Adam Savage's Rant on Laser Printers

During the filming of his most recent One Day Build, Adam takes an interlude to dish out a few strong words about laser printers and his quest to find a quality large format printer for his prop building projects. If you have a recommendation for a high quality large color laser printer, please share it in the comments!

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Intro bumper by Abe Dieckman

Thanks for watching!

[tested]

If you have a recommendation for a high quality large color laser printer, please share it!

[mickyoung]

Printer Technician here, it looks like the image is going onto the media OK (no drum or developer fault) however it is coming off in the fuser (hot section). In the printer driver there will be settings to change the thickness (based on media GSM) and also media type (eg labels). Changing these settings will increase the temperature in the fuser and slow down the print speed to ensure the toner is adhered to the media. Check your printer specification to see what media thickness it can handle, most will do 200 - 250gsm (80 - 90lb) and compare that to the sticker paper you are trying to print on. When looking for a new printer make this specification a must have, also check toner prices and yield to work out running costs as they vary quite considerably. Popular makes of toner (laser or LED) printers are Canon, Kyocera, Oki, Lexmark, Xerox, Toshiba, Ricoh so maybe go to their websites to do your research instead of using Google where you will probably be taken to reseller websites who wont list the full specifications. Also consider a commercial grade photocopier not just a consumer printer as the pricing might be similar and you will get a much better machine.

[JamesStrior]

I started feeling my blood pressure rising during your rant about SEO. Thank you for putting my frustration into words!

[elcorado]

"There is more noise than signal now" THANK YOU for saying this Adam-thought it was just me wading through all this nonsense on Google to find anything now!

[enigmatic]

I feel validated! I can't believe your level of frustration reached the point that you had to record a rant about this, I was *just* searching for laser printers last week and ran into the exact same issues! It was maddening and I had to give up, I didn't have enough time to go down that rabbit hole.

[chuckoneill]

I've been servicing laser printers for decades, here's my take:
Try adjusting your media setting to a heavier weight. Your machine may actually have enough heat, if set correctly.
For smaller printers, the fuser is a component you can swap out -- try installing a fresh fuser, as it seems at least some of the fuser is working, so you may have roller wear issues. Maybe, if that helps, reserve that "good" fuser for just the special jobs to reduce how much wear it gets.
Also --- how many pages do you do at once? Try just one page at a time -- this possibly allows the fuser to have the best peak heat for that one page.
Printing on metallic paper is tricky for most laser printers -- before fusing, the toner is applied using high voltage static charges. Obviously, any media which is partially conductive can disrupt that.

[OmnivoreMind]

I worked in a print shop for years and used several 11x17 color laser printers. My advice would be to skip the search engines and go directly to the manufacturers' websites. Xerox, Canon, Konica Minolta, HP. I found quite a few that may meet your needs. I didn't do an in-depth comparison, but a lot of them have spec sheets available, and I bet they would gladly answer questions from you.

[AntManBee]

Your rant on the search results is so true. I have done this for other products. Truly a scam camouflaged in “helpful” best of lists.

[gryphus]

You need to choose Thick 2 or Thick 3 as the paper type. It's not only good for heavy paper but it's also to slow down the fuser part of the printer to better set the toner into the paper. The fuser drum could also need replacing

[DUKE_of_RAMBLE]

Oh my god, I'm so goddamn happy that Adam shares MY EXACT FRUSTRATION with Google Search! Because, despite my numerous scathing feedback I've sent them, I'm still a nobody at the end of the day... But Adam is a well respected, *huge* somebody, and I sure hope that this issue gains traction as a result!!
Thank you, thank you, _thank you!_ I feel so vindicated now. 😊❤️

[ted]

As a prior MFP/copier technician: Check if the print driver has an option for thicker paper, this will increase the heat and thus toner adhesion, the thicker the paper setting, the more heat (Card stock = super heat). Large copiers have this. Yes, the bulk of large formats are ink, the print head has to move such as large distance and I see that as being an issue to have have the components to apply heat and thus that increases cost and thus lowers market share. Also yes, search engine results have been horrible imo the last year, maybe ask HP etc dealership and or sales and get their salesman after you. Edit: Side note, ask all your contacts whom have used card stock tips on the printer brand and thus driver settings needed for heat. Copier dealerships, print shops etc may answer this for free out of kindness if you are polite. Ensure you use the newest print driver from the manufacturers website, PC has way more robust drivers and thus settings in my experience than MAC.

[KTigr]

"Large Format" in the context of printers usually refers to a plotter. Without getting into a very expensive printer, you're probably not going to find a reasonably priced laser color plotter. if you are looking for something that can print on 11x17 aka tabloid paper, I'd recommend searching for "tabloid color laser printer" or "11x17 color laser printer". For your current printer, based on the small section that is getting ripped off down the paper, you may have a bad fuser. A quick check is while it's cold, remove the fuser and look at the orange(ish) roller in it and see if you can see any damage to it. If it's not the same color/texture all the way across, it is damaged and needs to be replaced. If it is good, changing the media in the print settings for the program you are using will adjust the temperature for the particular type of media which might help with the damage to the outputted print job.

[CheMechanical]

I share your frustration, Adam. Two years ago, at the start of COVID, I tried to buy an 11x17 color scanner to work at home. I bought the one recommended by Amazon only to find out on delivery it was an 8.5x11 unit that was misrepresented similar to what you described. I sent it back and got $350 credit then bought a surplus new DS-60000 for $2, 000 that works fantastically.

[Guardian_Arias]

its happening more and more with all search engines where you are incapable of searching for "specialized equipment" its infuriating. really does fell like search engines are past searching and just serve up the closest matching ad with highest revenue. even when you include strings to purposefully ignore website, force emphasis on words and so on, at some point the engine literally gives up and says i can't find what im looking for.

[timrobinson]

The term “large format” usually refers to machines that use roll feed media and print way bigger than your 11x17” (A3 to those in metric land) which is actually a pretty standard format. Canon and FujiXerox are my 2 favorite brands when it comes to pro colour level laser printers. They are generally about the size of a bar fridge for the basic printing unit and you can generally lease them for a pretty good rate if you don’t want to buy

[marcberm]

SEO has absolutely destroyed the quality and utility of Internet search.

[ianburkard]

5:00 The same thing happens when makers are searching for raw materials or specialty products like vinyl paint, raw pigments, large format scanners etc. I'm surprised that this if your first time encountering product search manipulation. I'm not sure who manages and promotes these "best of" product lists, but it's very very annoying.

[budmartin]

In my decades of repairing laser printers, the error you showed at the start is caused most frequently by the fuser (the hot roller) losing the teflon coating causing the previously deposited toner to be attracted to the fuser and redeposited down the page. Some times the problem is started by the developer roller Usually in the toner cartridge, becoming worn and smearing excess toner onto the page. When this happens, remove the cartridge and examine the usually green roller in the cartridge for wear or excess toner build up. If you can see the actual heat drum in the the fusing assembly examine it for wear and excess toner. Never use refurb cartridges if you want to reduce the likely hood of these problems. Note don't touch the fuser roller, it's hot enough to burn you with ease. Furthermore, I have seen refurb cartridges do this to the point of taking out the fuser as well. It's not usually a heat problem, the fuser is hot and there are temperature sensors to sense any low heat problem. Some laser printers actually have menu settings that can alter the heat setting as well, but I would not assume that to be the problem.

[DanielMReck]

When I print on thicker stock or anything super smooth, I need to change the paper type in the print settings. Choosing thick cardstock, envelope, or similar will slow the paper feed speed to give the fuser a better shot of setting the toner.

I have an ancient 11x17 laser printer to print my music scores, but it is monochrome. It fits my needs as a composer but I've not found a comparable color option.

Adam, I love everything you do and appreciate you sharing your talent and humanity with us. Thank you for remotely enriching our lives -- I wish I had more people like you in life.

[jk-video]

I agree with the rant on search engines (and I am an IT professional). Well, I tried switching to "laser printer large format". It helped a little, but the problem was still there. And you can change to +laser, but then you can still get the reviews that have one laser printer and 9 inkjets. The rant is appropriate.