Help me pick some things for the office

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A new tax year is upon us and I'm setting up an office of my own. As such I need a couple of things.

  1. Laser printer

    • What do you guys recommend? I need something as cheap and reliable as possible. Toner replacements should be cheap (boss doesn't go for anything other than the "genuine" stuff so keep that in mind). It should also be able to withstand printing about 40 tax returns a day, everyday, for 4 months straight. (the one in the other office is an hp laserjet pro 400).

  2. Scanner

    • Certain tax documents require scanning to keep records. Sometimes they're paper, other times they're things like an insurance card, etc. What do you guys think would be the best and cheapest option for this application?

  3. Surge Protector

    • Gotta protect this stuff somehow, any favorites out there? Again, trying to keep costs low to help maximize potential profits but they aren't too expensive anyway and shelling out for a good one is of no issue here.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Toner is one of our biggest expenses if not the biggest so that is the most important consideration in order to help keep our prices low for our clients.

2

I really like my brother.

See above, could go AIO
http://www.brother-usa.com/Printer/ModelDetail/1/HL3180CDW/Overview

I would go with a full UPS, because its going to isolate noise (internal transforrmer) and protect the equipment from power loss. The company I work for uses tripplite for our desktops but the server room has APC. Your call really.

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Never put a laser printer on a UPS unless it's specifically designed for that, which nothing under $1000 is. You can use the un-battery backed UPS outlets for the all in one device

But in general, Adubs has given you the right idea. I'd suggest doing some cost analysis for toner/cost per page, availability, maybe the availability of 3rd party toner, etc. I have Canon all in one Scanner/copier/fax/printers at my office and they are ok, but we do the bulk of our printing on other printers, so I can't say how well they would hold up under heavy loads.

4

Ok so after some looking around I stumbled upon this guy:

The toner is ~1100 higher page yield than the hp 80x stuff and ~$60 cheaper per cartridge (for the 'genuine' stuff at least). Should hopefully help lower costs quite a bit.

5

Not bad. It's low end but probably adequate.

Found some cheap toner for you. $30 delivered. There's a discount if you buy 3.

I'd order some toner pronto because the included cartridge is a low-capacity one.

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I don't need anything to fancy. It's only going to be used to print copies of tax returns and scan documents for record keeping, the most demanding thing is the quantity as I'll be doing roughly 500 returns this year. The printer in the main office is a laserjet pro 400 m401dne and that's stood up to a few years of over 1000 returns.

1 Like
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Why is that? Amp draw?

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Mostly. But they aren't that critical that they need to be up during an outage either.

9

Wow, I knew they drew a decent amount of juice but I didnt expect the numbers they're coming up with there. TIL

IIRC you wouldnt even want that on the transformer then because inductive circuits resist changes in current. Seems to me like surge only would be the way you want to go for those.

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Can you speak on the quality of those cartridges? I can't have smudges, streaks, or leaks on the papers I print.

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Nope. I'd expect OEM quality. Give them a call or email to have them explain what you can expect.