happystitcher's Full Review: Black Drum Unit (DR500) for Brother Fax
Like the last reviewer, I was sold on HP printers after having owned two. However, the HP 5L had disappointed me because I had to manually feed it one sheet at a time to avoid it grabbing 5 sheets at a time. It also printed crooked pages. I attributed both problems to the lack of paper tray. I live in a high humidity area so the paper always absorbed too much moisture, causing the multiple page feeding. The paper guides would also move as paper was fed so the paper often fed in crooked. This time around, I was looking for a printer with a tray and HP printers with a tray seemed out of my price range. That's when I saw this Brother printers.
By the way...in response to a comment on the last review, this is a monochromatic laser printer. I like laser printers for general text printing because in the long run, they are cheaper to operate than ink jets (but that's another topic altogether)!
I run a direct marketing business (something similar to Tupperware) so I use my computer/printer to print customer newsletters, instruction sheets, labels, flyers and envelopes. Most of the time, I'm using standard 20lb paper, but sometimes, I use 60-80 lb cardstock.
The Good and Bad on the Duplexer:
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One feature that really appealed to me on this printer was the built in duplexer. With my old printer, I'd print two pages and spend time stapling the two pages together. Now, I can print two sided documents - no stapling required and I saved myself a sheet of paper. There's NO TONER STREAKING down the page, like I used to get with my HP 5L when I tried to "manually" duplex (manual duplex is time consuming!). Now, I just tell the computer how many copies I need, and let my Brother HL1650 do the rest. I cook dinner and it pops out 20 crisp copies with no intervention on my part! I LOVE THIS DUPLEXER!
Interestingly enough...the feature I love the most is the feature I hate the most. The duplexer is VERY reliable on standard 20 lb paper...but almost never works on heavier cardstocks or labels. Here's how it works...if you turn the automatic duplexer on, the printer takes the paper from the paper tray then prints the front. Before spitting the paper out to the output tray, it sucks it back into the duplexer tray and flips it for the second side. It does this function even if your document is ONE page. When I bought the printer and set up the duplexer, I assumed it was smart enough to recognize that many of my documents (particularly label documents) are 1 page and would not attempt to duplex a 1 page document. Not so.
To fix the duplexer problem, simply turn the duplexer off before you print labels and cardstock! Not a big deal...but you have to remember to do this BEFORE you start your print job. If you forget, the printer will give you a red duplexer jam message. The duplex tray pulls out in the BACK of the printer. So be sure you have approx 1 ft of clear space behind the printer so that you can remove the duplexing tray and get the crumpled mess out. Once you've removed the jammed paper, CANCEL THE PRINT JOB! This is important because if you just stick another piece of paper in the printer, it'll "remember" that the duplexer should be on and it'll just jam again. Cancel the print job using the cancel button on the printer, then set the duplexer off, then resend the print job.
By the way, the printer DOES print envelopes and other "odd" sized papers VERY well. Just turn the duplexer off (or "manual" duplex) and use the MP (multipurpose) tray.
Most paper feed problems can be solved by turning the duplexer off. Since most of my duplexing needs require the use of 20lb paper, this isn't a problem for me. When I've had to duplex cardstock, I just switch it to manual, print all page ones, then flip the stack and print all the page 2's. No problem. Honestly, I've never found a printer or copier than handled duplexed cardstock well!
Other Great Features:
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- Reprint! Hey...have you sent a large document with heavy graphics to the printer, then realized you needed 2 copies??? All you have to do is hit the reprint button on the printer and it'll print another copy. No more waiting for the computer to send the data again! YEAH!!!!
- Printing of cardstock and labels without using the straight paper path. Ok...I know I should be using the straight paper path...but you know that that would require another 12"+ of clearance behind the printer! As long as the duplexer is off, I have no problems using the standard output tray with these papers.
- Job cancel button on the printer. Have you sent something to the printer that you don't need anymore? Has the printer jammed and now you want to clear the buffer so that you can turn off the duplexer? Use the job cancel button and your problem is solved. This is far quicker than the job cancel in the print spooler on the computer and works great when the entire job has already been sent to the printer! On my old HP, you had to physically unplug the printer to clear the memory.
- Energy Saver - it's fairly quick at "sleeping" and "waking up". Far faster than my old HP was! No on/off switch, just leave the printer plugged in and when you're not using it, it'll go to "sleep". When you send a job, it'll wake up. I use the default setting to determine when it'll go to sleep (10 mins?)
- Well labeled, easy to understand buttons...not the cryptic combos the HP had which required a manual and PhD to understand!
- Generally easy to use print settings utility. Yes, it's a bit quirky and is giving me a few headaches now that I have Win XP...but compared to my old HP, old Canon and Epson print setting utilities, it is easy to understand and use. I have a little icon on the bar at the bottom (near the clock). You can use this to quickly set the printer settings without going into the tab screens. This icon is faster than screens, but you can only do one setting at a time (maybe they'll fix this in the next release too?). My only problem with this utility is that one day it disappeared from the tray on my old Win 98 computer. I couldn't get it back (I have no clue what I did to make it disappear forever!). Now on Win XP, the icon is back!
Upgrading from Win 98 to XP:
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What a nightmare! I could spend days writing about it. Since I did several different things that may have confused the computer, I can't say that my experience is typical. All I can say is that the printer behaves differently under XP and I hope the native driver (expected 1Q 2002) fixes it.
The preferences screen has something called "autodetect" to determine which paper tray it should use. Under Win 98, this meant that if the MP (multipurpose) tray was empty, it would take the paper from paper tray one (the one under the printer). I use MP for my cardstock and labels. This was a fast way to use specialty paper rather than opening paper tray 1 and loading different papers. Now...I set "auto detect", but it will still pull from the default tray (which I have set to paper tray 1). When I said that my default tray was MP and MP was empty, the printer gave me a red message saying that MP was empty and wouldn't automatically use paper tray 1. I can live with this.
I also get this strange message saying that there isn't enough room on my computer and to delete data from the hard drive. The job prints fine and I have 70gig of hard drive space available so I have NO CLUE why I keep getting this message. I sent a note to Brother to ask about this and will update if I hear something back.
Summary of Hints for Buyers of this printer:
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- Make sure you really have room for this printer. I don't think they really intended it for the average home user. It's HUGE. The box itself is approx 18" deep, 17" wide, 11" high. However, if you open the MP tray (used for labels, cardstock etc) add another 12" to the depth. If you'll need to clear duplexer jams, add another 12-15" to the depth in the back. I store mine on a cart under my desk. When the duplexer jams, I pull it out and clear the jam then shove it back into place (I now can clear jams by "feel" rather than pulling it all the way out). Don't count on putting this printer on a bookshelf or in a cabinet that doesn't allow for easy back access! Trust me...unless you leave your duplexer off or you never print labels or cardstock, you'll need to clear a jam!
- If you're using XP, let XP "detect" the printer and move on with life. The Brother website is super confusing and bottom line is, XP does have a driver that works for this printer. I wish I could tell you how I set my printer up to use the Brother utility...but after spending over 24 hours setting up my computer (generally, not printer related) and having several problems with the Brother drivers in specific, I don't know how I got it to work (it just started working after not working and giving error messages!) The website promises a "native" Brother driver 1Q 2002. I can't wait!
- If you want to set your printing defaults (ie which tray to use, default the duplexer to be on or off etc), you MUST go to control panel, printers, then properties for the Brother printer. Don't try to go to your application, hit print, then printer settings. Both methods bring up the Brother driver utility, but using the screen from within MS Word, Corel Draw etc, will only set the settings for that document/session, not set overall defaults. For printer defaults that apply to all jobs, use Control Panel, then override the settings in each individual document.
Late Breaking Update!
Brother tech support came through! They finally updated the XP drivers for this printer and after following their instructions 5 times, I finally got it working again. Don't follow the emailed instructions...if you read the website instructions and follow them to the letter, it'll work. My automatic paper selection now works again (it'll pull from the MP tray, if paper is there. If there's nothing in MP, it'll take the paper from tray 1). Most importantly, it no longer gives me an error message saying that I don't have enough disk space on my computer!
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