Kyocera FS-720, FS-820. FS-920

Kyocera manufactured these A4 Mono printers from 2004 on. Kyocera use their "Ecosys" sub-brand; the ideais that the printers only use toner - not the complicated metal and plastic cartridges used by many other printer designs. Because toner is the only thing used, the machines should be less costly to run, and there is less waste to be dealt with. TK-100 toner cartridges have a 6,000 page capacity which is large for a printer in this class. People with very modest print requirements can save money by using the TK-100E 2000 sheet capacity cartridge.

The drums are OPC designed for a life of 100,000 pages. The printers are aimed at small office and personal use so the 100k OPC drum is probably adequate for most users. Kyocera use an amorphous silicon drum on their more expensive workgroup printers, but might be too costly for this class of machine.

Drum and developer may be long life but they are actually replaceable. Replacement parts are rather costly compared to those for other small printers - but they are long-life. However the parts aren't necessarily available off the shelf in UK distribution - so they might need to be specially ordered.

All three printers use the same engine but there is a difference in performance largely created by the different page formatting electronics. The FS-720 is a host-based printer - the user's computer formats the image. That can be satisfactory in a printer for personal use. The FS-820 has the PCL5 / PCL6 print language and the FS-920 has Kyocera's implementation of Postscript which makes it appropriate for graphics professions.

Other differences are that the FS-820 and FS-920 have 1200dpi quality wheras the FS-720 only provides 600dpi. and the FS-720 only has USB, wheras the other two have parallel ports as well - that was still useful in 2004.

Colour:

Mono Print (Black and White) Only. (Advantages for economic running).

Control:

Rudimentary control buttons for

• Go switches the printer online or offline
• Cancel - stops the audible alarm. Held for a second it cancels the current data from the PC - ie ends the print job.

Indicator lights for Ready and Attention.

A red light is most likely cover open or Toner Low. A fast flashing red light with green off is Paper Jam

Print Speed:

Warm up, 16 seconds from power off

Time to first page 11 seconds

FS-720:16ppm in A4

FS-820:16ppm in A4

FS-920:18ppm in A4

Print Resolution:

The actual print resolution for the FS-820 and FS-920 is given as 1800x600, which Konica-Minolta say gives 1200dpi quality. The eye is more sensitive to vertical resolution. The lower resolution of 600 dpi for the FS-720 probably reflects limits of processing power and memory.

FS-720:600 dpi

FS-820:1,200 dpi quality

FS-920:1,200 dpi quality

Duty Cycle:

FS-720 and FS-820: average up to 1,500 pages per month, max 12,000

FS-920: average up to 2,000 pages per month, max 15,000

Duty cycle figures are generally treated as some indication of how robust a machine is. One meaningful application is probably to determine warranty and service contract cover.

Paper Handling:

All three printers have the same specifications:

FS-720:250-sheet capacity + 1-sheet Manual Feed

Multi-Purpose Tray:

Manual-feed tray: 1 sheet, 60–163 g/m2, A4, B5, A5, Letter, Legal, Custom (70 x 148 mm to 216 x 356 mm)

Tray - 2:

Universal paper cassette: 250 sheets, 60–105 g/m2, A4, B5, A5, Letter, Legal, Custom (148 x 210 mm to 216 x 356 mm)

Face Down Tray:

100 Sheet face-down output tray.

Duplex:

Manual double sided print only - supported from the print driver. No automatic option available.

Processor:

FS-720:FS-720: 32 Bit RISC CPU - (they don't say which)

FS-820:FS-820: Power PC 405/192 MHz

FS-920:FS-920: Power PC 405/266 MHz

Memory:

FS-720:Standard 8 MB, Max. 8 MB (Not expandable)

FS-820:Standard 16MB + ECOmemory, Max. 272MB in 1 slot

FS-920:Standard 32MB + ECOmemory, Max. 288MB in 1 slot

Printer memory: FS-820/FS-920: 1 slot (16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 MB)

CompactFlash card: FS-820/FS-920: 1 slot (for up to 256 MB) forms, fonts, logos and macro storage

Interface:

FS-720:USB

FS-820:USB, parallel

FS-920:USB, parallel

Multiple Interface Connection (MIC): FS-820/FS-920: Allows simultaneous data transfer on both, with each having its own virtual printer.

Network:

Network connectivity can be provided for the FS-820/FS-920 using an IB-100 Ethernet print server: 10Base-T/100Base-TX.

FS-820:External

FS-920:External

Print Languages:

The FS-720 is a Winprinter - pages are formatted in the users computer. Host Based Printing System for MS Windows 98 SE/ME/2000/XP.

The FS-820 has PCL 6/PCL 5e and Kyocera PRESCRIBE IIe.

The FS-920 has PCL 6/PCL 5e and KyoceraPRESCRIBE IIe and KPDL 3 (PostScript 3 compatible) with Automatic Emulation Sensing (AES), Line Printer, IBM Proprinter X24E, Epson LQ-850, and Diablo 630 emulations.

Fonts:

FS-820: 14 outline fonts, 1 bitmap font, 45 types of one-dimensional barcodes, plus two-dimensional barcode PDF-417.

FS-920: 80 outline fonts accessible in all emulations, 1 bitmap font, 45 types of one-dimensional barcodes, plus two-dimensional barcode PDF-417

Power Requirements:

AC 220/240 V 50/60 Hz

Power Consumption:

FS-720:Printing: 302 W, Stand-by: 5 W, Power-Saving (ECOpower): 4.2 W

FS-820:Printing: 319 W, Stand-by: 7 W, Power-Saving (ECOpower): 4.5 W

FS-920:Printing: 315 W, Stand-by: 8 W, Power-Saving (ECOpower): 4.8 W

Dimensions:

Main Unit:380 x 390 x 245 mm

Weight:

Consumables:

TK-110 Toner-Kit:FS-720/FS-820/FS-920: Microfine toner for 6,000 pages (ISO/IEC 19752)

TK-110E Toner-Kit:FS-720/FS-820/FS-920: Microfine toner for 2,000 pages (ISO/IEC 19752)

Printers shipped with a 3,000 page starter catridge.

Warranty:

1-year return to base warranty as standard. Kyocera guarantees the drum and developer for 3 years or 100,000 pages (whichever occurs sooner), provided each printer is used and cleaned inaccordance with the service instructions.

Options and Accessories:

Memory

Printer memory:FS-820/FS-920: 1 slot (16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 MB) CompactFlash® card: FS-820/FS-920: 1 slot (for up to 256 MB) forms, fonts, logos, macro storage

External network interface:FS-820/FS-920: IB-100 Ethernet print server: 10Base-T/100Base-TX

Copyright G & J Huskinson & MindMachine Associates Ltd 2013, 2015, 2016. Some pictures derived from Kyocera 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.