Epson Original Toners

Maintenance Kit

Fuser Unit

Spares

Epson AcuLaser C9100

The Epson Aculaser C9100 is an A3 colour laser printer with consumables arranged inline for fast single pass printing. A4 print speed is 24 pages per minute and A3 is 13ppm.

• High-Speed single pass 4-2-1 roller transfer system
• Multiple print sizes A4, A3 and banner printing
• First page out 10.5 seconds monochrome / 12 seconds colour
• Advanced Controller fast printing of complex graphics and mixed colour / monochrome data
• Exceptional quality and 2400dpi (with RET) resolution

This printer can be configured as a floor standing unit with several optional A3 paper trays. It can also take an auto duplex unit, hard disk and PostScript or PCL

A printer this size is generally shared in a workgroup so the machine has an ethernet print server built in.

This printer has a rather unusual internal architecture. Where other colour printers use a belt to accumulate the colour image this uses three large drums in the Intermediate Drum Transfer (IDT) unit. In some ways the IDT might be capable of higher accuracy because of the relative stability of a drum surface compared with a belt. On the other hand toner transfer between surfaces is a stochastic process, so by the tertiary transfer stage toner density and colour gamut might be reduced a bit.

The ususal process may have a few disadvantages:

• most technicians won't be familiar with the process
• for consumables and spares you are almost entirely in Epson's hands.

The printer was introduced around 2004 and being sold on clearance lists in July 2009. In 2013 the printer is no longer available new; its direct replacement is the C9200 which has a new purchase price upwards from £1300. To put the cost of consumables and spares in perspective, A3 colour laser printers with several media trays generally cost around £2000.

Control:

Ergonomically designed control panel with an LCD status bar. Its just a single line 20 character display accompanied by 3 LEDS - perhaps a bit disappointing in this class of printer but users will mainly use the print-driver or the web interface.

EpsonNet SetupManager for automatic driver installation and port setup to distribute printer drivers and utlities to client PCs.

EpsonNet WebManager browser for set-up and troubleshooting.

EpsonNet JobTracker can be used to give administrators total control over the Aculaser C9100. Number of pages per workgroup and user. Administrators can also specify maximum numbers of colour and mono pages that can be printed on a daily basis

Duty Cycle:

Maximum monthly volume is stated as 80,000 pages. This sort of printer is moderately likely to be used for production of short run catalogues and suchlike

Print Speed:

A4 at 24 pages per minute. A3 at 13ppm.

First page out in 10.5 seconds monochrome / 12 seconds colour.

The high speed is based on an unusual arrangement of intermediate transfer drums and partly on a a high speed ASIC which takes some of the load from the 600MHz processor.

Print Resolution:

Epson say 2400 dpi Resolution Improvement Technology. They dont actually seem to give the engine resolution anywhere (they'd probably argue that it's meaningless these days). Other sources say it's 600x600dpi, which was normal for the time.

Epson call their resolution enhancement "RIT" (Resolution Improvement Technology) and they also point out that the printer has fine control over dot size to 16 horizontal steps

Paper Handling:

Theres a fold-down multipurpose tray and a 500 sheet cassette built into the printer base. Optionally the printer can be fitted with up to 3 x 500 sheet extra trays or one 1500 sheet extra tray. All the trays have A3 ability.

Maximum paper input is 2150 sheets - the four trays and the multifunction tray.

Paper weight is 60 to 216 gsm

Tray 1:

Multipurpose tray with a capacity of 150 sheets.

Paper sizes: A3, A4 A5, B4, B5, LT, HLT, EXE, GLT, GLG, LGL, B, Monarch etc.

Width 90.0 to 304.8mm

Length 98.0 to 1200.0mm

Tray 2:

Standard paper cassette with a capacity of 500 sheets.

Size A3, A4, A5, B4, B5, LT, GLG, LGL, B

Tray 3:

Optional extra paper cassettes can be a single 1500 sheet unit or up to 3 extra 500 sheet trays.

Optional tray with a capacity of 500 sheets.

Size A3, A4, A5, B4, B5, LT, GLG, LGL, B

Optional tray with a capacity of 1500 sheets.

Size A3, A4, A5, B4, B5, LT, GLG, LGL, B

Face Down:

Standard output is to a tray with a maximum capacity of 500 sheets on top of the printer.

Face Up:

A face up tray is an option - it may be helpful where heavier media is handled.

Duplex:

Automatic handling of double-sided print using a duplex unit is an optional extra.

Processor:

Theres a PowerPC 600MHZ processor and a base of 128MB DDR333 memory expandable to 1024MB.

Epson make a particular point of an innovative ASIC circuit which does RGB to CMYK colour conversion. They reckon this printer has double the processing speed of previous units.

Memory:

128MB DDR333 memory expandable to 1024MB

Interface:

Parallel port (type B?) and Hi-speed USB 2.0 interface at up to 480 Mbps.

Network:

10/100 BaseTX Ethernet interface. "EpsonNet Setup Manager" aims to make network setup and driver distrubution easy.

Print Languages:

Epson ESC/Page Colour, ESC/Page, PCL5e, EPson GL/2, ESC/P2, FX, IBM Mode

Optional Adobe PostScript 3 kit.

System Compatability:

Epson say Microsoft Windows 95 /98/ Me/ XP/ 200/ Server 2003 and NT or Mac OS8.1 or higher and OSX. The Esc/P2 language is quite widely used on systems. If in doubt buy the PostScript option.

Power:

European Models ship as 220Volt to 240V 50 to 60 Hz .

Power Consumption:

Rated consumption is less than 5 Amps (1150Wh)

Sleep up to 10 Watts, Standby Average of 75 Watts, Operating average of 374 Watts.

Dimensions:

678mm(W) x 631mm (d) x 473mm (H)

Weight:

59 kg.

Acoustic Noise:

Sound Power Operating 6.3B(A); Standby 4.0B(A)

Sound Pressure Operating 451dB(A); Standby 25dB(A)

Consumables:

Other than paper the consumables are: Four toners, a waste collector Photoconductors and IDT unit. Fusers also wear out. The main consumables can be seen in the illustration from the broachure: the toners are at the right and they provide toner to the photoconductor drums shown coloured blue. The three drums coloured grey are the IDT.

The printer shipped with half-life demo cartridges, the black is good for 7,500 pages and the colour for 6,000 pages. Ordinarily the lives are 15,000 page black and 12,000 pages for each colour.

When toners near exhaustion the printer will give the message "Y toner Low" and when it is finished "Replace Toner Y" or suchlike. The printer can be made to print by pressing Start/Stop to continue but print quality will decline. See the user manual for detailed instructions.

S050198, Black Toner Cartridge, life 15,000 pages. C13S050198

S050197, Cyan Toner Cartridge, life 12,000 pages. C13S050197

S050196, Magenta Toner Cartridge, life 12,000 pages. C13S050196

S050195, Yellow Toner Cartridge, life 12,000 pages. C13S050195

You may note that the black toner is bigger than the colour cartridges and so much cheaper it looks like a misprint. The difference is rather spectacular in this case. That is how printer manufacturers make money.

The colour cartridges are expensive but they are several times larger than those for average laser printers. The C9100 is comparable with the HP CP5525 (A3, 30ppm) which has 15,000 page cartridges at a similar price. There is a problem, the HP print cartridges contain the photoconductor where these are just toner. Epson aren't making savings from not having to replace the photoconductor very evident.

With HP and Canon colour laser printers people have the option to buy remanufactured toner cartridges, that isn't normally the case here. Remanufacture seems to be limited to a few eBay vendors.

The absence of remanufacturers from the market might reflect the printers unusual mechanism, Epson's relatively low profile as a laser-printer maker or their prominance in litigating against anyone copying cartridges. Colour printers tend not to work well with refilled cartridges anyway - it is difficult to get the colour balance right.

Waste Toner:

When the waste toner is nearly full the control panel will give the message "Waste T BoxNearfull". A new waste box should be bought. Clear the message from the resets menu.

C13S050194, Waste toner collector, life 24,000 pages. C13S050194

Photoconductor Unit:

When the photoconductor is near the end of its service life the control panel will give the message "Worn Photoconductor". A new photoconductor kit should be bought, it installs on the side of the IDT. The message can be cleared from the resets menu. The message "Replace Photocondctor" is given and the printer stops when the photoconductor is finished. Printing can continue by pressing Start/Stop. See the user manual for detailed instructions.

C13S051105, Photoconductor Unit, life 30,000 pages. C13S051105

IDT Unit:

The message "Worn IDT Unit" means the "Intermediate Drum Transfer" unit is near the end of its service life of about 100,000 pages. Epson's intention is that new intermediate transfer unit should come from dealers. The surfaces of the IDT are light sensitive and must not be contaminated by fingermarks. The IDT withdraws on slides from the front left of the printer when the handle is pulled (as in replacing the photoconductor) The unit is quite heavy. First lift the photoconductor unit off the IDT by its orange handle, then release the end-stop on the IDT and lift it to the end of it's rails and away using the black handle. When the IDT has been replaced the Maintenance Menu is used to reset the counter and to run the colour alignment checks. There is a bit more on changing the kit here.

Fuser:

The printer gives a "Worn Fuser" message when the fuser unit is near the end of its service life. Printing after this message appears is not guaranteed.

Epson intend that this is a dealer replaceable unit so people without technical experience should call a service engineer - its an expensive printer.

2109263 Fuser unit

Note that after a new fuser has been fitted the fuser count has to be reset. Service technicians do this by putting the printer into a special Maintenance Mode. Power up the printer with all the direction buttons pressed to enter maintenance mode and go to the fuser reset option.

1304231 Maintenance Kit

The IDT, Fuser and Transfer Roller have rather similar useful lives. Epson sells a maintenance kit containing all three. It is probably better value that buying the parts individually if they are all life-expired and fitting them all at aonce will make better use of a service technician's time.

Warranty:

Standard warranty was 2 years onsite. 3YWALC9100, Optional extended warranty is an extra 2 year totalling 4 year 3YWALC9100

However these machines will mainly be over 5 years old, so manufacturers warranty will have expired.

Spares:

1304231, Maintenace Kit (100 000 Pages)

There has been mention of 1304232 - nothing else known

2109263, Fuser Unit

1284914, BTR Assy

1433004, Intermediate Drum Transfer Unit

1284919, MP Roller Feed (Tray 1)

1284994, Roll Feed Assy (Tray 2)

1284921, Separation Pad (Tray 1)

1284992, Cassette Side Roller

1284993, Cassette Retard Roller

Service:

We are researching maintenance and repair options for this printer.

Options and Accessories:

Optional parts for this printer are likely to become scarce since it is no longer produced.

C12C802142, 500 Sheet Paper Cassette Unit (Tray) C12C802142

C12C802152, 1500 sheet Paper Cassette unit A3 C12C802152

C12C802162, Face Up tray C12C802162

C12C802132, Duplex unit for automatic double sided printing C12C802132

Memory upgrade to 1024MB

C12C824172, Hard Disk Drive C12C824172

C12C832622, Adobe PostScript 3 Module C12C832622

C12C832621, PCL5C Emulation Kit C12C832621

Copyright G & J Huskinson & MindMachine Associates Ltd 2013, 2015, 2016. Some pictures derived from Epson User and Service guides. These technical pages do not constitute an offer for sale; just our knowledge at the time of writing. See the catalog. Sales pages on this Web site use cookies to store user information. We also use Google Analytics to track site usage patterns.