Mobile Printing Solutions

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DravidDavid

1907 posts

Uber Geek

#140821 21-Feb-2014 10:20

In the past I've just emailed invoices to customers and on the odd occasion printed them out with an available printer in their home as a test page when setting it up. But I want something mobile.

For example, when I go back to my car, I want to be able to hook up a tablet or ultrabook and print to a 12V printer that I can hook in to the car's accessory power.

I've looked at the Brother PocketJet 600, but it's $600.00 (USD) which is a little out of my price bracket and there are complaints about incomplete packaging and such due to poor information being "body only". Don't really want to risk that one.

What do other people do? I feel weird using customer's printers, haha.

Cheers,
David

nathan

5695 posts

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Inactive user

#992337 22-Feb-2014 14:34

have you looked into the HP mobile printers?

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DravidDavid

1907 posts

Uber Geek

#992485 22-Feb-2014 18:12

nathan: have you looked into the HP mobile printers?

They look good! But I can't seem to find them on any New Zealand based websites.

Maybe just a compact printer with an adapter or something? Might be cheaper anyway.

jaymz

1133 posts

Uber Geek

#994270 25-Feb-2014 16:47

We deployed server Canon Pixma iP100's to some customer service managers with great success.
https://www.canon.co.nz/en-NZ/Personal/Products/Home-and-Office-Printing/Inkjet-printers-and-all-in-ones/iP100

They have a battery which allows them to be totally portable, however they are inkjet which may not suit. but you can always print in greyscale to overcome ink costs.

raytaylor

3997 posts

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Trusted

#994565 26-Feb-2014 00:52

Mobile printers are a teeny tiny niche market. The company I used to work had a customer for whom they set up a HL2250DN to a 750 watt pure sine wave inverter and adsl wireless router.

The customer has a second deep cycle battery in the trunk of his car, wired via a relay to the main battery when the car engine is running. He switches on the inverter in the morning, and turns it off at night. When he travels, he can hook up to the wifi in his car from inside the customers office and print just like a normal network printer.
He does alot of diagram printing when on the road as a salesman for a specialist car parts supply company, so an inkjet was out of the question due to the cost of the cartridges.

The only problem with laser printers is the peak power requirements when they warm up - brother had the lowest peak power consumption we could find, but its also slower to warm up which isnt usually a problem as it warms up and prints while he walks out to collect the pages from the car.

I really wanted to use a canon LBP6000 as I think they are awesome fast and compact but they have something like a 950 watt peak power usage where as the brother sits around 500 watts.

Ray Taylor

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DravidDavid

1907 posts

Uber Geek

#994670 26-Feb-2014 09:33

The Canon Pixma iP100 seems like it might be the way to go! Don't really want to re-wire my car if there is a battery operated solution.

Buzz Bumble

332 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#994830 26-Feb-2014 13:48

Just email / post out the invoice later from your home / office. The cost of the stamps will be FAR chepaer than a truly portable printer and it's ink cartridges ... well, until NZ Post decides they want change their name to "Splot" and startsrunning a takeaway resturant chain instead of delivering actual post. ;-)

DravidDavid

1907 posts

Uber Geek

#994849 26-Feb-2014 14:10

Buzz Bumble: Just email / post out the invoice later from your home / office. The cost of the stamps will be FAR chepaer than a truly portable printer and it's ink cartridges ... well, until NZ Post decides they want change their name to "Splot" and starts running a takeaway resturant chain instead of delivering actual post. ;-)

That wouldn't be much fun now, would it? But you're right. I'll just stick to "I'll send you an email". They can print it from there.

If NZ Post fired up a restaurant that served mail over the counter and had a home delivery service, mail actually might get to my house on time!

coffeebaron

6197 posts

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#994852 26-Feb-2014 14:18

I pretty much 99.99% Email invoices. Maybe I've printed and posted 1 invoice in last couple of years.

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raytaylor

3997 posts

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#997898 3-Mar-2014 01:16

We used to post invoices, now we email only. No exceptions.

Ray Taylor

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