[PLUG] new printer

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Sat Jan 6 18:16:48 UTC 2007


More fun with the power meter.   A few years ago, I picked up an old
Tektronix (now Xerox) Phaser 350 - a color wax printer - very cheaply. 
I don't print color very often, but it served for the times that I do. 

Then I measured its power use.  In spite of Tektronix's misleading ads,
the printer is NOT eco-friendly.  From a cold start, it needs about 10
minutes to warm up the wax ink before it can print, and in the process 
wastes a few CCs of it.  The alternative is to leave it powered up with
standby disabled, but that means it is consuming about 250 watts, or
about $180 per year of electricity.  

I hate inkjets;  they dry up and clog, and the supplies are very
expensive (compute the dollars per liter sometime - astonishing!).
The printed pages run if they get wet, and can stain other things.

So ... yesterday I bought an HP2605DN from Staples for $450.  Again,
the supplies are very expensive, but cheaper than inkjet and they
don't dry up.  The printer is reasonably fast, Postscript 3, 100BT
ethernet, has a duplexer, and a straight-through paper path so it
will be harder to jam.  There is a CUPS ppd file available.  The
printer consumes about 300 watts while actually printing (it looks
like an "instant on fuser") and 15 watts idle.  The toner cartridges
are "chipped" - they estimate toner consumption from the page count
and stop working even if refilled - but that seems to be true of
almost everything these days.  It was pretty quick to install, even
without specific Linux instructions on the CD, and including manual
reading for CUPs.  It has a web page interface built into the machine.
I spent more time at Staples trying to get someone to bring some paper
for testing it than I spent on install time back home (hint - bring your
own test materials, including card and label stock).  For now, it seems
to fill the need, but only time will tell if it is a good investment.

The most interesting alternative in the price range is the Xerox 6120N,
which is $300 on sale from Staples but only available for delivery.
It has more memory and allegedly a better image.  On the minus side,
it is a four-pass rather than a one pass machine, making it very
slow;  it consumes more power, and it has a lot more items to replace
in maintenance.  I did some calculations, and the extra wait time at
my hourly rate would exceed the price difference long before I use up
one set of toner cartridges.  Still, if anyone has one of these I
would be interested in their experiences.

I spent way too much time researching before the purchase, and many
machines dropped off the list - no postscript, no local supply of
toner, no gray-market refills, too slow, too expensive for my needs. 
Again, I am interested in the experiences of others.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs



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