Heat Exhaustion

[tgrec441]

Does anyone have any ideas for exhausting heat generated by our printers?
I have a KonicaMinolta 920 and two C7000s. They generate more heat than my AC system can keep up with, and we are sweating bullets by mid afternoon every day.

I am considering rigging up an attachment to the machine and running cheap ductwork up to the drop ceiling.

Has anyone tried anything similar?

 

[MailGuru]

We've tried exhaust fans, and, they work a little. There are portable a/c's on wheels that you can roll in to the room that work a little better. Best solution would be to add up the BTU's from the spec sheets on all your equipment, then have an a/c specialist replace what you have with what you need.

 

[dabob]

I would talk to an HVAC person that does restaurants and ask him about exhausting the hot air and getting some "makeup air" to replace it - they do it by the grills in restaurants since the hoods suck an incredible amount of air out of the building and if its not replaced by "outside" air it would suck all the cool air out of the eating areas of the restaurant . . . . it may be applicable to your problem.

 

[tgrec441]

I left out one important detail: it has to be CHEAP. Boss won't shell out the cash for a new HVAC or any major installations.

 

[SlaveToTheMan]

We did this with our Canon 7010, because even though they swore to us it "hardly creates any emissions that are noticeable!" it's pretty unbearable in a prepress department. One of our guys rigged up some ducted vents that go up into the ceiling, against Canon's wishes but we had to do something. I'll snap some pics in a few.

 

[tgrec441]

That's what I'm talking about! Exactly what I had in mind. Has it made a real difference?

 

[SlaveToTheMan]

Somewhat, I can still feel a fair amount of heat & smell that pleasant "plastic melting" scent when we're running for a few hours at a time but I'd imagine without those vents it'd be a lot worse. Oh, some of the Canon techs have tried to tell us it will "negatively impact the effective operating temperature parameters of the unit" a few times, but then another tech will basically say that's BS so you may have to weigh that into your decision also.