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Panasonic's super-quiet dot-matrix·printer If you thought dot-matrix printers were aHnoisy, then think again. Panasonic's newly released KXP2624 dot matrix printer is a great deal quieter than its competitors & rivals the noise levels of many ink-jet & laser printers. By DARREN YATES With the inroads that laser and ink jet printers have made into the market, you could be forgiven for thinking that the humble old dot matrix printer was in its last days. But there is plenty of life left in dot matrix technology. Not only is the dot matrix printer generally cheaper to run then other printers, it can also be faster to print out a single page than most laser models. When it comes to printing out multipart forms such as invoices , statements, delivery dockets and any other application where duplicates or triplicates are required, the dot matrix printer is still the only choice. Other applications where the dot matrix printer is the first choice would be for the printing of adhesive address labels with tractor feed backing, for fixed layout forms or where forms larger than the A4 format are required. However, dot matrix printers have always been noisy. So much so that in most offices large dot matrix printers are generally installed in a separate room or underneath a sound reducing hood. This new model from Panasonic is so quiet that it can sit right next to the computer, just like a laser or ink jet model. The Panasonic KX-P2624 is a wide carriage 24-pin printer which has multiple fonts and flexible paper JANUARY 1993 79 One big benefit of a dot matrix printer is low running cost. The only part that needs to be replaced on a regular basis is the ribbon cartridge, pictured here. This one is rated for three million characters. ing features of the KX-P2624 are sehandling. The improvement in noise level comes from the new diamond lected from menus displayed on a 16shaped print head and the way in character LCD screen on the front panel. This forms part of the Easy Set which the pins print each character. With conventional 24-pin print Operator Panel which enables conheads, each character is printed as a trol of all printer functions. The front panel has seven memmatrix of dots which is produced a column at a time. The 24 pins are brane switches, most of which peractually arranged in a zigzag column form dual functions. The first three and the characters are produced as a are "Super Quiet", "P.Cut", and "TOF SET". These are manual control number of columns of dots. For example, a 24-pin dot matrix switches which set the printer into Super Quiet mode, advance the paper printer operating in draft mode may produce characters as a 12 x 24 dot to the perforation cut mark, and set matrix with the print head taking four the Top of Form mark on the page. The other four membrane switches or five sequential hits. Now while are the standard 'On Line', 'Form Feed' this process of hitting the paper four and 'Line Feed' controls. The final or five times for every character is not as noisy as with daisy wheel printers, switch is the FUNCTION control. it is still very noisy. And when the When this is pressed, the printer then printer is running at 300 characters enters its menu selection mode. per second or more, it amounts to Three LEDs in the centre of the quite a racket. · panel are used to indicate the status of the printer. The top green LED The difference with the KX-P2624 shows the printer's ON LINE status is that the 24 pins of its print head are not arranged as a staggered column and flashes when it is in function but as a diamond array. This means mode. The second green LED indicates when the Super Quiet mode is that instead of having groups of pins on, and the third red LED indicates hitting the paper four or five times, the pins hit the paper in a wave like · power and when the printer is out of sequence as the print head moves paper. along the carriage. The result is a lot Function mode less noise. This mode allows you to set up all Operating features the printer's parameters before you So what else does it do? As with start printing. The first message that many printers these days, the operat- appears on the LCD is MACRO MODE. 80 SILICON CHIP In this menu, you can save the current settings in one of four memories and select any one of these four to be loaded when the printer is turned on. To thumb your way through a submenu, the P.Cut switch doubles as the ITEM switch. Pressing this allows you to go down a sub-menu step by step. The FF and LF switches also permit this but in both directions; ie, down (LF) and up (FF) the menu. Making a selection in any one of the sub menus is done by pressing the TOF SET/SELECTION switch. This takes you through the possible choices with an' =' sign appearing next to the current selection. To make a new selection, go through the selection choices until you get to the one you want and then press the ON LINE/SET menu. The printer will then beep to acknowledge that the selection has been made. Printer emulation The second of the main menus is Emulation. The KX-P2624 can emulate either an Epson LQ-1050 or an IBM Proprinter XL24E. This allows you to work with either printer's command (ESC sequence) set. The default setting is Epson emulation but to change this you simply hit the ITEM switch and then change the selection by pressing the SELECTION switch. You then press the SET switch and the new selection has been made. Print styles This menu controls the font and the pitch of the type. You can choose from Draft, Bold PS, Courier, Orator, Prestige, Roman, Sans Serif, Script and Super LQ (Letter Quality) ranging from 5 to 20 cpi (characters per inch). Text enhancement can be added to any font, including bold, double high, double strike, double wide, italics, outline, shadow and zero slash. Print mode This menu controls such functions as the print direction for both graphics and text, as well as the print width, which can be set to either 8 or 13.6 inches (ie, 136 columns at 10 cpi). There is also a PANEL LOCK sub-menu. This determines whether or not the Function mode settings for pitch, font and other functions override software derived settings. This is useful when you wish to print from a word processing package in say, SLQ mode, and Panasonic KX-P2624 Dot Matrix Printer: Sound Levels Mode Draft Super Letter Quality Standard 47dBA 45.1dBA Super Quiet 43.?dBA 43.2dBA quite a problem if you are printing out an invoice run, for example. Single sheet paper and envelopes are accommodated by raising the paper bail and setting the paper feed selector to the friction position. Paper parking the package doesn't support it with software controls. Page parameters such as lines/inch, page length and top, bottom, right and left margins are controlled using the Page Format menu. The number of lines per inch can be varied from 1 to 12 in steps of0.5 in most positions. Page length is variable from 0.1 to 14.9-inches in 0.1-inch steps, the top margin from O to 2.5-inches in 0.5inch steps, bottom margin from O to 4.9-inches in 0.05-inch steps, left hand margin from 0-134 cpi in 1 cpi steps, and the right hand margin from 2-136 cpi in 1 cpi steps. You can also select the centre position for the print head from 10 to 80. The Character Set menu allows you to select one of 14 mainly European language character sets, as well as from the three resident special sets (Italics, GRAPH1 and GRAPH2). Install menu The Install menu sets up initial parameters including: (1) alternative graphics mode for IBM emulation, on or off; (2) auto carriage return for IBM mode, on or off and (3) auto line feed, on or off. You can turn the internal beeper on or off, while other parameters include setting the data length to either 7 or 8 bits, turning off the paper out detector, quiet mode and reverse line feed in pull mode, on or off. The paper's perforation can also be made to move to the tear-off position manually or automatically and there are options for a sheet feeder and a 32K RAM package. Like all impact printers, the KXP2624 has a manual print head gap adjuster lever which allows you to vary the gap between head and platen (roller) for different paper thicknesses paper, up to the 0.013-inch maximum. This is important if you are printing in duplicate or triplicate. Using the macro mode So what if you wanted the printer to come up in your own defined mode with margins, fonts and other selec- tions in place ready to go. How do you do it? This is actually quite simple. You simply set up the printer as you wish, going through the various menus and their selections. Once you've done that, you go back to the MACRO MODE menu and select the SAVE MACRO option. This will store the current settings in one of four memories. You then go to the POWER ON MACRO selection and cycle through until you get to the memory where your setup parameters are stored and then press the SET button. The printer will now come up with these options each time it is turned on from now on until you change the POWER ON MACRO. Paper feeding The KX-P2624 has a number of ways of feeding in paper. You can feed paper from the rear using the tractor push option or from the front using the tractor pull option. Push tractor feed is usually used where the paper is single sheet. It also gives you the option of auto tear-off. This allows you to feed the paper through to the perforation mark at the finish of printing, tear off the page, and then feed back the paper to the top of form mark. This is great for minimising waste but when multipart forms are being printed it is often better to use pull mode to reduce the possibility of a paper jam (this can be One very useful feature is automatic paper loading and parking. This does away with the need to unload tractor feed paper when you want to print a single sheet using friction feed. Upon setting the paper bail release lever to park/load, the printer reverses the tractor feed paper back to the park position. If you then set the paper feed lever to friction feed, the tractor feed is disabled and a single sheet of paper can be loading in for printing. Once the page has been printed, the paper feed selection lever is returned to tractor feed and the paper bail lever returned to load/park. The tractor feed paper then returns to the previously set top of form. While not unique to the Panasonic KX-P2624, this feature is very handy. The instruction manual is well laid out and describes all operations of the printer and the IBM and Epson escape sequences. Conclusions In summary, the Panasonic KXP2624 is proof that there is a great deal of life yet in dot matrix printers. As well as being a highly flexible printer, it is very quiet in operation what more recommendation could you want? Its recommended retail price is $1299.00. For more information on the KXP2624 or any of the range of Panasonic printers, contact Panasonic Australia on (02) 986 7629. SC VIDEO & T.V. SERVICE PERSONNEL TV & VIDEO FAULT LIBRARIES AVAILABLE AS PRINTED MANUALS $85 +P/H BOTH MANUALS T.V. & VIDEO $145 +P/H OR AS A PROGRAM FOR IBM COMPATIBLES OR AS AN APPLICATION PROGRAM FORD-BASE Ill PLUS FOR MORE INFO. CONTACT TECHNICAL APPLICATIONS PO BOX 137 KENMORE 4069 OR FAX/PHONE (07) 3781064 JANUARY 1993 81