Thermal A4 printer?

[ithet]

I see these small portable A4 thermal printers advertised for under £100 (under £50 on AliExpress or Temu). Thinking of one for being able to get a quick B&W print out on board, not for major documents or anything that would need keeping. Has anyone any experience? I know the portable inkjets are a better solution, but they are well over twice the price these days.

 

[Refueler]

I used to use a Citizen Thermal printer years ago ... it was to put it honestly - frustrating. The print was so short lived .. worse than a shop receipt.

 

[ithet]

I used to use a Citizen Thermal printer years ago ... it was to put it honestly - frustrating. The print was so short lived .. worse than a shop receipt.

I would be happy if the print out lasted a week.

 

[ylop]

I see these small portable A4 thermal printers advertised for under £100 (under £50 on AliExpress or Temu). Thinking of one for being able to get a quick B&W print out on board, not for major documents or anything that would need keeping. Has anyone any experience? I know the portable inkjets are a better solution, but they are well over twice the price these days.

I have considered one for the same sort of use - but the need for special paper that can't be bought in any old supermarket takes away from the advantage. Its was physical space rather than cost that made me tempted.

 

[rogerthebodger]

The oud fax machines used to be a thermal printer and the print would last only a few days in the summer and you needed a xerox totake a copy to keep the copy for a long time.

Get an inkejet printer that can do copies and scanning

 

[ithet]

Get an inkejet printer that can do copies and scanning

Obviously I would, but far to big to have onboard and needs 230v.

 

[lustyd]

I have the same issue and have not found a solution yet. Printers are either good and big or useless and small there doesn’t seem to be a useful small one

 

[ithet]

- l there doesn’t seem to be a useful small one

But maybe there is? That is why I am interested in hearing from anyone that has one of these current thermal printers.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

There really isn't a good answer. Cheap thermal printers tend to use odd paper sizes, as well as all the problems of impermanence and difficult-to-obtain supplies. So if a document is designed for A4, as most are, it isn't going to print well on a thermal printer! Faced with a similar problem I got an HP Officejet 250, which can run off internal batteries, and uses ordinary plain paper, with the bonus of also being a scanner/copier. There are quite small A4 printers, and there isn't a price differential between A4 inkjet and A4 thermal printers; in fact the inkjet printers tend to come in cheaper than thermal printers capable of an A4 page.

 

[lustyd]

But then an inkjet printer will invariably have dried up when you need it which put me off.
In the end I figured I can find a printer if I really need to print. Marina offices usually have one as do customs and border folk. I have laminated prints of the main paperwork on board and it’s getting more rare that email isn’t sufficient for most stuff.

 

[Refueler]

I have in the drawer another Citizen printer that is designed for portable ... about the size of a 200 cigarette block. It uses pressure transfer tapes ... but no longer works with todays windows versions / PC's as it uses the old parallel plug etc.

Its a virtual 64pin - so the fineness of print detail was really good - but what let it down were the tapes ... you could buy single use tapes or multi's ... single use - if you tried to use a second time - letters etc would have bits missing. The multi tapes gave very weak print as the 'ink' was harder so it didn't transfer all in one go ... you could get about 3 or 4 passes of the tape before it was binned.

I got fed up buying tapes - which of course would be very hard to find now - but first you'd need to get an old PC to use it with !!

 

[Refueler]

The oud fax machines used to be a thermal printer and the print would last only a few days in the summer and you needed a xerox totake a copy to keep the copy for a long time.

Get an inkejet printer that can do copies and scanning

I always laugh when a shop gives a receipt and then say - that's your G'tee ..... couple months later - that receipt is just a white piece of paper !!

Its why anything like that - I stick it straight in the scanner and print a hard copy that does not fade.

 

[dolabriform]

I have an older version of this onboard:
Canon PIXMA TR150 (With Battery) A4 Colour Inkjet Printer

It's rarely used, and can be 10 months between needing to print and the ink has never dried up. It's small enough to pack away, this newer version even has a battery.

 

[Stemar]

Am I right in thinking that thermal printers need a special coated paper? If so, not only will the print fade, but so will your bank balance when you have to buy more.

Dot matrix printers are still available, but they tend to be big beasts for printing lots. For your needs, I'd look around for a small second hand one - plenty on eBay.

 

[lustyd]

Am I right in thinking that thermal printers need a special coated paper? If so, not only will the print fade, but so will your bank balance when you have to buy more.

Depends how much you print. As a cruiser you may only print a few sheets every 6 months. With thermal that would be cheap but with many modern inkjets that could be £50 a go as the cartridges dry out once opened.

I have an older version of this onboard:
Canon PIXMA TR150 (With Battery) A4 Colour Inkjet Printer

It's rarely used, and can be 10 months between needing to print and the ink has never dried up. It's small enough to pack away, this newer version even has a battery.

That looks nice and compact thanks!

 

[AntarcticPilot]

But then an inkjet printer will invariably have dried up when you need it which put me off.
In the end I figured I can find a printer if I really need to print. Marina offices usually have one as do customs and border folk. I have laminated prints of the main paperwork on board and it’s getting more rare that email isn’t sufficient for most stuff.

Probably the answer is to print a test page once in a while.

 

[ylop]

are dried up ink cartridges still a common problem? I’ve not had that issue in a long time and assumed the makers had solved it?

 

[RogerJolly]

Just wondering about the mechanics of it.

Say I’m on a long trip, maybe round UK, in the morning I’d want to print out smaller sub-area of a chart, just to cover that day’s leg.

To do routine plots of my position on the print-out though, I’d need suitable lat/long scale along the edges.

Would there be any charting software that supports this - custom mini-charts of a chosen area complete with lat/long scales?

 

[DipperToo]

I have an older version of this onboard:
Canon PIXMA TR150 (With Battery) A4 Colour Inkjet Printer

It's rarely used, and can be 10 months between needing to print and the ink has never dried up. It's small enough to pack away, this newer version even has a battery.

I also have one - very useful. I just print a test page every month and no ink issues (yet!)

 

[PaulRainbow]

are dried up ink cartridges still a common problem? I’ve not had that issue in a long time and assumed the makers had solved it?

We've got an Epson printer onboard and only use it once in a while, no issue with the ink drying up and a set of pattern inks costs peanuts.

Not suitable for everyone, as it's big and 230V, but we have AC all of the time with the inverter or generator.