I remain interested in large-format printers for outputting photos, generative art, and because they are cool machines. The HP DesignJet T610 I bought still isn’t working well after buying all new print heads and ink, and it is just too big for my lab space, so I’m still looking at alternatives. On craigslist I found an offer I couldn’t refuse – a free HP DesignJet 130nr 24″ wide printer. The catch is, it had sat for five years without printing, and the current owner had never tried using it and didn’t know anything more about its status. I had nothing to lose and at least some experience to gain, and the free roll of glossy image paper made the trip worth while. Continue reading
Category: PCHardware
PC and Mac computer and networking hardware
The Big Friendly Printer – HP DesignJet T610
I have wanted a large-format printer for a long time and set up a search to monitor the local craigslist for them. They retail for $thousands and can last for decades, but they need regular use and maintenance or the ink dries up and nothing works. So after a company’s needs change and the printer sits for months or years it is often easier to buy a new printer than get the old one working again, and the old one is sold locally because it costs $hundreds to ship it by truck somewhere. Continue reading
Xmas 2021 Computer Upgrade
For Christmas we got my son a bunch of computer parts to upgrade his main gaming PC. We had gotten him a RTX 2060 graphics card before the current shortage but his i5-3570 CPU was slowing him down. The most recent 12th generation Intel CPUs seem great and certainly worth the price premium over the 11th generation but he has a mini-ITX case and ITX motherboards that support the latest CPUs are still expensive – for enthusiasts only at this point. So I went with an i5-11600k CPU which is a 4X speedup over what he had, and twice as fast as any of the other computers around here (I like buying off-lease corporate PCs for pennies on the dollar.) Continue reading