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LaserWriter 8500

beachycove

Well-known member
My endeavours to find parts to repair a LW 12/640 having thus far failed (the multipurpose feed is dead as the dodo), I recently spotted a LW8500 being sold by a (reasonably) local eBay seller, and decided to take the plunge. This was with a view to improving on my wait-times for complex documents that I need to print regularly, as well as the inevitability of moving to LPR from AppleTalk. (The LaserWriter 630 Pro that I have been using is also a good deal older, and though extremely reliable and cheap to run, can be painfully slow when printing complex PDFs and the like; it will be re-purposed).

I had known that a LW8500 is a mammoth beast capable of functioning as an A3/ 11x17" printer as required, but what I was unaware of before seeing one in the flesh for the first time is that it is so big that it is possible actually to close the multipurpose door on 150 sheets of A4/Letter paper and never know they were there.... Kind of reminds me of a 1950s fridge, truth be told, but "cushty" all the same.

The toner cartridge appears to be past saving, alas, but that is usually par for the course with an older laser (lines on the paper output from the drum due to a failed blade, or something). The printer has had, I was told, precisely one cartridge in it since bought new in 1997. The original OEM cartridge had a print capacity of 14,000 pages @ 5% coverage (they can be had with 20k capacity now), and the printer has a lifetime page count of around 13,600. That was quite a printer to purchase back then for the sake of so few pages.

They have the reputation of being a good deal less reliable than some of the older LaserWriter models, but with that low a page count, the thing will hopefully keep me going for a goodly while. And I'm-a-gonna get me some A3 for use when printing drafts of documents that I want to annotate extensively.

Still looking for a parts 12/640, though, as I have a niche for it too.

 

Concorde1993

Well-known member
My endeavours to find parts to repair a LW 12/640 having thus far failed (the multipurpose feed is dead as the dodo)
I know how you feel. The transport belt on one of my IWIIs snapped, and it's impossible to find a replacement (nobody seems to manufacture that type of belt anymore).

It's sad that most of these Apple printers will either be turned into parts units, or disposed of because replacement parts for some components are virtually non-existent.

Nevertheless, congrats with the 8500. Did the printer come with the original documentation as well (i.e, manual, etc.)?

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
Have you tracked down whose engine Apple used for that printer? You might be able to find parts if you can track down who apple used for the guts. I think Apple just designed the case and controller and just used somebody elses guts.

 

beachycove

Well-known member
The 12/640's guts are present in, for instance, the GCC Tech Elite 12/12n (to the extent that it is even controlled by the Apple Printer Utility). I had a lead on one of those briefly, but the trail went cold. Obviously, I could just look for and buy a whole parts 12/640 unit and have it shipped, but that is expensive, so the problem is finding something local so as to avoid excessive shipping charges.

The 8500, however, is all present and accounted for with the exception of a new toner — and those are available, as the IBM InfoPrint 20, for instance, is the same machine apart from a few cosmetics.

Both machines had a Xerox engine.

 
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