>Has there been any further discussion or decision concerning the
internal/external printers and batteries?
Hi John:
I haven't heard anything further from
anybody else, but here's my thoughts.
There seems to be two camps on
printers being either external or internal. External makes a lot of
sense for cutting the cost of the unit by not having an internal
printer. An external printer would have to plug into a serial or
parallel port that was accessible on the unit. Remember, we're talking
about the average poll worker trying to do this so we want the interface to
the printer to be extremely easy to use and plain as day to
find.
Facts on external
printers
- External ink jet and bubble jet
printers are relatively cheap. Maybe $130 or so for an Ink
jet. But wouldn't the printer have to be battery backed up as
well? Those kind of printers do exist for laptops (Canon BJC-50)
but they run Global around $300 to $350 which we could sell for about $400 to
$450.
- If one printer is used for
say four AccuVote-TS, that would spread the cost per unit to approx
$100.
- You'd end up with more pieces
of equipment floating around the polling place.
- Keeping the printer external
means not having to accommodate a paper roll internally
which would allow a slimmer unit.
- It would also probably
reduce power consumption but the printer is not too big of an impact on
power because it only happens at most twice a
day.
- On the marketing side, if the
AccuVote-TS is cheaper up front, you could slide the printers into a
contract as an accessory.
Facts on internal
printers
- Internal printers are convenient
and about the only type we can fit in is a dot matrix
(noisy).
- But we have to accomodate a paper
roll, and an interface board (unless we drive it direct) which will bulk
up the overall unit.
- The internal printer can be used on
battery so that helps in power fail situations.
- The printer setup would cost Global
approx. $150 per unit. and it probably contributes about $400 toward
retail.
My conclusions on
printers
Externals provide a cheaper solution
and a slimmer AccuVote-TS, but more complex for the poll worker to use and
lose.
Internals cost more per unit but are
so damn convenient.
Perhaps both of these solutions should become
"the" options for the AccuVote-TS.
If we are to use an internal printer we would
drive it directly therefor the cost should be about $45. Therefor the
benfits of the internal printer is that is would be less expensive (if more that
50% of the units need printers) and easier to setup.
Tab