Wide Format Imaging

Over the past few years the blueprinter/reprographer community has gone through a major transition in technology. Today, the originals, with which reprographers work with don?t exist on a drawing board, but as a series of bits and bytes on a computer screen. As a whole, the reprographic industry has not only embraced this digital revolution, but is now using these electronic changes to develop new markets and services.

One design firm that recently made the digital transition was Allied Steel of Los Angeles, CA. Allied Steel is a steel fabrication company that has been in business for more than 50 years. They specialize in helping design water and sewer treatment plants as well as other types of steel structures. Chris Chapman, project manager at the company reports that up until this year they were still using traditional methods when it came to outputting blueprints. ?We were a little late to the digital party. We were still using an old traditional blueprint machine that used the yellow paper and ammonia. Our supplier, KB Blue Prints, told us that they weren?t going to be supporting these types of analog machines anymore. So we started shopping for a new digital unit.?

KB suggested to Chapman that they take a look at the Teriostar 1010 line from Seiko-I Infotech. The Teriostar line of products includes a printer model (LP-1010) and a ?multifunction??an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier model (LP-1010-MF); each model offers many advanced features. The units were first shown at the IRGA Show in May.

Chapman purchased the multifunction unit that features a printer, scanner and copier. ?We immediately liked the unit?s compact size. The size was definitely attractive to our needs because the space in our office is limited. We also liked that the design of the unit. It is ideal that the scanner sits right on top of the printer,? says Chapman.

One feature that really impressed Chapman was that the LP-1010-MF offers the industry?s first user-replaceable drum in a wide-format LED plotter. The user-replaceable ?drum? includes the photo processing unit, lens, and charge wire. With this unique capability, owners can replace their photo processing unit by themselves. With most current wide-format LED printers, the replacement procedure requires an expensive service visit by a factory-trained technician. Now, these parts have all been incorporated into one easy-to-replace process cartridge much similar to today?s desktop laser printers. ?The replaceable drum feature is a nice option for us. It helped lower our cost- per-copy charges as well as reduce downtime,? he reports.

Chapman says that they use the LP-1010-MF for all of their drawings. ?It has a very fast print speed. We run our approval drawings for 11x17 up to 36x24 inches. We get a lot of the sketches via email and can now output them directly on the printer. A lot of the drawings and tracings can be done electronically so we don?t have to go out to clients to pick up hard copy. We are able to save money on travel. That?s a nice benefit for us with rising gas prices,? he adds.

The unit also offers an optimized print resolution of 600 dpi; fast printing speeds of 3.4 E-size prints/ min., 6.2 D-size prints/min and a browser-based web interface for complete printer control. Standard accessories available include: a two-roll, two-drawer automatic media supply, (compatible with most bond, vellum, film, and tracing papers), an internal 20GB hard-drive, 256 MB of RAM, a utility software suite, and Ethernet, USB, and Centronics compatible interfaces.