On Tue, 25 May, Cornelio Hopmann wrote: > What are the best printing options available > (Low energy, as in many place we will have to use Photo-voltaic, low > operation costs)? Any experiences with "recycled" Matrix-printers or > similar devices?
This depends also on whether running costs are a factor, and who is paying for the consumables. A typical (modern) dot-matrix printer uses about 50w whilst printing, and has a switch-on surge of approx 120w. So your inverter from the stored solar energy (lead acid battery?) must be capable of delivering this surge without crashing the computer(s) already being supplied! However, a typical modern inkjet printer uses approx 35w and has a much lower switch-on surge (say 70w). The dot-matrix can have lower running costs because you can continue to use the ribbon until your eyes can hardly detect the letters on the pages. Moreover you can easily re-ink the old ribbons, possibly even using locally-produced vegetable dye inks. The inkjet will need an ongoing supply of relatively expensive ink-tanks, and replenishing these with third-party inks can prematurely damage the nozzles of the head. If you are going to use such inkjets, I'd recommend using a model (such as Canon) where the head (nozzle array) is independently replaceable of the ink reservoir by the end-user. HP tend to use nozzles integral with the ink reservoir. Epson tend to use nozzle arrays that are not replaceable by the user. If instantaneous power is not a problem, consider a laser printer. The page throughput will be far quicker per minute for which is powered up. You simply queue the print-output and switch on the printer once or twice a day. I'd recommend you consider laser printers by Kyocera. They use ceramic drums (not coated aluminium) and are regarded as non-replaceable items. All you add is toner, which makes the running costs far lower than other manufacturers. The Kyocera FS-1020D consumes 384w whilst printing (15w in stand-by), runs at 20 pages/minute and has inbuilt duplexing to save on paper by using both sides. The ceramic drum is also very hard, and hence tolerant of rough/re-cycled paper. We have trialled Kyocera laser printers close to the equator in Central Africa, and found them very tolerant of wide temperature fluctuations and red African dust! However we have no direct experience of running printers from PV energy sources as their power requirements are far beyond those of the Solo computers we were using. HTH -- Paul --------------------------------------------------------------------- __/_ Paul Richardson | / ExpLAN Computers Ltd. +44 (0)1822 613868 |-- RISC OS Computer Sales and Software Development |/___ PO Box 32, Tavistock, Devon PL19 8YU Gt.Britain / [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
