Line printing (DOT Matrix) vs Laser printing: Which is cheaper

Okay, this topic may seem to be a little outdated but so is my boss. I
just started with a company that prints some internal reports to a
line printer. My boss wants to compare the cost of line printing to
laser printing. The office staff is tired of the noise the line
printer makes. I've suggested moving the printer but we have a very
small office and space is limited. I've suggested getting a cover for
the printer but no I have to do a cost analysis of Laser vs. Line
printing. So here is where I'm at. Ribbons are rated at how many
characters you can print per ribbon and laser toner is rated on pages
per cartridge. Is there a formula to convert characters per ribbon to
pages per ribbon? How do you factor in the numerous paper jams the
line print has? Personally I don't care either way. I don't sit by the
printer so it does not bother me.

wrote:
Okay, this topic may seem to be a little outdated but so is my boss. I
just started with a company that prints some internal reports to a
line printer. My boss wants to compare the cost of line printing to
laser printing. The office staff is tired of the noise the line
printer makes. I've suggested moving the printer but we have a very
small office and space is limited. I've suggested getting a cover for
the printer but no I have to do a cost analysis of Laser vs. Line
printing. So here is where I'm at. Ribbons are rated at how many
characters you can print per ribbon and laser toner is rated on pages
per cartridge. Is there a formula to convert characters per ribbon to
pages per ribbon? How do you factor in the numerous paper jams the
line print has? Personally I don't care either way. I don't sit by the
printer so it does not bother me.

If all characters possible(no spaces) are printed on a page, the
standard conversion for a line printer is 4800 Characters per page.(80
characters per line, 60 lines per page) In real life, however, you
rarely fill the entire page with characters, so that's a poor
comparison, at best.

It's been a very long time since I worked with a line printer, and I
don't currently own a laser printer, so I'm afraid I can't be of much
more help in comparing them. But, I can't imagine that it's easy to find
ribbons for that dinosaur any more.

TJ

On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:36:35 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Okay, this topic may seem to be a little outdated but so is my boss. I
just started with a company that prints some internal reports to a
line printer. My boss wants to compare the cost of line printing to
laser printing. The office staff is tired of the noise the line
printer makes. I've suggested moving the printer but we have a very
small office and space is limited. I've suggested getting a cover for
the printer but no I have to do a cost analysis of Laser vs. Line
printing. So here is where I'm at. Ribbons are rated at how many
characters you can print per ribbon and laser toner is rated on pages
per cartridge. Is there a formula to convert characters per ribbon to
pages per ribbon? How do you factor in the numerous paper jams the
line print has? Personally I don't care either way. I don't sit by the
printer so it does not bother me.


From my experience, dot matrix is considerably cheaper, if your needs
are met by its capabilities.

Both will require regular maintenance, both will jam.
Actually, the cost of a service contract is likely to be the largest
cost of either. If you're handling that inhouse, good luck; in that
case ask the guy who does most of the work to give some estimates.

A dot matrix has advantages: fanfold paper, unlimited page size. Can
print multi-layer (carbons).

The paper is very cheap, ribbons are extremely cheap.
This is good for printing invoices and many accounting packages are
designed to use this kind of printer for their reports.

Noise: a box to cover it is easy to make, it can also keep the dust
down. Make sure it doesn't cause overheating.

But lasers rule if you do any graphics. You can save a lot if you use
a third-party toner refill.

With dot matrix ribbons I tried several third party clones; a wide
variety of quality. The very cheap ones didn't last long but I found
one brand that was almost as good as the original (Panasonic), at half
the cost. Not really worth re-inking, in my opinion, the ribbon tends
to wear out.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

In article ,
TJ wrote:

If all characters possible(no spaces) are printed on a page, the
standard conversion for a line printer is 4800 Characters per page.(80
characters per line, 60 lines per page) In real life, however, you
rarely fill the entire page with characters, so that's a poor
comparison, at best.

TJ & CS-

Suppose there are 1600 characters on a typical page. This is arbitrary,
so pick another number if you prefer. If you look at what is being
printed, it may be possible to actually count characters.

Does the time required to print a report pose a burden on employees? A
dot matrix printer might take a minute to print a page, while the laser
printer might do it in ten seconds.

How often does the paper jam, and how long does it typically take to
unjam it? It should be easy to quantify the cost of man hours required.

Pick some numbers and do the comparison. There might be an obvious
winner.

Also consider measuring the sound level near the printer when it is at
its noisiest. The level can be compared to OSHA limits to determine if
there is a health risk involved.

If a decision is made to go with a laser printer, I suggest you get one
of the better ones, not the cheapest. Toner is a bit more expensive but
gives more pages per cartridge, resulting in a lower cost per page. A
printer with a paper tray that holds a full ream of paper doesn't have
to be refilled as often.

Since you got me started, I'll make one more suggestion: stop printing
the reports. Connect everyone up to a network, and E-Mail the reports.
If the new laser printer is also on the network, anyone that needs a
hard copy can print it.

Fred

wrote:
Okay, this topic may seem to be a little outdated but so is my boss. I
just started with a company that prints some internal reports to a
line printer. My boss wants to compare the cost of line printing to
laser printing. The office staff is tired of the noise the line
printer makes. I've suggested moving the printer but we have a very
small office and space is limited. I've suggested getting a cover for
the printer but no I have to do a cost analysis of Laser vs. Line
printing. So here is where I'm at. Ribbons are rated at how many
characters you can print per ribbon and laser toner is rated on pages
per cartridge. Is there a formula to convert characters per ribbon to
pages per ribbon?

The old standard was 2k characters per page as an average. At least
that's what I recall.

How do you factor in the numerous paper jams the line print has?

Lasers can jam also, but it's rare if you use a quality printer and
decent paper.

Personally I don't care either way. I don't sit by the printer so it
does not bother me.

Sounds like the paper jams aren't a happy moment for you, though.

Situations where an impact printer wins over a laser:

* Multi-part forms (often easily replaced by having a laser print
multiple copies of the form)

Factors where lasers win over impact printers:

* Print speed (an ordinary laser is faster than a fast impact printer)
* Print quality (ever have an invoice where an "8" is misread as a "3"?)
* Reliability (less mechanical, less prone to downtime)
* Supplies cost (ordinary copier paper, toner versus ribbons)
* Noise (people on the phone in an office)

Here's my document on used office lasers:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/usedlasers.pdf

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA

Warren Block wrote:
wrote:
Okay, this topic may seem to be a little outdated but so is my boss. I
just started with a company that prints some internal reports to a
line printer. My boss wants to compare the cost of line printing to
laser printing. The office staff is tired of the noise the line
printer makes. I've suggested moving the printer but we have a very
small office and space is limited. I've suggested getting a cover for
the printer but no I have to do a cost analysis of Laser vs. Line
printing. So here is where I'm at. Ribbons are rated at how many
characters you can print per ribbon and laser toner is rated on pages
per cartridge. Is there a formula to convert characters per ribbon to
pages per ribbon?

The old standard was 2k characters per page as an average. At least
that's what I recall.

How do you factor in the numerous paper jams the line print has?

Lasers can jam also, but it's rare if you use a quality printer and
decent paper.

Personally I don't care either way. I don't sit by the printer so it
does not bother me.

Sounds like the paper jams aren't a happy moment for you, though.

Situations where an impact printer wins over a laser:

* Multi-part forms (often easily replaced by having a laser print
multiple copies of the form)

Factors where lasers win over impact printers:

* Print speed (an ordinary laser is faster than a fast impact printer)
* Print quality (ever have an invoice where an "8" is misread as a "3"?)
* Reliability (less mechanical, less prone to downtime)
* Supplies cost (ordinary copier paper, toner versus ribbons)
* Noise (people on the phone in an office)

Here's my document on used office lasers:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/usedlasers.pdf


Where do you get those "typical rollers"?

In case I should ever need one.

Had to replace the toner for a HP Laserjet 5 MP, toners seem to be a
science of its own too.


H.

Heiko Recktenwald wrote:
Warren Block wrote:
Here's my document on used office lasers:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/usedlasers.pdf


Where do you get those "typical rollers"?

In case I should ever need one.

I've used printerworks.com. There are lots of places for HP parts,
including direct from HP.

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA

Alan wrote:
On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:36:35 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Both will require regular maintenance, both will jam.
Actually, the cost of a service contract is likely to be the largest
cost of either. If you're handling that inhouse, good luck; in that
case ask the guy who does most of the work to give some estimates.

In general, service contracts are expensive paper. All they provide is
a promise that someone might show up and might be able to fix a problem.
More often, someone will show up eventually and announce that they have
to order parts, and you'll just have to wait.

In most cases, you're better off buying a spare printer. Cost will be
the same or less than a service contract. Much less if you have several
printers since only one spare is needed.

If the active printer breaks, you can swap in the spare and be printing
again with very little downtime. The broken printer can be repaired or
replaced at your convenience, depending on what's most practical.

In practice, I've found true line printers (300 LPM or more) to be prone
to mechanical failure, low-speed dot-matrix impact printers (300 CPS) to
be reliable, and lasers to be reliable but far faster.

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA

Thanks for everyones input. I'll pass this along to my manager.

On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:29:38 -0500, Warren Block
wrote:

Alan wrote:
On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:36:35 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Both will require regular maintenance, both will jam.
Actually, the cost of a service contract is likely to be the largest
cost of either. If you're handling that inhouse, good luck; in that
case ask the guy who does most of the work to give some estimates.

In general, service contracts are expensive paper. All they provide is
a promise that someone might show up and might be able to fix a problem.
More often, someone will show up eventually and announce that they have
to order parts, and you'll just have to wait.

I thought the idea was that they would do preventative maintenance,
and check them over every few months. Also they should have common
parts to hand.

Getting a printer repaired on an ad hoc basis can be pretty costly.


In most cases, you're better off buying a spare printer. Cost will be
the same or less than a service contract. Much less if you have several
printers since only one spare is needed.

If the active printer breaks, you can swap in the spare and be printing
again with very little downtime. The broken printer can be repaired or
replaced at your convenience, depending on what's most practical.

I suppose with printers getting cheaper ands service getting more
expensive, it might be cheaper just to run them until they die and
replace them. I don't like the philosophy of that though.


In practice, I've found true line printers (300 LPM or more) to be prone
to mechanical failure, low-speed dot-matrix impact printers (300 CPS) to
be reliable, and lasers to be reliable but far faster.

Back in the 70s, we had a lab with a half dozen line printers, They
ran hot all day long, and broke down every day.

In the 90s, our office had a cheapish dot matrix for printing
invoices. It jammed occasionally when paper went off the sprockets,
but otherwise worked without problem for years.

With lasers the problems always seem to be paper pickup. Either
grabbing too many pages or none at all. The printing itself is pretty
much down to the cartridge, which can easily be replaced.


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