Terry Mair wrote:
Are you happy with your Alps? I have heard that it has a problem with
banding have you experienced this? and about how long does it take to
print an 8X10?
Terry,
I couldn't be happier with the printer. Of course, it's not for
everyone; I know very few people that put up with them. Those of us
that do are kind and gentle people.
The printer is a neat looking black monolith box with a flat top for
storing magazines and drinks rather it's running or not. It doesn't
seem to vibrate so much when it's holding food. It's foot print is
smaller than most printers.
Without fear of contriction, I can state that it is the dead slowest
printer Ive ever seen or even heard of since the earth cooled; I speak
of experience as I drug home one each of Epson, HP, and Cannon fancy
color printer prior to the Alps for trails.
How long for an 8X10 to print ? I really don't know. I leave the room.
I plan on doing errands or vacuuming after I load one up. It's like a
pot of boiling water.
It's a photocentric printer. It can print grat quality text and graphs
but you're not gonna want to unload and reload ribbons and wait for a
one page letter.
But when it comes to pictures, I don't know of it's equal (with the dye
sub kit installed). The "banding" you mentioned is probably the glossy
finish that can be applied over the color. If you stick your nose righ
in the picture, you can see banding trails in certain reflected light.
You can go for the matte finish (no glossy coat) and not have this
issue. You don't notice any banding at normal viewing distances.
You can use laser paper for run-of-the-mill photos; never inkjet paper.
Alps printers (especially the MD-5000) can't run on inkjet paper at
all; liked leaded gasoline. At any one time, mine has $40 to $75 worth
of little odd cartridges inside and the roughness of inkjet paper will
rip them up.
It wants very flat paper as it doesn't spray ink (inkjet); it applies
color.... For photo-realistic pictures, a special paper is available
at about a buck a sheet.
I put a the dye sublimation kit into mine; it now works in continuous
tone (CMYK) and does beautiful work. This was a dramatic improvement in
fine detail and tone for another $100. You can't let money bother you.
It is an expensive printer to buy and operate.
It eats cartridges (four cartridges at $12/ea. for dye sublimation).
It eats expensive paper ($1/sheet for the one kind of paper to go with
the dye sub mode).
It also sounds like you're standing at the rear of a Gleaner combine
when it fires up and checks its ribbons; very mechanical thing.
Mine has never had a problem and I run it a lot. Incidently, ALPS
support is 24/7 with a warm body answering the phone at no charge.
They are very good and so is my printer.
===
Chip Kinkead
St. Louis, MO USA
chipkinkead@xxxxxxxxx
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