Printer setup
Contents
Epson AL-C3800 Printer Setup Guide, for Windows, Linux and Mac
Introduction
As of 15 November 2007, the Applied Optics Group has a new printer, which lives (like the old one) in the Applied Optics Research Office, Tower room 202. It is an Epson AcuLaser C3800, it is a single-pass A4 colour laser printer with a built-in duplexer, 750 sheet capacity, 128Mb of memory and native PostScript level 3 support. Printer toner cartridges should last about 9500 pages (but they are about £100). Hopefully it will not jam as often as the old printer, which was an Epson AL-C1100 with a retro-fitted duplexer. "Single pass" means that colour printing is comparable in speed to monotone printing (20 ppm for colour, 25 ppm for B+W). Additionally, if you tell the printer to print in colour and there are pages without any colour at all, those pages will automatically be printed in black and white only (saving on consumables). For Windows users, this option is buried away in the hidden settings section of the printer driver where, presumably, Epson are hoping you will never venture. So please pay close attention to the setup instructions!
This set of instructions has 2 purposes:
- Instruct you how to change over printing from the old (AL-C1100) printer to the new (AL-C3800) printer.
- Instruct you how to install printer drivers from scratch (new PC, new operating system)
That's the theory in any case. In practice, Linux and Mac users need do absolutely nothing as far as point 1 is concerned - just carry on printing as before, your print jobs will now magically appear out of the new printer rather than the old one - whilst Windows users will have to install new printer drivers whether you've previously been printing to the old printer or not.
So, this document will initially concentrate on instructing Windows users how to install the new printer drivers. I will update it in the future to inform Linux users how to print to the new printer from a fresh install (although to be honest this will probably be done for you at installation).
Printer queues, and printer drivers
Windows users
Windows users will be printing directly to the printer over the network, using a local copy of the Epson printer driver. There is no printer queue (apart from the one on the printer itself). The optics Linux server is not involved in any way. If the Epson printer is spewing out pages of rubbish, then press the button that looks like a trash can on the front of the printer, and the job that’s spewing out the rubbish should stop within a few pages.
Linux and Mac users
Linux and Mac users are printing via a CUPS printer server running on optics.eee.nottingham.ac.uk ("the main optics Linux server"). There is no need to install a local version of the printer driver on your PC. Your print jobs go into a print queue on the optics print server, and this can be accessed in the usual way. You are encouraged to add the following URL to your bookmarks on your preferred web browser:
http://optics.eee.nottingham.ac.uk:631/admin
(the ":631" is important!). There is also a link to this page from the Applied Optics "Useful Links" page - see any handy mug for the web address. You will need a username and password to administer the queue (remove jobs, restart the printer etc). These are:
- Username: printadmin
- Password: optics3rd
(You can only administer the queue locally. If you are using the local optics web proxy, then you will need to exclude the domain ".nottingham.ac.uk" from the web proxy).
Using the icons at the top of the screen you can remove dodgy jobs, and restart the printer if for some reason CUPS has decided to "stop" it (due to it running out of paper or something trivial). See this web page before hassling me, remove jobs from the top of the list, and check that the printer is not "stopped."
Supplies etc
Toner
To be updated
Paper
If you use the printer then make sure there is always plenty of paper available. You get paper from the General Office on the 6th floor of the Tower. If anyone asks, it's for the Applied Optics Group. It's worth getting a box, or a few reams, at a time.
