hi, What laser printer do you guys recomend me getting. Im looking forward to start printing halftones and im looking for a laser printer that is 12 inches wide im lookng to spend $400bucks around that area. I would apreciate it if you guys can help me out. Thanks
You want a graphic arts printer. I'm an offset printer and use a hp 5000 for direct to plate. It rocks. I bought it used off of craigslist for $250 and put new hp toner in it for $170 You might even be able to use the plates for screen printing. There heavy duty and translucent. the 11x17 ones cost about 70 cents each.My local paperplus store gives away free sample packs. Joe
I have a HP LazerJet 4MV that I use. I bought it on Ebay for $171.00 from a company that was in my local area and I was able to pick it up and save the shipping fees. To print halftones you need PostScript software that comes with many HP printers. Mine has it and it works just fine. I have also used the HP 5000, it's newer and does a good job also. Good Luck and best wishes on finding your printer.
The HP 5000 prints screen tints with absolutly no banding which is a lot harder than halftones. It,s probably overkill for silk screen. It's built for doing graphic arts.
The HP 5000 prints screen tints with absolutly no banding which is a lot harder than halftones. It,s probably overkill for silk screen. It's built for doing graphic arts.
As good a printer as the LaserJet 5000 might be, it's not designed for graphic arts. It only handles 11x17 paper, not 13x18 and it uses Postscript 'Emulation', (software) not real Postscript.
Beware - Get somebody that uses one to confirm that it 'can' modify the size, angle and line count of the halftones you want to print. Many HP LaserJets can only print 85 line halftones at 45 degrees, not the 40, 50 and 60 line elliptical halftones at 23 degrees you might want to make for screen printing.
Beware - You may not be happy with the opacity of the toner. Requirements for litho printing are different from screen printing.
You should be able to hot-rod the fuser to raise the temperature, increase the toner deposit and modify the tonal range in your graphics software to get usable halftone dots with enough opacity.
With your $400 budget, it will be a challenge to find a used 13" laser printer with postscript and opacity that will meet your requirements. Good Luck.
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How are you measuring? retired Ulano Technical Support Screen printing since 1979 - SGIA Academy Member
What about buying a used printer and downloading free GhostView & GhostScript RIP?
The only way to buy a 11x17" Tabloid or 13" SuperB laser printer for under $400 would be used.
One of the problems with some HP Postscript printers is that they are hobbled in the emulation software because they don't expect their customers to print multi-positive separations with halftones at different angles or sizes other than 85 line. This is fine for desktop publishing or B&W letter and sales literature, but not screen printing positives.
I would be very interested in knowing if GhostScript or GhostView will work.
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How are you measuring? retired Ulano Technical Support Screen printing since 1979 - SGIA Academy Member
Thanks guys for the resonses. I also found the hp 5100n it has Adobe PostScript Level 2. And the 5000n are you guys sure i cant print 40 degrees and all that good stuff(i just want to confirm) the 5000 has HP PCL 5e, HP PCL 6 and PostScript Level 2 emulation(which i have no idea what that is) Just like Greaves said that some emulations wont work. Would this one work?
I have a 5000n printer that I print my film with now for two years and it does a great job!
But now that im learning color seperations and more about halftones I had to download the PL6 Post Script driver for my printer but I seem to be having trouble using it at this time but Im still learning with it.
We use the HP 5000N in our shop. We actually print to 12 x 18 vellum all day long. You have to set it up as a custom size, but it does work. If you'll install the postscript driver from within windows, you'll be able to control frequency and angle directly from Corel's print setup menu. Photoshop & Illustrator works great too.
I think we use the pl5 driver. It seems to work a little better in windows 7.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Streamline73
I have a 5000n printer that I print my film with now for two years and it does a great job!
But now that im learning color seperations and more about halftones I had to download the PL6 Post Script driver for my printer but I seem to be having trouble using it at this time but Im still learning with it.
a laser printer for printing out seperations 
im lookng to spend $400bucks around that area. I would apreciate it if you guys can help me out. Thanks
