JWMANLY@AMHERST.BITNET (John W Manly) (05/29/88)
Hi, everyone.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about their experiences with
DEC's LPS40 laser printer. Quite a lot of people seemed interested in the
results I got, so here is a summary (with the names removed since I don't have
permission) of the responses I got.
Basically, most people seemed to like the machine, although it does seem to be
a bit less reliable than most would prefer, particularly during the period
immediately after installation.
As for my question about where I could sell my used laser printer, I am happy
to report that we decided to keep it to serve as a backup to the LPS40 in the
event some of these hardware problems ever manifest themselves.
BTW, in the event someone else out there wants to sell used third-party stuff,
I received the following suggestions: First, try the DEC used equipment
dealers, as some of them will buy non-DEC materials. Second, try a magazine
called Computer Hotline (1-800-247-2000) which is sort of a want-ads sheet for
all kinds of computer equipment. Last, try some of the third-party service
organizations, like TRW, GE, UNISYS, and CDC since, if they service the device
you are selling, they might want it for parts.
BITNET: JWMANLY@AMHERST - John W. Manly
PHONE: (413)-542-2526 System Manager
Amherst College
Here are the LPS40 responses:
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We just got our PrintServer 40 *very* recently, so I really can't answer any of
the questions you've posted. But I can tell you one thing that could be
significant - we've found that 3-hole punch paper (our standard stock for our
Xerox 9700) jams the printer. Seems that the holes confuse the unit into
thinking that there is no paper. I haven't tried it, but I also imagine this
would mean that paper backed transparencies would also be required.
[I have heard about the 3-hole problem from another source as well. He tells
me that the next DEC FCO is supposed to be able to correct this problem. The
problem arises from the fact that the paper registration sensor (which figures
out what width of paper has been loaded) is in the exact center of the paper,
right were the middle hole is. -JWM]
------------------------------
We do have a PrintServer 40 here at <somewhere> I'll
give you the quick rundown of what I think of the device.
1. It can really print 40 pages/minute if the text is ANSI and
if no graphics are produced (ie: straight text). We have a
MicroVAX II, an 11/785 and an 8700 - the ANSI translator is
very fast on any of the machines. We have 9 VAXstation 2000s
connected to the MicroVAX II in a cluster and it works at a
very reasonable rate even thought 7 of the 9 stations are
diskless and the MicroVAX is used mostly as a disk server.
2. It does have a problem with streaking the paper every so
often. This is not a real bad problem as DEC will fix it
under contract. They get ours fixed very fast.
3. Ours does paper jam every once in a while also, but no more
than any other laser printer we have ever had (LN03s, LN01s,
XEROX 3700s).
4. All in all, I think the PrintServer 40 is great! It allows
us a common printer for our clusters. All nodes in each of
our two clusters can queue jobs to the printer. We also have
the Interleaf Technical Publishing Software (which supports
the LPS40) and it works great also.
------------------------------
We installed a PrintServer 40 several months ago, and in general it's a fine
printer. I don't believe we're seeing anywhere near 40 ppm, but we wouldn't
expect to see production speeds reach ANY manufacturer's rating. The speeds,
of course, are dependent on the mix of graphics,etc. As to reliability, the
MicroVax part has had no problems at all. The laser engine gave us a great
deal of mechanical problems in the first month, just like a copy machine, but
it has since stabilized.
------------------------------
Hi, we've had our LPS40 for about six months and have been really pleased with
it. It used by a group of about 40 people using VAXs, VAX workstations, MACs,
and IBM PCs. We salvaged our old line printer about a week after the LPS40 was
installed and have never regretted it.
We had a few problems with LPS40 initially because of power. It seemed very
particular about power quality and behaved erratic with the first power source
we used. The DEC people did not know what was causing the problem and
dismantled a large part of it before discovering the power problem. Once we
got it clean power we had a lot of paper jams that were probably caused by the
dismantling. Once those were fixed it has been fairly reliable. How reliable?
About like a Xerox copier. It needs to have the paper feed system adjusted now
and then, and other regular maintaince things.
How fast is it? It varies, anywhere between 3-10 times as faster as an Apple
Laserwriter. On a straight text file it will print at 40 ppm. On complex
postscript with line drawing and font family changes, a lot slower.
We really like the flexibility of the LPS40. From the Vax and Vaxstations we
use as a standard line printer and with TEX. On the Mac we use it just like a
Laserwiter. We are using the Alisa LPS40 spooler software on VAX and it works
great.
------------------------------
We have one, and we're satisfied. It'll only do 40 ppm if you're sending it
text in a predefined font. If you're doing real Postscript, it'll depend on
the program. Also, Tektronix emulation is slow, and the printer is tied up
while it does the translation. We have a program someone wrote that converts
Tektronix to Postscript which we run, then print the results to the Postscript
queue. This takes about the same amount of time, but others needn't wait while
your data is being translated. On the maintenance side, it has needed little
maintenance, except for one or two times when a hardware failure (in the form
of a broken bolt or pin) caused some problems. Aside from that, we're very
satisfied.
------------------------------
We've had an LPS40 for 2-3 months now. I've never seen it get close to 40
pages/minute, and I;ve seen the service engineer far more than I want to. Our
users have got used to being told that it will be unavailable for the rest of
the day, and have been heard muttering about the *!@#ing waste of money, and
asking for their LN03's back. It seems to be very fussy about the way it is
treated, in particular the way it is fed paper and toner. On the other hand it
must be said that it has been heavily used (it got thru its first toner
cartridge in uner 2 weeks - I think thats about 10,000 sheets). So far it's
been a lot of trouble. Maybe we were unlucky or maybe it'll settle down.
------------------------------
We've had ours for 3 - 4 months now and are reasonably happy with it. It
prints plain text at a tremendous rate of knots, postscript (such as LaTeX
output) almost as fast, but the rate does strongly depend on the page
complexity.
The most annoying feature is the job setup time. It seems to take 15 - 30
seconds in between accepting a job and starting to print anything. This
makes it very slow when you have a lot of little jobs, and using the /COPIES
option on PRINT has this overhead on every copy. Using the
PARAMETER=(PAGE_COUNT=nn) option gets over this by printing each page nn
times (at full 40 pages per minute) but of course your output is uncollated.
Initially the reliability was appalling. We had an informal sweepstake
running on how long the printer would stay up. Average was less than 3 days.
Things were tracked down to operator error in the end. It is vitally
important to:
1. Stack paper in the input tray dead straight, or you get a paper
jam, which leads to
2. Users trying to unjam the printer themselves and damaging some
rather delicate takeoff pawls which then gouge holes in the fusing
pressure roller.
3. Great care must be taken to replenish toner etc very carefully
otherwise it is possible to install the cartridges incorrectly which
can result in toner all over the inside of the machine (and your
copies).
There is also a bug in the firmware on later versions of the DEQNA which
causes problems in the initial S/W download. This can be fixed by swapping
the DEQNA for an old one (we used one from one of our microvaxen). DEC
should have the details. The problem only manifests itself on `busy'
ethernets (ours runs at 5-10% average load).
All the above caveats notwithstanding, we are now quite happy with it. It
seems to run quite uncomplainingly for long periods of time, printing
roughly 30,000 copies a month. Providing you treat it right it is very
robust.