Technology in Architectural Practice

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Small Project Practitioners and Technology in Architectural Practice .
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We are a four person office with 3 Architects and an Office Manager.  Presently, we have an HP750C for large format plotting, an Epson AL-CX11 color laser for letter size color prints, and a Toshiba e-Studio 255 for B&W ledger/letter printing with duplex, stapler, etc.  All of our finished project specs and CD printing is done by a local blueprint shop and reimbursed by clients.  So our printing volume needs are not much.  We usually do just handouts, marketing brochures, and miscellaneous in house printing/plotting only.

All three of these printers are going to need to be replaced in the next year.  Do you guys have any recommendations on one or two plotter/printers that could replace all three?  I wonder if the laser is a bad choice for color printing and if we should use an inkjet instead.  Not as fast but better photo print quality.

Unlike, I'm sure, most of you, we don't always start printing early enough and sometimes need stuff printed quickly at the last minute.  Many times, we have emailed the files to the blueprint shop and picked up the prints on the way to the meeting but that is more printing expense that we normally don't get reimbursed for.  The 750C is as slow as Christmas so a faster large format (D) plotter would be very nice.

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

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Darrel Odom AIA, LEED AP
President
Odom Peckham Architecture, Inc.
Little Rock AR
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Aloha Darrel,
For sure stay away from the HP 110 and HP 120 DesignJet large format printers.  They seemed to fit the bill for our small shop until we got it in the office and found out that fans in the printer runs at 37dB while idling.  That's way to load to have in an office so we have to shut it down between print jobs plus these printers really aren't designed for large print runs.
I just wanted to give you a heads up so you don't make the same mistake that we did.
Our old HP 450 was completely quiet when it wasn't running and I miss the quiet.
One of these days we will move back to a real large format plotter that is silent when it's not working.

One other thing that I wanted to mention is that that we discovered that our local blueprint shops can print plans for us cheaper than we can print, collate and bind plan sets in house.


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John Cassel Assoc. AIA
John Cassel Design Studio, LLC
Haiku HI
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------------------------------------------- Gordon Rogers AIA EAS Executive Kitchell CEM, Inc. Sacramento, CA ------------------------------------------- You should seriously consider how much your clients are reimbursing you for outsourced printing. If it pencils, start your own "repro" shop. We were a similarly sized firm when we decided to purchase a $37K Kip plotter (8 full-size plots per minute and holds four rolls of paper and 1000 sheet stacker). We paid the plotter off in about 7 months by charging 20% less than the local repro shop and then enjoyed an additional profit center for the next several years.
Original Message: Sent: 10-25-2012 11:35 From: Darrel Odom Subject: Looking for advice on upcoming plotter/printer purchase. This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Small Project Practitioners and Technology in Architectural Practice . ------------------------------------------- We are a four person office with 3 Architects and an Office Manager. Presently, we have an HP750C for large format plotting, an Epson AL-CX11 color laser for letter size color prints, and a Toshiba e-Studio 255 for B&W ledger/letter printing with duplex, stapler, etc. All of our finished project specs and CD printing is done by a local blueprint shop and reimbursed by clients. So our printing volume needs are not much. We usually do just handouts, marketing brochures, and miscellaneous in house printing/plotting only. All three of these printers are going to need to be replaced in the next year. Do you guys have any recommendations on one or two plotter/printers that could replace all three? I wonder if the laser is a bad choice for color printing and if we should use an inkjet instead. Not as fast but better photo print quality. Unlike, I'm sure, most of you, we don't always start printing early enough and sometimes need stuff printed quickly at the last minute. Many times, we have emailed the files to the blueprint shop and picked up the prints on the way to the meeting but that is more printing expense that we normally don't get reimbursed for. The 750C is as slow as Christmas so a faster large format (D) plotter would be very nice. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions. ------------------------------------------- Darrel Odom AIA, LEED AP President Odom Peckham Architecture, Inc. Little Rock AR -------------------------------------------

Hello Darrel,
I got an HP Designjet Z2100 large format plotter/printer about 3 years ago and as I recall I think I paid around $1,900+/- for it.  In essence, it is a large printer, and uses color cartridges and there are quite a few different colors, so you will have an investment in ink.  It has so far been very reliable.  It comes with a stand.  It can deliver photo realistic plots, if you ever wanted to press it into service for that.  I mainly use it to plot AutoCad 2d work in color, on white roll stock and my plots are much easier to read than anyone else's blueprints.  And the ink is waterproof.  Not water-resistant; but rather, waterproof.  So, any sets you print can be taken out to a jobsite and used to build from, even in the rain.  Blueprints would be rendered illegible with just a little water hitting them.

For 11x17 I have been using an HP Inkjet 2800.  It also runs legal and 8-1/2 x 11.  I think it was around $1k.  Also very dependable; no trouble so far.

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Rand Soellner AIA
Architect/Owner/Principal
Home Architects
Cashiers NC
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-26-2012 10:20
From: Gordon Rogers
Subject: Looking for advice on upcoming plotter/printer purchase.



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Gordon Rogers AIA
EAS Executive
Kitchell CEM, Inc.
Sacramento, CA
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You should seriously consider how much your clients are reimbursing you for outsourced printing. If it pencils, start your own "repro" shop. We were a similarly sized firm when we decided to purchase a $37K Kip plotter (8 full-size plots per minute and holds four rolls of paper and 1000 sheet stacker). We paid the plotter off in about 7 months by charging 20% less than the local repro shop and then enjoyed an additional profit center for the next several years.

We have decided that scanning is not a big need for us and we do not have the printing volume that would justify having one of our staff fool with handling CD printing in house.  So, we looked for a good quality, small volume, D-size, color printer.  We have focused on the HP T520 because it has both a paper tray AND a 24" roll feed.  With 2,400 dpi color printing, we think this will take the place of our 750C and the Epson Color Laser that has almost stopped working.  The paper tray expands to 24" wide so we can load D-size to letter-size sheets of photo paper and do renderings without having to change the roll.  We can load C-size bond paper sheets and spit out a half size check set very quickly.  The best quote, so far, is from EME Corporation for $1,709 plus shipping no tax and it includes the stand.  If anyone knows a reason that this won't work, please speak up quickly.

Thanks for all of the advice and comments.

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Darrel Odom AIA, LEED AP
President
Odom Peckham Architecture, Inc.
Little Rock AR
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