Printers

Cartridge inkjet, ink tank or laser printer:

how much you print decides it more than what you print. A cartridge inkjet such as an HP DeskJet is cheap to buy, but its standard black cartridge is good for only about a hundred pages, so it suits a household that prints a few school assignments a month and little else. Ink tank models, from Epson’s EcoTank L series, Canon’s G series or HP’s Smart Tank, are refilled from bottles that last thousands of pages and handle photos as well as homework. A monochrome laser from Brother or HP prints text only, but toner does not dry out, so it suits someone who prints in bursts and then leaves the machine alone for weeks. Most homes end up with a multifunction model, which adds a scanner and copier to any of the three. Thermal printers are a different animal: receipt printers at a shop or café counter and label printers for people shipping parcels from an online business both work on heat-sensitive paper and use no ink at all. Wi-Fi printing is only as reliable as the signal where the printer sits, and a weak corner of the house is a networking problem rather than a printer fault.

An ink tank and a mono laser at the same price:

new, a brand-name ink tank multifunction and a black-and-white laser multifunction both land around ₡100,000 to ₡140,000, so the choice comes down to use, not budget. A used ink tank is worth what its printhead is worth. On Epson and Canon tank printers the head is part of the machine rather than the cartridge, so a clogged one is the expensive fault, and a seller who can show a clean test page earns a better price. A used cartridge printer fetches little whatever its condition, because its running cost sits in the cartridges and new ones of that kind are cheap.

HP region locks, Epson ink pads and sublimation conversions:

three things catch out buyers of second-hand printers in Costa Rica. An HP printer locks itself to the region of the first cartridges it was set up with, so one bought in Miami rejects Latin American cartridges, and only HP can reset it. Epson tank printers keep count of the ink flushed into an internal pad; when the count runs out they stop with a message that the ink pads have reached the end of their service life, and need a service visit. Ask whether a tank printer has ever run sublimation ink for printing mugs and T-shirts, because once that ink has been through the head, going back to ordinary ink is not a simple refill. On a cartridge printer fitted with a continuous ink kit, look for dried ink around the tubes and the carriage. On a laser, print the configuration page from the menu: it shows the total page count, and on Brother models the drum is a separate part that wears out on its own schedule. Toner and bottles sold as original but priced well below it belong with the checks under printer accessories.

Handing over a printer in Puntarenas or San Ramón:

print a test page and a nozzle check on the day you take the photos, and put both in the listing next to the model label. Say how full the tanks or the toner are, whether the cartridges are originals, refills or a continuous ink kit, and whether the printer came from the United States. Spare bottles and toner sell better bundled with the printer than on their own. Whoever comes to collect it will want to see it print from their own phone, so have it on the Wi-Fi with paper loaded, and once it is unplugged, close the tank caps tight and keep a tank printer upright in the car, because it leaks if laid on its side.