Want Colour Printer: Prints White? And Silver? Cardboard? Bluetooth? Padded Envs? Cheap Inks?

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Hi there, this isn't actually really about photos (more about artwork on labels, and bookmarks - all for myself, not on demand for other people) but l have a login for this forum so why not?

Does anybody have suggestions for a printer to run as a general business workhorse - printing for my own small business needs - not selling print jobs as such?

I want a colour laser or inkjet that can:

* Print white / silver
* Print on cardboard
* Print on transparent vinyl labels
* Print on jiffy bags
* High resolution
* Include inks as part of the original package
* Replacement inks must be cheap
* Wireless / bluetooth connectivity
* Prints in mono if one or more colours run out
* Prints duplex


I want it cheap (under £160), so cult-status obsolete models still floating around with 3rd party inks readily available are welcome.

Obviously for £160 l won't tick all boxes but please do suggest something, even if it costs a grand. But l'd prefer < £200.
 
I probably sound a bit conceited with that OP but l'm just saying what i want and how much money i have. All advice welcome. Printing white and silver is probably the most contentious issue in all of this,

I don't care about speed really - it's just for me.
 
Hi

At that budget many inkjets will address the more commonplace 'needs' above such my Canon TS8250

But.....
Print white/silver ~ the only printer I ever came across where they developed true white 'ink' was the HP Indigo......have you got a spare £100k stuffed down the back of the sofa and £20k a year for the service contract!

Define cardboard ~ 200gsm light weight card.....or are you talking about E or Z wall carton cardboard??? The former (check max GSM that a printer will take) is doable...the latter as per white ink above is highly specialised.

Jiffy bag printing ~ see above notes about cardboard ;)

I am not saying your wish list is impossible but perhaps break it down to 'must have' and 'would welcome having'

HTH :)
 
Hi there!

Cardboard = circa 200 gsm light cardboard - l mean: bookmarks, business cards, something the customer would want to keep next to their deskphone.

As for the jiffy bags, l don't know how high-sales-volume businesses are run but l was toying with the idea of printing Royal Mail Postage Paid labels with customer address + a pretty logo directly to the jiffy bag. That might save me 1 pence per mailout, possibly £2-£5 per week ... printer might pay for itself after a year on that basis alone.

Re: white / silver, £100k? Ridiculous! You only need about £3k for the Xerox C60 modified by some Italian-sounding addon ---> https://biancodigitale.co.uk/portfolio-item/gold-silver-white-ink-xerox-c60wps/

i hope they give you a free set of starter inks


Seriously though, l thought maybe the Epson Artisan 1430 might do it. I'm seriously looking at injkets over laser printers now. Fun fact: i'm pretty sure l once sold an Epson Artisan 1430 for peanuts a few years ago. Never had a clue what the point of it was, other than it was slightly bigger than a normal A4 inkjet. Now l can't even see that model listed on the net.
 
Hi there!

Cardboard = circa 200 gsm light cardboard - l mean: bookmarks, business cards, something the customer would want to keep next to their deskphone.

As for the jiffy bags, l don't know how high-sales-volume businesses are run but l was toying with the idea of printing Royal Mail Postage Paid labels with customer address + a pretty logo directly to the jiffy bag. That might save me 1 pence per mailout, possibly £2-£5 per week ... printer might pay for itself after a year on that basis alone.

Re: white / silver, £100k? Ridiculous! You only need about £3k for the Xerox C60 modified by some Italian-sounding addon ---> https://biancodigitale.co.uk/portfolio-item/gold-silver-white-ink-xerox-c60wps/

i hope they give you a free set of starter inks


Seriously though, l thought maybe the Epson Artisan 1430 might do it. I'm seriously looking at injkets over laser printers now. Fun fact: i'm pretty sure l once sold an Epson Artisan 1430 for peanuts a few years ago. Never had a clue what the point of it was, other than it was slightly bigger than a normal A4 inkjet. Now l can't even see that model listed on the net.

Well, technology has moved on......the HP Indigo is a series of high speed presses used in the label and sheet feed printing processes. White ink was for some time the "holy grail" of colours and as I recall it first came (it was the most expensive of toners) in about 2014. I won't bore you with the question about metallic inks & toners at that time, I left the industry in 2016 :)

So, no surprise there are/is now more budget worthy options.

Re: Jiffy bags ~ big volume businesses will be getting their bespoke ones printed as part of the manufacturing process, possibly including the postal license number(s). But I don't recall ever receiving such a bespoke printed Jiffy bag...... though plenty with postal labels ;)
 
Thanks buddy.

I was hoping for volume sales plus microscopic savings by not using labels on the envelope, so therefore maybe i might recoup the cost of the printer over a couple of years (and blow it all on white n silver ink instead).

I guess what i really want to know is: can i hack a cheap printer to give me white / silver? I guess i'd need a good art program to instruct the printer on what to do.
 
Thanks buddy.

I was hoping for volume sales plus microscopic savings by not using labels on the envelope, so therefore maybe i might recoup the cost of the printer over a couple of years (and blow it all on white n silver ink instead).

I guess what i really want to know is: can i hack a cheap printer to give me white / silver? I guess i'd need a good art program to instruct the printer on what to do.

@dorcasmallorcus
Now what was the old saying in regard to savings.....'penny wise, pound foolish' ;)

As for hacking a cheap printer to print with white & metallic.......that surely starts with the inks/toners!!!! (NB in the absence of such inks, white or metallic colours are normally created but using white, gold or silver 'papers' i.e. you are not printing those particular 'colours' but relying on "reversing them out" in your designs.....but as you will appreciate the same document will not be able to have all three colours on it). You can achieve that look by using the hotfoil stamping process but for what you describe I doubt the investment in machinery & materials and the time it would take to hand process hundreds a week would be impractical.

I of course stand to be corrected but there are no (consumer grade) inkjet white or metallic inks. As you have found there is now a budget grade professional(?) Laser printer that offers white and metallic inks. So when you find a way to do it....by hacking it..do let me know ;)
 
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Hi there, yep, l just wanted a little bit of silver cursive text on a transparent label, alongside some white and yellow text / line art.

I was joking when i said "only need about £3k". £3k is beyond my wildest dreams.

Do you think l can slip some white / silver into an inkjet?
 
In the past (still currently) AFAIK

White pigment on regard to litho and screen inks and indeed hot stamping foils ~ is dependent on Titanium Oxide. That is in effect a suspension in the ink......you could try but imo the head would clog irreplaceably :)

Metallic is another matter and in both litho & screen inks it was 'how the heck do we get enough metallic dust in it' to make it look truly metallic......if it it was easy hot stamping foils would not still be used today! ;) So IMO same problem as above re: white.

The development of laser based toners for white and metallics have been a bit of a game changer but does not work for all possible solutions.

PS if you look for an old bit of kit that was targeted to metallic foil laser printed paper/cards. It relies on the fact that laser toner is plastic....thus by using a hot foil that has a plastics specific 'size coating'/glue the foil will adhere to the toner and not the paper.

I googled and found a lot of links about the method here....some more reading/watching for you that might help you achieve something special but not exactly what you are hoping for ;)
 
I think i get it now (had to watch the video without sound but l then read an article).

Laser printer prints in black.
Black ink is still hot on the page.
Quickly laminate with foil.
Foil sticks to the black ink but nowhere else.
So you effectively printed in metallic ink not black.


Seems it can be good for very fine details (i want about 40 small labels per page with only tiny parts in metallic ink).

I guess i'll use a laser printer then. With laser-printable transparent labels.


I guess what it comes down to now, then, is that l would like suggestions for a colour laser printer that can:

* Print on jiffy bags
* Include inks as part of the original package
* Offer high resolution (600 x 600 dpi is my minimum accepted, and i think l have found a model that offers it with a set of starter inks too)


Any suggestions?
 
I think i get it now (had to watch the video without sound but l then read an article).

Laser printer prints in black.
Black ink is still hot on the page.
Quickly laminate with foil.
Foil sticks to the black ink but nowhere else.
So you effectively printed in metallic ink not black.


Seems it can be good for very fine details (i want about 40 small labels per page with only tiny parts in metallic ink).

I guess i'll use a laser printer then. With laser-printable transparent labels.


I guess what it comes down to now, then, is that l would like suggestions for a colour laser printer that can:

* Print on jiffy bags
* Include inks as part of the original package
* Offer high resolution (600 x 600 dpi is my minimum accepted, and i think l have found a model that offers it with a set of starter inks too)


Any suggestions?

Re: Using Hot Stamping Foils to 'print' onto laser printed designs
1) The laser printed design can be 1 minute old or a month old.....or older i.e. the laser toner is cold

2) As shown in at least one video ~ you place the laser printed page (A4?) into a folded A3 or just two pages of plain A4. BUT on top of the laser printed page you place flat & uncreased, the Hot Stamping Foil (make sure to buy the type for this sort of job ~ if you buy the type for stamping paper, it will cover the unprinted paper area of the page but not the laser toner)

3) The above is run through a Laminating roller press ~ AFAIK the laminator is nothing special but don't quote me on that and can be the simple version for laminating A4 pages in laminating pockets.

Though I don't recall seeing it done you can have a small area on the page with foil e.g. a letter head (that will only need a small piece of foil as opposed to a whole A4 area) and then that page can be run through an inkjet printer thus creating more 'arty' page of design.

In the case of a sheet of diecut labels, I can perceive that provided you are 'tight register' in the design......each label could have the 'flash' of Gold, Silver etc and the rest of the label could potentially have more details/info inkjet printed.

NB I am unsure whether clear synthetic self-adhesive labels will be Laser printable (coated material to accept the laser printing perhaps)................and if they can whether they will survive a trip through the laminator?

Re: Jiffy Bags ~ I suggest you read up about the way laser printers work, as apart from the thickness of the Jiffy Bags (also a barrier to using them on any standard home user inkjet), they don't bend very well and many(all?) have LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene [Bubble Wrap] lining) and even the lower temperature Laser Printers (as I recall?) run their "print engines & transfer Drum") at 80degrees Centigrade!!!!

I don't doubt there may be a specialised Inkjet Printer that can print graphic art onto a finished Jiffy Bag but fear the cost will outweight the advantage for you.

Right, I have completed my exercise and hope that you can resolve "the what you want, is not always what you can have" dilemma.

If(when?) you find such printers at SoHo prices then do update the thread and let me know ~ every day is a school day. :)
 
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I was trying to remember a brand name for the laser foiling.........

Just recalled another (not the original one I was thinking of)....seems there is plenty of choice of suppliers of both the machine and the sheets of foils. Prices are certainly markedly lower than they were 20+ years ago when sold by Letraset themselves.

Enjoy :) https://www.google.com/search?clien...jEuMZgBAKABAcABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
 
Okay thanks. Obviously compromises will have to be made. I think i'm going to have to abandon printed jiffy bags, because of the polythene interior (it'll no longer be a padded envelope by the time it re-emerges from the printer plus the printer will have had an unrequested fission surplus) and the tearaway self seal strip.

As for clear laser printable labels - they exist, but whether they will ruin the printer or not is another matter. Then there's the concern about the laminator aftertouch re: foil stamping.

I still want to print display boxes and bookmarks and promo flyers, so l need to print at least 220gsm and in full colour i.e. a deep blue colour with any text being no-colour (= "white") or yellow. Therefore l suspect l still want a laser not an inkjet, correct me if l'm wrong.

Damn the whole thing about the labels though, they need to be transparent with light coloured text. Yellow it is then, l guess,
 
No idea what your plan is but if you want presentation boxes etc have chat with https://www.tinyboxcompany.co.uk/

I knew this company as a customer of mine and their attention to detail and the quality of the products was very good (NB I pointed a few photographer acquaintances there and their experiences were very positive :) )
 
Thank you. Some of those boxes are quite nice and fairly affordable, perhaps also printable. However, I'm just at a preliminary stage right now and need to generate a few £thousand as proof of concept, hence l'm going to construct the boxes myself for now. See that cat in my avatar? I had to sell her for £20 inc. food and bowl and 2kg litter and optional free litter tray (this last item declined). I shoved her into a blue barrel and sold her to somebody off gumtree and i'm upset because the blue barrel was easily worth £8 but i forgot to make the buyer pay. That's where i'm at financially. [Seriously though, i love her, i'm not that bad]

So, l want:
- Transparent labels with bright fonts instead of the silver that i really wanted (but if l get a laser it may yet be possible, but then it'd all melt in the laminator anyway as the labels are pvc)
- Bookmarks printed double sided
- Little presentation boxes circa 12cm x 8cm x 5cm. These boxes will be in a dark colour, with white designs on them, the white being an absence of dark, if you know what i mean
- Speed isn't a huge consideration
- Cheapness of printing is a consideration. But bear in mind that a new laser printer may come with a set of starter inks that could generate enough income for me to prove concept. After which l could just sell the printer and get something more apt.
- I've decided my budget is £160

So, bearing all this in mind, would you suggest an inkjet or a colour laser?
 
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Thank you. Some of those boxes are quite nice and fairly affordable, perhaps also printable. However, I'm just at a preliminary stage right now and need to generate a few £thousand as proof of concept, hence l'm going to construct the boxes myself for now. See that cat in my avatar? I had to sell her for £20 inc. food and bowl and 2kg litter and optional free litter tray (this last item declined). I shoved her into a blue barrel and sold her to somebody off gumtree and i'm upset because the blue barrel was easily worth £8 but i forgot to make the buyer pay. That's where i'm at financially. [Seriously though, i love her, i'm not that bad]

So, l want:
- Transparent labels with bright fonts instead of the silver that i really wanted (but if l get a laser it may yet be possible, but then it'd all melt in the laminator anyway as the labels are pvc)
- Bookmarks printed double sided
- Little presentation boxes circa 12cm x 8cm x 5cm. These boxes will be in a dark colour, with white designs on them, the white being an absence of dark, if you know what i mean
- Speed isn't a huge consideration
- Cheapness of printing is a consideration. But bear in mind that a new laser printer may come with a set of starter inks that could generate enough income for me to prove concept. After which l could just sell the printer and get something more apt.
- I've decided my budget is £160

So, bearing all this in mind, would you suggest an inkjet or a colour laser?
Laser Printers often can't handle paper thicker than 160gsm - and the cheaper the printer the worse the paper handling system (generalisation!)

@dorcasmallorcus
As @Mr Perceptive says and I have said previously 'you need to check the max GSM that a printer will accept.

I applaud your entrepreneurial drive and testing the potential by working out the 'what works best' is no bad thing........but to simply say your budget is £160 for the printer without accepting that that is too low a figure to get the sort of printer that may be out there to start your project is like saying "I have enough money for a beer to have a shandy.....but what I need to create is a Bucks Fizz, can I do that with beer...???

Having said that:-
Brother have a colour laser @£179 that will print on max 160gsm , you could take the printed paper and make a box by gluing it onto thin card to make the thickness required.

I have mentioned before that printing a solid colour with the design being the white of the paper showing through is called "reversing out".

Re labels
If the labels are designed for laser printers they will be designed to 'take the heat', as for whether they will be ok using the foiling method that uses a laminator......that will need testing but I surmise they will be fine.

FWIW my local stationery shop have a laminator and have done a few pages for me FoC, if I was in your shoes at this stage I would do a trial that way.

As you can see there are ways to mitigate for limitations...but more money is required.

PS IMO a laser is best.......inkjet print will be damaged by water, so is that a good idea for crafting presentation boxes! I think not.
 
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Thanks guys! I'm looking at a laser that can do 220gsm for £160 with a free set of starter inks bundled. Some of the highest printing costs on the market but hey, the starter inks are free of course.

Thing is, the printer is probably not re-saleable without the starter inks.

I guess what it boiled down to in the end was, is laser better than ink for printing the reversed-out boxes. So, l'm hunting for that laser printer now (it's become out of stock since l was sat here talking rubbish on the informal subforums :( Serves me right, )
 
I suspect at that price point with 220gsm card stock you are entering a world of printer jams. This is from past experience, these days I won't feed anything through my laser printer beyond thin label stock (usually its 100gsm paper), its just not worth the hassle, anything thicker, card stock, photopaper goes through a fairly upmarket inkjet.
 
I suspect at that price point with 220gsm card stock you are entering a world of printer jams. This is from past experience, these days I won't feed anything through my laser printer beyond thin label stock (usually its 100gsm paper), its just not worth the hassle, anything thicker, card stock, photopaper goes through a fairly upmarket inkjet.

The other thing to be conscious of is the curl and decurl that might need to be handled.....plus some card 'types' will be better for such full sheet coverage with reverse out designs, such as cast coated board but that IMO will need carefull folding techniques I.e. using creasing tools to avoid cracking the printed area. Nothing is impossible, sometimes just a tad difficult..... especially when
 
Hi there guys, l was looking at the HP Color [sic] Laser 150nw.
It's sold out pretty much everywhere but this site gives the best breakdown of specs for this and all other printers:

https://www.printerland.co.uk/product/hp-color-laser-150nw/146297
max 220gsm!
£160
Starter inks give colour 700pp
Fuel economy: 4.7p per mono page / 24.9p per colour page
600 x 600 dpi Print

max 163gsm
£180
Starter inks give colour 1000pp
Fuel economy: 4.5p per mono page / 22.1p per colour page
600 x 2400 dpi Print


If they were both available and every penny counted, which would you go for if you wanted (l repeat earlier post for convenience):
- Transparent labels with bright fonts instead of the silver that i really wanted (but if l get a laser it may yet be possible, but then it'd all melt in the laminator anyway as the labels are pvc)
- Bookmarks printed double sided
- Little presentation boxes circa 12cm x 8cm x 5cm. These boxes will be in a dark colour, with white designs on them, the white being an absence of dark, if you know what i mean
- Speed isn't a huge consideration
- Cheapness of printing is a consideration. But bear in mind that a new laser printer may come with a set of starter inks that could generate enough income for me to prove concept. After which l could just sell the printer and get something more apt.


The higher dpi seems intriguing.
The cat went to a good home btw.
 
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If, as you appear to need, to handle 220gsm then the HP is the one choice. Sadly it does not do auto duplex!

FWIW my HP mono laser had been a real trooper, a think is approx 10 years old (does now make a page feed 'clunking noise') and has had >42000 pages through it. It as I recall cost £89 and hp toners are expensive...it does accept 3rd party ones but as it (mentioned above) might be on the way out, I will load my backup hp cart when needed.

As for choice based on your criteria...see above. I have said and repeated my views and suggestions on everything else.

NB were I in the market for a colour laser I would be happy to get an HP or Brother....would most likely choose one with auto duplex.

PS I checked and it seems that Rymans currently have it showing on stock for £160 :)
 
I certainly wouldnt buy a brother if they are anything like the inkjets
 
There's also the Kyocera ECOSYS P5021cdw A4 Colour Laser Printer


max 220gsm
£182.40
Starter inks give colour 1200pp
Fuel economy: 2.0p per mono page, 12.5p per colour page
Up to 1200 x 1200 dpi Print

With that fuel economy i'd say this one's a keeper, not just a startup printer of convenience
 
By the way, can somebody explain how dpi can be asymmetric?

We have 600 x 600 dpi and 1200 x 1200 dpi. I can understand this. Take a square, count the dots.

But the Brother has 600 x 2400 dpi. Doesn't that imply colour banding, with dots concentrated along parallel lines? i.e. more dots in one direction than the perpendicular direction?
 
Or what do you think of this:


max 256gsm
£115.34
Starter inks give circa 300 colour prints, but a lot of the starter is used up during setup. Not good, the starter set is half of the reason for the purchase.
Fuel economy: Unknown, probably worse than the aforementioned laser printers, but you can get cheap non-OEM inks for inkjets ... and for lasers, so lasers are still something to consider
Up to 2400 x 4800 dpi print

Plus it can duplex, scan, copy, fax.

Connectivity = the lot, but bluetooth isn't specifically mentioned. It can connect via NFC too!

It has a touch screen and weighs 8.6 kg.

So, what's the downside? I am still using - daily, for business - my Epson Stylus Photo R200 inkjet, which can even print to CD/DVD faces. I believe l bought it between 2005-2007.

I guess with that kind of connectivity (on the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3720DWF), my office becomes a forward base for the Soviet Red Army's bitcoin mining corps, but as long as the resulting bot-net isn't too CPU greedy it'll be fine. I suppose. I could just use USB cables instead though. My concern is that with a big print job, the room will fill with fumes, or am i exaggerating the risk? Do laser printers have the same risk too, of harmful ink fumes? I'm heading way way way out of my Photo Stylus R200 comfort zone now.
 
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TBH, I've never noticed any peculiar smell from any printer, even a laser doing 500+ copy runs. Hot paper, yes but no chemical odours.
 
Or what do you think of this:


max 256gsm
£115.34
Starter inks give circa 300 colour prints, but a lot of the starter is used up during setup. Not good, the starter set is half of the reason for the purchase.
Fuel economy: Unknown, probably worse than the aforementioned laser printers, but you can get cheap non-OEM inks for inkjets ... and for lasers, so lasers are still something to consider
Up to 2400 x 4800 dpi print

Plus it can duplex, scan, copy, fax.

Connectivity = the lot, but bluetooth isn't specifically mentioned. It can connect via NFC too!

It has a touch screen and weighs 8.6 kg.

So, what's the downside? I am still using - daily, for business - my Epson Stylus Photo R200 inkjet, which can even print to CD/DVD faces. I believe l bought it between 2005-2007.

I guess with that kind of connectivity (on the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3720DWF), my office becomes a forward base for the Soviet Red Army's bitcoin mining corps, but as long as the resulting bot-net isn't too CPU greedy it'll be fine. I suppose. I could just use USB cables instead though. My concern is that with a big print job, the room will fill with fumes, or am i exaggerating the risk? Do laser printers have the same risk too, of harmful ink fumes? I'm heading way way way out of my Photo Stylus R200 comfort zone now.
But its an InkJet and will not potentially be as useful in regard to how "fast" (i.e. resistant to wetting) the ink will be on large areas/flood coat (another printing term term ;) ) areas when making your boxes..................nor can you then try the foiling of laser prints???

PS Frankly, peppering your posts with jokey quips lends no credence to how serious you are so I will leave you to decide as we(?) are now going round in circles, having covered everything many times over............................:wave::wave::wave:
 
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Okay jokes (?) aside, l do wonder if l should even try a printer with so much connectivity. It's a major consideration. Bot-nets are real. Networked printers are very much targets of hacking today.

As for the warning about inkjets and soggy paper - thanks, it was something i was very worried about especially as i'd be reverse printing to get light text on a dark background. i.e. i'd be printing the entire background.

On that note though, thanks Nod for the heads up about fumes. I thought i might need the printer in another room, connected via bluetooth, because of fumes. Which of course brings us to hacking.

I motion that we all de-escalate and have separate bubble baths now. Thank you all contributors and sorry this got so darn heated right at the end - no idea what that was about!
 
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Okay jokes (?) aside, l do wonder if l should even try a printer with so much connectivity. It's a major consideration. Bot-nets are real. Networked printers are very much targets of hacking today.

Hmmm! This one puzzled me?

I found some reports that a networked printer exploit had been 'found' and used akin to (back in the day) advertisements would spew out of fax machines.

The caveat seems to be that all reports state that the exploited printers were on corporate(?) networks i.e. enterprise systems and exposed/on the internet.

I have two WiFi connected printers they are both on my internal home network, they are not and will never have an internet connection. They are NAT addressed and are as such not visible other than on my own home system.

The router has a firewall and is strongly password protected, as are the two WiFi channels. NB not all routers allow users to manually lock down ports...as the common (though not listed) ones are typically(?) covered by the firewall.

I would welcome knowing (based on the sort of care I have taken) under what conditions do you feel that you are at risk?

PS
I have noted on WiFi analyser app that there is a HP Deskjet printer showing up.....it is password protected which is good but the fact that it is appearing like a WiFi access point AFAIK infers that it is 'connected' to the internet :( and on the reports I mentioned finding above, HP was indicated as being a common denominator in regard to exploited printers.

NB neither of my printers appears on my WiFi analyser app ;)
 
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