Xerox B225 monochrome laser printer - photocopying options - before I buy - does anyone have one?

BooJewels

I'm struggling to find an answer to this question and the only way to find out seems to be to ask someone who has or has used this printer.  I've spoken to various printer sellers, Xerox technical support (who refused to even answer, as I hadn't yet bought the machine, therefore not a customer) and they referred me to their official seller who still couldn't answer.

Many years ago I obtained an unwanted Brother laser printer/scanner through Freecycle.  It has a scanner with an ADF and can photocopy etc.  The printing never was very good, hence it was being given away, but I used the copy and scan features extensively.  When looking for something else, I saw the Xerox B225 printer that looks to have similar features and may be good to replace my old Brother - and that will actually print reliably too.  It almost seems too good to be true at the price (I'd looked to replace the Brother but it was around 700 quid at the time), so I'm wondering what the catch is.

One feature that is a deal breaker for me is the ability to scale the size when doing a copy - it's a feature I use when I'm doing particular types of metal clay work - I make jewellery.  I often have to scale a sketch by a very specific percentage to allow for shrinkage of the clay during firing - or maybe I just want a template for working and think it needs to be a smidge larger or smaller than my sketch.  My Brother allows me to photocopy and input a precise percentage on the number keypad.  So if I want a copy that's 87% or 119% of the size of my original, I can do that.

The Xerox B225 apparently has scalable copying, but the manual is very vague in its wording:  "From the control panel, navigate to: > Copy > Scale > specify a scale value" and no one can tell me if this is a specific percentage, as I've described above (it has a numeric keypad) - or maybe it's just a few set increments - like A4 to A5 etc.

Does anyone have this machine (or others in the range) and know the answer, or can recommend a machine that's not stupidly expensive with similar features.  An ADF scanner and this scalable copying are absolutely necessary features for me.

getmore4less

You could just keep you brother to do the scan.

Then get a cheaper printer to do the print without the extra multi function..

BooJewels

That's pretty much what I'm already doing and have been muddling by with for several years  - I print with an inkjet and scan with the Brother. 

But the printing process itself with the Brother is becoming increasingly problematic - I have to keep opening the door and re-seating the toner cart for it to print anything.  So the specific function I have difficulty with and that I'm hoping to replace is the photocopying. Just printing from the computer I already have covered.  Scanning docs with the ADF I have covered with the Brother.

But to do a 'photocopy', I scan on the Brother and print out from the inkjet - which at least works, but it's more time consuming.  But that's also nowhere near as easy to get a specific scale right - being able to pop something on the glass and tell it I want a 72% copy in one function is more accurate and much faster and eliminates the trial and error aspect.  If it actually spits the print out without an error message and several shrilling beeps.

I'm just looking at this now as I'm upgrading my router and whilst fiddling with plugs and leads and thinking about networking the Brother on the router, it sent me down the rabbit hole of a general sort out.  The B225 has actually dropped 10 quid since I looked at it a fortnight ago, so it's less expensive than I was expecting for the functionality, but I don't want to buy it at all without this one function pinned down.  And I don't want to spend too much more, as I already can muddle by - as I have been doing for a while.

BooJewels

Actually putting this down 'on screen' has helped me to focus my thoughts.  In the process of identifying plugs and leads and how many USB ports I have spare etc, I have decided to now install this Brother printer on my main desktop computer as the one I was using for scanning is temporarily out of action due to a leaky roof and the computer being (or was) under the drip.  So that installed easier than I was expecting and I can now scan from here too.  I also dug out the manual and looked at parts costs.

I had decided on not buying a new drum for it originally as the printer was already about third hand and the original Brother drums were silly expensive - I felt I'd rather invest that in a new printer.  Looking at the troubleshooting in the manual, it may be that the drum is just at the end of its life.  Certainly, when it does print, it's not good quality with grey streaks in the background.  So I've ordered a compatible drum and high yield toner cart at about half the price of Brother originals and about 40% of the price of the Xerox printer.

So I'll see if that fixes the printer errors - in which case I just saved myself a hundred quid - and if not, I'm no worse than I was, functionality-wise and can perhaps sell the cart and drum on-line without a huge loss.  I decided that it was worth the risk.

Looking at the manual for the Brother, for scalable copying it does explicitly say "Reduce/Enlarge 25% to 400% (in increments of 1%)" so it leaves you in no doubt - which leads me to think the Xerox is unlikely to have this functionality - as it would surely be happy to tell you about it if it did.

TELLIT01

Have you tried searching for the user manual on-line?  That should detail all functionality.

flaneurs_lobster

TELLIT01 said:

Have you tried searching for the user manual on-line?  That should detail all functionality.

The OP mentions having referred to the manual and no, it doesn't.

BooJewels

Thanks @flaneurs_lobster - I was about to say that I quoted the manual in my OP and referenced it again later. 

I tend to download and read manuals before buying a product, to ensure that it works in practice how I hope and the marketing spiel matches reality.

BooJewels

I'm delighted to report that the new drum and toner cart arrived in the post this morning (pretty astonishing as they were only noted as dispatched at around 9pm last night) and that seems to have fixed the issues with the Brother laser printer that I already have.  I suspect that the various drums and carts I inherited with it were very poor quality refilled ones and it just wasn't happy with them.  

So I have the functionality I need and it has cost me a hundred pounds less than the new printer would have and that was going to be a big risk anyway - and probably not of the quality of this old machine either.

So I've just photocopied a several page form using the ADF, printed a couple of docs from the computer and done a couple of odd size enlargement/reductions and all have worked without incident.  There's clearly some toner in the machine as the back of the pages are a bit dirty, but each print is gradually cleaner, so that'll soon sort itself out.  Fingers crossed that it continues working well.

getmore4less

For reference have you got the model No. of the brother.

I am a fan of their machines.

BooJewels

It's an MFC-7320.  This is the only Brother device I've ever had, so not much experience of them.  I've had this at least 10 years and I'm the third owner that I know of - got it for free on Freecycle - the person that I got it from was a local Scout group who found it was getting unreliable for printing flyers and newsletters.  They'd got it for free from one of their workplaces, when they had upgrades.  I think they started making them in 2008 and they're obsolete now.

Whilst I had the manual open to see how to reset the drum counter, I accessed the print records and it's only done 21,500 prints, faxes and copies - which doesn't seem many to me, when the drum is supposed to have a duty cycle of about 12k prints.  It's since accurately recorded the prints and copies I've done, so I've no reason to doubt the accuracy of that.  So I hope that means it's still good for a while.

Laser toner can also be used when ironed down as a resist for etching and it sticks to some polymer clays allowing me to make shallow textures to imprint.  I'll have to try this new toner and see if it works for me - I think they outlawed the pertinent element that made it work, modern ones are much less effective.

TELLIT01

flaneurs_lobster said:

TELLIT01 said:

Have you tried searching for the user manual on-line?  That should detail all functionality.

The OP mentions having referred to the manual and no, it doesn't.

I'm getting old - I missed that!