Ithaca BANKjet 1500 – A Compact Receipt Printer

I am going to preface this by stating that this is NOT a home use printer. If you are looking for a printer for your desktop, you can skip this one.

We recently replaced our imaging and report management system at work. As part of the process, we replaced all of our old Okidata 320 Printers with these slick new Ithaca BANKjet 1500 printers. They are a definite step up and so far, we are very happy with them.

What is it?
The BANKjet 1500 is a small inkjet receipt printer. It has a few little extras that drive the price up but make it ideal for specialized uses. The BANKjet is compact enough to fit in almost any workstation. It measures just under 7” x 10 “ and is a hair under 6” high. The BANKjet 1500 also boasts a few additional features. It has an endorsement slot and can fire a cash drawer, making it an ideal solution for any POS system. It boasts an impressive three options for connecting to your system; bi-directional serial, bi-directional parallel, and USB.

Features
The BANKjet has a few features that make it a very pleasant little printer to work with. First, it has two slots for inkjet cartridges, allowing for plenty of use without a change. Since it uses HP inkjet technology, the inkjet cartridges are HP (c6602a). This is a blessing and a curse unfortunately. Being HP, you know it is a high quality component. The problem is that you can’t find the cartridges anywhere except through Ithaca. The two cartridges also allow you to use two different colors and can set the printing to use them separately. It also offers the endorsement slot mentioned earlier. This allows checks to be endorsed as they are taken in and depending on the software you are using, can even set the endorsement to include who took the check in. This makes it a great research tool as well as a time saver.

Paper handling in the BANKjet 1500 is a vast improvement over the old Okidata printers. The paper is rolled rather than tractor fed and is held inside the printer. This not only conserves space on the overall size but also on the space needed to feed the paper. The old problem of loading and aligning the paper is taken care of as well as the BANKjet 1500 actually does it all for you. Just set the roll in the cradle, stretch the end of it out the front, close the lid and click Feed. The printer actually loads and aligns the paper for you. This is so easy all the users can do it without the need of calling IS.

Performance
The BANKjet will not only save you space, but time as well. The compact design is a fantastic feature, but the inkjet technology is a fantastic upgrade to the old impact printers that we were using. The speed that the printer is capable of is quite good. Depending on your usage, it can print approximately 6 Lines per Second at 40 Characters per Inch. I would have to say that these are mostly accurate expectations and only slightly exaggerated. The fact that these printers almost never jam will save your IS department a lot of time.

Sound too Good to Be True?
Since I am painting a very positive picture of this printer, let me inject a small dose of negativity. I mentioned above that the ink cartridges are currently difficult to find. Another problem is that the printer is very particular about the paper it uses. We tried using some paper we purchased from Staples in these and the print quality suffered greatly and even smeared from time to time. The printers work wonderfully with the paper you can purchase directly from Ithaca.

The Bottom Line
The printer is a very good machine. In just a few weeks we have saved immense amounts of time in reduced support calls for jams, paper changes and overall maintenance. We also reduced our need to have an individual go through and endorse all of the individual checks as they can now be done during the transaction with this printer. The printer is one of the most reliable I have ever used and quite simple as well. Unfortunately, you are tied to Ithaca if you want your printer to perform up to its fullest potential. The limited market for consumables may make this a questionable decision for some. If this printer meets your needs and the tie to Ithaca doesn’t scare you (their prices are comparable to the few places you can find the ink and paper) then this printer deserves serious consideration.