn't contain twisted
pair wires, most likely the printer software will slow down the data
transfers by about 10X and switch to a different transfer format (SPP
mode instead of EPP or ECP). But in reality there won't be a problem
with signal quality if the cable is less than 6' long.
 
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