Boat Printer

[goeasy123]

What's the best A4 printer/scanner to keep on board to deal with various authorities around the world requiring documentation?

I thinking the follow things are important.... Small, Easy to get consumables, Robust... anything else to consider?

 

[Boathook]

Survive damp conditions or is that within robust ?

All the printers I have had at home don't seem to like not being used.

 

[Kelpie]

Laser seems to be the way to go, inkjets don't like sitting around in the damp not being used regularly.

 

[Graham376]

Will only use HP these days as print heads are on cartridge and can be wiped off with damp tissue if ink has dried through lack of use. We have three HPs in different locations, HP 3760 on board, very compact but will only scan single sheet, I just use camera if need copy of a book page. As with previous printers on board, keep in poly bag when not in use, this one's about 3 years old and works fine.

 

[goeasy123]

That's a thought. Do I need it to be able to scan for any authorities around the world or will a phone picture do?

 

[Norman_E]

I agree with both the above. I gave up on inkjets printers some years ago because they clogged if left unused, though at least HP printers with the combined cartridge and print head can sometimes be saved by cleaning the print head, and at worst can be saved by buying new cartridges. My choice on board was a small light mono laser but the model is no longer available and the cheapest ones are now about £90 - £100. Before buying any printer make sure that pattern toner cartridges are available from cheap sources, so that you are not forced to pay manufacturers prices.

I never needed a scanner on board, but did not need to deal with authorities except in Turkey.

 

[GHA]

I went for one of these -
Impressora Hp Sf M110we Laserjet- 6 Meses De Instant Ink Incluídos Com Hp+ | Auchan
Cheaper back then....
Once in a blue moon makes life so much easier onboard but tbh probably cheaper to save to a usb drive & get a copy shop to print it for you. Copyshops everywhere.
Many years round the atlantic can't actually remember having to print anything specific out to check in.... crewlist can be generic & a load printed out when there's one available. Lasts a while singlehanded ?
Can be useful though to print off a load of harbour charts from opencpn if you want some paper in case of the worst happening......

 

[Yngmar]

If you have the space, the smallest monochrome laser you can find. Keep it in a plastic bag when not in use or it will succumb to the environment pretty soon. They'll just switch on and work. Power draw when heating up is considerable though, so make sure you have the inverter and batteries to suit. My go-to brand is Brother, as they have the least amount of customer scamming and other ??

Otherwise a small "travel" inkjet printer. These are inevitably a frustrating experience, keep that in mind. They will always have dried up when you need them and you'll spend more ink on nozzle cleaning than on actual printing, at least for our use. It's much smaller than a laser, so that's why we're stuck with that. It wasn't even cheap, as you pay more for a small travel one than for a cheapo multifunction office beast. Ours is an Epson, but don't take that as recommendation. It has the usualy overpriced brand ink with DRM in it and a "waste" cartridge that is metered, so you have to replace it even when it isn't full yet. This is where most of that hyperexpensive ink goes when you use the nozzle cleaning feature

General printer buying advice: Don't ever buy HP printers, you'll always get scammed at every step of the process. Other manufacturers do this too, but HP does it the worst.

 

[Graham376]

That's a thought. Do I need it to be able to scan for any authorities around the world or will a phone picture do?

I don't have or want smartphone, I transfer photo to computer and print it out.

 

[ChromeDome]

There are some good PDF scanner apps for mobiles, but an MFP is definitely better.

"Brother" does it for me

 

[Graham376]

General printer buying advice: Don't ever buy HP printers, you'll always get scammed at every step of the process. Other manufacturers do this too, but HP does it the worst.

What a load of rubbish. I've had lots of makes over the years and HP have proved to be the most reliable. Other makes print heads or ink tubes have dried up and had to bin the printers. Never any HP scams, just buy the printer and use aftermarket cartridges if needing to save money.

 

[jdc]

We have had an HP Deskjet, the 3050A, on board for years, since 2012 iirc (can it really be that old?? Ages anyway). It's been to the arctic and the tropics and has never broken down and seems to produce pretty good colour prints, scans and copies. Incredibly useful piece of kit. Take different papers including heavier and photographic style paper to make it more flexible. Ink cartridges seem available anywhere and no more expensive than normal.

In so many places a neat copy of a document or a special document (eg a crew list, or list of previous ports visited) has proved invaluable when checking in to a country. We also used it to help other cruisers who had paperwork issues, for instance an Austrian whose registration had run out and all he had was a renewal email from Austria. We were able to make a good enough quality printout of his new one to satisfy the port officials, getting him out of a sticky situation.

Anything else to consider? Make sure your inverter will power it ok. We have 300W at 110V which proved adequate for us and our printer never complained.

 

[Goldie]

We have an HP OfficeJet 200 and bought it just over a year ago (in Spain) for €210 - being compact comes at a price.

Excellent results, no issues with print heads drying (max 4 months unused so far) and easy to set up and use even for an IT numpty like me. I’ve never needed to scan, but apparently it does that as well. When we need to print we do so wirelessly from tablet or phone.

Absolutely no negatives from me at all.

 

[sailaboutvic]

As for cartage that's dry out from lack of use .
Drop it in some warm water I found will get them working again .

 

[laika]

My go-to brand is Brother, as they have the least amount of customer scamming and other ??
[…]
General printer buying advice: Don't ever buy HP printers

Sounds like you’ve had a bad experience with HP. Fortunately I have not and my 22 year old laserjet is still going strong, albeit now requiring a usb to parallel converter.

My brand advice is generally to go with HP or Epson as they have always had the best open source support. Bank holiday Monday was partially devoted to getting first mate’s old deskjet working with a raspberry pi print server. No problem. Unlike her old canon which is junk since the demise of windows xp.

These are “house” printers though. When we were living aboard I was looking for a compact/portable colour laser. Drew a blank. All the portable ones were thermal or inkjet. Hopefully thing have moved on since then?

 

[TSailors]

I would get a small Xerox laser printer. They are cheap, fast enough, trouble free (we had one for years), small footprint, and they support wifi printing.. like this one:
Xerox B230 Black-and-White Printer - Xerox

 

[alexsailor]

I use EPSON WF-100 now for two years now. It is small, portable and wireless. You charge it and then you can work in the cockpit, bar...
Works perfectly. I do not use it that much but I did not have any problems with inkjet.
It does not have a scanner. That you have to buy or you just download an app for that and it is perfect.

 

[Mistroma]

We have had an HP Deskjet, the 3050A, on board for years, since 2012 iirc (can it really be that old?? Ages anyway). It's been to the arctic and the tropics and has never broken down and seems to produce pretty good colour prints, scans and copies. Incredibly useful piece of kit. Take different papers including heavier and photographic style paper to make it more flexible. Ink cartridges seem available anywhere and no more expensive than normal.

In so many places a neat copy of a document or a special document (eg a crew list, or list of previous ports visited) has proved invaluable when checking in to a country. We also used it to help other cruisers who had paperwork issues, for instance an Austrian whose registration had run out and all he had was a renewal email from Austria. We were able to make a good enough quality printout of his new one to satisfy the port officials, getting him out of a sticky situation.

Anything else to consider? Make sure your inverter will power it ok. We have 300W at 110V which proved adequate for us and our printer never complained.

We've had the same model for approx. same length of time and no problems apart from ink drying up after 6 months storage. Usually get it working again by cleaning the cart. with water, IPA etc. but Covid was a bridge too far with 2.5 years in storage. A pair of new carts. sorted it out. The HP thermal head is more prone to blocking than the Epson piezo type but the print head is in the cartridge. The Epson print head is part of the printer. Power consumption is low and a 300W inverter will easily cope. I think the supply is rated at about 70W but actual used is more like 10W as far as I can remember.

 

[syvictoria]

Gosh, this really is 21st century consumerism in action! It's no wonder that it's considered 'necessary' to have a 40+ foot boat! And what do you do with all these broken printers and disposable consumables? Straight to landfill for the most part, I suspect. And I expect that lot's of you carry a laminator on board too!?

The future is doomed!

What happened to planning a little in advance, and using the services of an internet cafe, etc...

 

[Kelpie]

Our forward planning let us down when I forgot to extend our insurance cover... our arrival in A Coruna was slightly spoiled by me trying to download and print off a Spanish insurance certificate ?
Not entirely our fault, still puzzled about how an insurance company can offer cover for 'Mediterranean Portugal'.

We also home school our son which requires a fairly large quantity of printing and, yes, laminating. Likely less than if he was in a real school, they love laminating stuff there. I swear if you stood still long enough they'd try to laminate the parents too.