Within the copier world you have consumer machines, commercial/industrial machines, and the less talked about large format machines. Large format printers are not often grouped together with other commercial printers because they are built to serve very specific needs.
Large format printers aren’t your typical office printers. They’re not for printing your average letter or legal size documents. As the name suggests, they are for printing much larger types of documents.
Not Your Typical Office Printer
Large format HP Designjet Printers, also referred to as “plotters”, are specialty printers that have been designed specifically to meet the needs of professionals who deal with large architectural CAD drawings.
Large format Designjet printers are capable of producing consistently clear and accurate drawings with 0.1% line accuracy. These types of printers can produce the thinnest lines in the printing industry. The exact detail delivered by the 0.02 mm minimum line width creates crisp text and vivid colors.
With a typical large capacity 300ml matte black ink cartridge, an HP Designjet printer offers continuous printing at speeds of two D-sized prints per minute.
Another unique feature of large format printers is that they’re scalable and upgradeable. For example, the 44inch HP Designjet T770 printer has a front-loading top roll, built-in networking, and system and memory upgrades. With these kind of options you can scale the printer as your needs evolve.
Do You Need a Large Format Printer?
With price tags sometimes going as high as tens of thousands of dollars, the real question is do you need a plotter? If you’re looking for a more efficient way to print CAD drawings, plotters aren’t always the way to go.
If you’re interested in reducing outsourcing costs with an in-house device that includes print, copy and scanning technology, a large format printer might be what you need. However, you first have to measure your output per month against what you’re spending on outsourcing costs.
After doing the math, you may find that your business could save a considerable amount of money by investing in a plotter. On the other hand, you may find that outsourcing is still the most cost-effective option for you right now until your output grows.
Service and Maintenance on Large Format Printers
This post was designed to educate readers about plotters, what they’re used for, and their benefits. We do not sell them at Dean Office Solutions but we do service them.
We can provide supplies and service for plotters on an hourly basis, and in some cases even offer a service contract. We invite you to contact us for a quote, which we guarantee will be lower than getting service directly from the manufacturer.
It’s extremely expensive to get service on large format printers from the manufacturer. What our technicians will do is look at your machine, figure out what’s wrong with it, and quote you a price on how much it will cost to repair. That way you can make an informed decision about whether or not it’s worth it to you to fix it, or just upgrade to a new machine.
Contact us today if you need service on your large format printer.