Wax On Wax Off (Xerox Phaser 8400N)

Member Name: isvikthere

Product:	Xerox Phaser 8400N
Date:	18/07/05 (3487 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A viable alternative to Inkjet or Laser Colour Networked printing with a good track record

Disadvantages: Very high operation costs which have even increased over the years

INTRODUCTION

The Phaser 8400N Thermal printer is a network colour printer that uses blocks of solid wax for toner. That is why this type of machine is referred to as a Solid Ink Printer. Some people (and even Dooyoo in its categories) confuse them with a Laser printer which they definitely are not ! Because Colour Laser printing is a completely different technology.
Maybe the confusion stems from the fact that Xerox also markets printers under the Phaser model name that are indeed real Colour Laser printers.

So the Xerox Phaser 8400N melts blocks of wax, this wax is then applied via a drum to the media in use (paper, transparencies, etc.). Which gives a very glossy (and classy) finish on all of them. It doesn't need special photopaper to produce very decent images of glossy magazine quality. You can however buy specially coated paper that gives an even better print, especially for photos. Also transparencies, due to the specific nature of the colour printing technology, need to be of an approved quality.

Xerox acquired the technology from a firm called Tektronix somewhere between the late 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century. At the time Tektronix was one of the only brands offering excellent photo quality prints to the general public outside the professional printing businesses at a time when color Inkjet and colour Laser technology were still in their infancy. So anyone doing some serious Desktop Publishing, especially in a networked environment, was almost automatically pushed towards Tektronix and its Phaser range of Solid Ink printers. The latest in this line of printers is the Xerox Phaser 8500N that only just now came to replace this 8400N.

Note : to be perfectly honest I have no information on how the transition from Tektronix to Xerox came to be. My research on the net didn't bring much but I have a rough idea of the time frame but I don't know whether Xerox completely absorbed Tektronix or just took over the Phaser range of Solid Ink Printers.


BACKGROUND

This 8400N Network printer came in our office to replace an older Tektronix Phaser model 840N that was deemed beyond repair. Although there is only one digit difference in the model name there is another, serious catch.

The catch being that up and till at least the model 860 of the (Tektronix) Phaser printers produced in 2001-2002 the black cartridges came and still continue to come for free. From this model 8400 onwards, which is about the time when Xerox has taken control of the Tektronix' Phaser printers, symbolised by the replacing of the Tektronix brand on the machines by the Xerox logo, you pay for your black sticks just like for the other three colors you need (yellow, magenta and cyan). Although black sticks cost only one third of the price of the other three colours.

Of course the machines have evolved over the years, so before I continue my tales : here are some


SPECIFICATIONS

This is just a quick and general overview, in fact many features can be expanded the likes of onboard memory, onboard harddisk, traysizes, etc. :

Pricing:
Starting from £559.00, it depends on the options, in fact machines were often offered with a rebate

Dimensions:
width 16.3 in. (42.2 cm), height: 14.5 in. (36.8 cm), depth: 21 in. (53.34 cm),

Weight :
60 lbs. (28 kg.) so not really a lightweight

Print speed:
in Colour: 24 ppm
Black: 24 ppm
First page out after 6 seconds in full colour
(note : after waking up out of standby first !?!)

Memory standard/maximum :
128 MB / 512 MB RAM

Image processing

500 MHz PowerPC, Adobe? PostScript? 3™, PCL5c

Internal hard disk = optional

Maximum duty cycle = Up to 85,000 pages/month

Maximum resolution = 2400 FinePoint, 600 dpi

Network connectivity :

Bi-directional Parallel, USB 2.0 and 10/100BaseTX Ethernet,

Automatic 2-sided printing = Optional

Paper input capability:
Basic 100-sheet Tray 1
Supplemantary 525-sheet Tray

Standard features:
Custom-size pages, Phaser Installer, Intelligent Ready, Embedded Web Server, Remote printing, Email alerts, Enhanced PrintingScout, PhaserSMART, Job Accounting, Usage Analysis Tool, Booklet Printing, Smart Trays


EVALUATION

As you can see this machine has a lot of features of which some can even be further upgraded. In use it is quite big and not that discrete in operation (Noise Level: 33dBA standby, 54 dBA running). From cold and a completely power off situation to a ready status it takes minutes to jump into action as the wax needs to be heated up first. This process is also very energy consuming. And at each startup from cold the machine does use up a considerable amount of wax in its startup routine with includes an automated cleaning cycle.

This cleaning cycle is also required whenever streaks start appearing on the printouts. Occasionally the cycle needs to be repeated several times, this can then take up a whole block of wax for each color that poses a problem. All in all an expensive phenomenon when you know that one stick of wax costs about £20(ex-VAT!) : the colorsticks are sold per colour in cartons of three at £62,49 (ex-VAT). As said Black is cheaper, especially if you buy them per six sticks. So if you thought the cartridges for your home colour deskjet printer were expensive, you see here that there is worse. Another cost factor is the maintenance kit the machine requires after 10,000 pages (£65 ex-VAT) or 30,000 (£100 ex-VAT) depending if you have the standard or the longlife maintenance kit installed.

So this Phaser uses four types of sticks : black, magenta, cyan and yellow. The sticks are quickly installed by even the most novice user as each type of stick has its typical cutout shape keeping you from placing it in the wrong slot. The slots are visible when you lift a lid situated at the top of the machine. You just drop in the missing colour and after closing the lid you are back in business.

Here I have to point out that the shape of the sticks even differs over the whole Tektronix/Xerox model range, keeping you from using them in another type of machine than intended. Here (I didn't do a lab test) I am almost convinced that the wax has the same composition for all machines, so offices owning different models have to manage the consumables for each one separately which can add considerably to the cost. This unfortunate practice started in the Tektronix era and Xerox continues the tradition. Wouldn't it be much easier if you just had to buy the four colors and the sticks would fit right into just any type of Phaser produced over the years ? Wishful thinking on my part, of course.

The machine is very reliable in operation and in its defense I have to stay that problems start occurring almost exclusively when too much continous plain black and white printing is done e.g. hundreds of pages of text documents with no or just some rare colour here and there, this is clearly not what this machine is designed for. Generous use of colour on images, photos and drawings in your printing jobs is what makes this device happy. Here of course I must point out that like with any other printing technology full colour pages means using up large amounts of ink.

The indicated mileage given by Xerox - 3400 pages per carton (3 sticks) making for 1133,3 pages per stick - is calculated for pages with 5 % coverage. Don't forget that you need the four colours to print. Also take into account that if you would print exclusively full A4 pages completely covered, your mileage needs to be divided by 20. So only 170 pages then per carton or 57 pages per stick which isn't much.

I did the maths for you and without VAT printing costs are £0,06 per page with 5% coverage and a whopping £1,2 per page for pages with 100 % coverage ! And here I took into accont toner cost exclusively, so not the initial purchase price, maintenance kit, nor depreciation of the machine.

Paper jams occur rarely and stem mostly from not carefully inserting the paper sheets or the other media. The jams are normally quickly cleared as the paper path is easily accessible.

The machine is praised by Xerox for its friendliness to the environment, it is true that the sticks of wax just come in a simple wrapping and that there thus are no toner drums to throw recycle but the machine does have a waste ink tray that needs to be emptied from time to time. The waste ink is a mixture of the four colors so it cannot be reused.

Also, as said before, the melting of the wax requires a lot of heat and thus electricity and since it also needs to keep the wax hot and ready for use in its standby position not many environment points are to be won there. 230W average consumption and no less than 1500W maximum is not really what I would call economical.


NETWORK CONNECTIVITIY

Network connectivity on this 8400N is excellent ; the printer and the integrated network card support all current Printing languages and there is even an embedded Webserver allowing you to consult and configure it through the network via your Webbrowser. On the machine there is also a small backlit LCD display showing an easy configuration menu which you can navigate with just a few buttons located under the display.

The 8400N comes with drivers for all major operating systems: Windows, Unix and MacOS. We use it on our Windows workstations through a Linux Samba printserver.


CONCLUSION

So this is an unique type of colour printer. Purchase prices for this technology have come down at an astonishing rate (1/10 of the initial price in the Tektronix era ?) in less than ten years but operating costs remain very high and have even risen with the now no longer free black sticks.

Once the machine is up and running printing speed is very high and does reach the indicated speed of 24 pages per minute in colour with pages consisting of some 5% color content. However especially from a standstill (minutes) and a bit less from standby (under one minute) the machine does take some time to jump into action.

The colour output on plain paper is unrivalled by any other technology. And colour is what it likes to print ; if you print an excessive amount of almost pure black and white the printing quality will degrade requiring very costly cleaning cycles to get the colours back on track.

Summary: Solid Ink Printing is a more mature technique than Laser or Inkjet, though it comes at a cost.