CX PARTS CATALOG

PRINTERS AND CONTROLLERS
Federal Express
Zap Mail Printer

FEDERAL EXPRESS ZAPMAIL PRINTER

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Converting the Zap Mail Printers to CX-VDO Units |
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Model Information

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Federal Express Zap Mail system was a high performance facsimile machine. In the early '80s Federal Express management became extremely concerned that fax machines would eventually eliminate the need for most of the lucrative overnight letter business they had invented. In order to keep this business, and to improve the speed of their service from overnight to same-day, Federal Express decided to offer customers a facsimile service based on the Zap Mail machine. A huge network of some 5,000 machines was created by installing Zap Mail machines in each of Federal Express' offices worldwide. Documents were picked up and delivered as usual, but they traveled electronically instead of physically, between Federal Express offices or customer sites.

At the time Zap Mail was created relatively few people had fax machines in their offices and many people didn't even know what fax machines were. The Federal Express system was first-rate and it used the Canon LBP-CX engine for 415 dpi plain-paper output and a high-capacity, sheet-fed document scanner for input.

Evidently, three laser printer engines were strong contenders for the Federal Express contract. Ultimately Federal Express chose the LBP-CX from Canon over the LP-4080 from Ricoh and the LP-3010 from Konica. The Zap Mail machines were manufactured for Federal Express by NEC. The resulting machine was about the size of an industrial copier with a sheet-fed scanner and CX laser printer on top. The pedestal contained a full computer system, with 2 Megabytes of RAM and a 20 megabyte hard disk drive. Since NEC built the system, it added its own labels to the side of the Canon CX printer. These NEC labels are often a source of confusion for owners of printers that were removed from Zap Mail machines. People often ask us for toner cartridges for their NEC RPE-4502 printer.

Federal Express spent a fortune advertising the system on TV and in print. It tried to attract people to Federal Express package drop-off offices to use the system. It also sold systems to big businesses and installed them at company sites. The cost of use was about $3 to $4 per page, and it wasn't as fast and convenient as low-cost local fax machines, which hit the market about six months afer Federal Express installed its system. Ultimately, the Zap Mail System turned out to be the largest financial debacle in Federal Express history. Federal Express dropped the failed venture in 1988 and took a charge of about $250 Million dollars.

When Federal Express officials decided to kill the project, they had about 8,000 unused CX engines and about 5,000 used ones in inventory. They contacted many used computer dealers to see what could be recovered from the systems on the surplus market. QMS looked at the engines and tried to get the PS-Jet controller to work with it. When QMS learned the engines were 415 dpi, purple colored and had no internal power supply, it decided it would be too expensive to make a product out of them. Federal Express was not able to get any offers deemed reasonable for the surplus equipment until the value of the memory chips inside the machines suddenly quadrupled.

The huge number of Zap Mail systems were finally sold during the DRAM shortage that occurred in the summer of 1989. The DRAM shortage resulted when tariffs imposed by the U.S. Government caused Japanese manufacturers to slow down production. Foreign manufacturers had been accused of dumping by American manufacturers. Simultaneously, the PC revolution was in full swing and manufacturers couldn't get enough chips. A consortium consisting of Ross-Dove Auctioneers, Oracle Electronics and Trading Company, and a chip broker from Los Angeles, apparently bought the whole lot for about six million dollars. Some 175 truck trailers, 45 feet in length, were required to move the massive quantity of Zap Mail systems from Tennessee to California. In California, two crews worked day and swing shifts for three months to tear down the systems and remove the boards, which contained 2 megabytes of 41256 DRAM (64 chips). At the time, the solder-pulled 41256-15 DRAM chips were fetching almost $10 per chip. Before the tariffs were imposed, 41256 chips were being sold for only $2 to $2.50 each. During the three months it took to extract and sell the chips, the price of used 41256 chips dropped several dollars each. As a result, the consortium had to sell the laser printers for several hundred dollars each to make the profit they were expecting on the deal.

The consortium shopped the printers around everywhere. Finally, a new company called LaserSmith was formed by four guys. A Canadian group of investors backed the new company financially by purchasing the engines from the IC dealers with the plan of selling to LaserSmith at a profit. LaserSmith and its backers bought almost all of the 8,000 new engines that existed, but none of the 5,000 used ones. Before getting funding, LaserSmith was successful in getting external controllers from Everex, Tall Tree, Eicon and RIPS to work with the engines. Initially, LaserSmith advertised about four models, depending on the controller used. Each controller had its strong and weak points. The Tall Tree controllers were inexpensive, but hard to install and not fully PostScript compatible. The Everex controllers were moderately priced and had the Bauer Enterprises PostScript clone, which eventually became Microsoft TrueImage (but they were so slow at 415 dpi that LaserSmith employees nicknamed them "Sominex" boards, as you could go to sleep waiting for them to print a page). The Eicon controllers were faster than Everex, but not as fast as the RISC- based controllers from RIPS. At last, LaserSmith focused on selling the high-end controllers from RIPS and marketed the package as the PS-415, for about $4,500 dollars.

LaserSmith had invested most of its resources in printer inventory. Its backers were not willing to invest more money in sales and marketing efforts, which were LaserSmith's responsibility. Due to the high prices set by LaserSmith and the lack of advertising dollars available, LaserSmith was not successful in selling the printers. The Canadian investors began to worry about LaserSmith's low sales volume. LaserSmith controlled these printers for about 18 months, during which time it only sold a few hundred units. The investors decided to get out of the deal by putting the remaining CX engines back on the market. After about six months of trying various avenues (such as ads in the Computer Hotline and taking product to Ross-Dove Auctions) about 6,000 units remained. Then, in about two weeks of September 1990, deals were struck to sell 3,000 units to HP and 3,000 units to The Printer Works. HP used the printers for parts to support the installed bases of 2686A and 2686D printers. The Printer Works used its 3,000, and around 1,000 more obtained from LaserSmith and others, to sell about 4,000 new JetScript-CX printers. Earlier, in 1989, IC dealers had decided to see what the used engines would fetch at auction, and The Printer Works ended up being the high bidder for about 600 units at only $45 each. Those 600 printers, plus about 2,000 more collected in other deals, allowed The Printer Works to build about 2,500 refurbished JetScript-CX printers and brought the total installed base of JetScript-CX printers to about 6,500 units. Most of the JetScript-CX printer kits were sold between September 1990 and February 1992.

Converting the Zap Mail Printers to CX VDO Units

The Printer Works has converted literally thousands of the Federal Express CX engines into the standard Canon CX VDO model. If you have one, we can do the job for you or sell you the parts to do it yourself. Once converted to a 300 dpi VDO model, the printer is compatible with external controllers such as various LaserMaster models or the QMS JetScript. There are four things that have to be done: change the resolution from 415 to 300 dpi, adjust the scanner, change the color from purple to beige and add an LED status panel.

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Changing the Resolution to 300 DPI

To change the resolution from 415 dpi to 300 dpi, the speed of the rotating mirror within the scanner housing must be slowed from 7701 RPM to 5565 RPM. The scanner motors in the Federal Express units were designed to spin faster than standard 300 dpi units. The armature's windings are wound with a different number of poles from the 300 dpi units. These faster motors have no problem operating at the lower 300 dpi speed. A servo motor controller chip, similar to those developed for high fidelity stereo record players, is used to keep the motor spinning at a precise rate. This chip takes its time base from a crystal-controlled oscillator mounted beside it on the PCB connected to the scanner motor. The motor speed is dependent on the frequency of the crystal. For 415 dpi, the factory-original crystal frequency is 10.641 MHz. For converting to 300 dpi, the best frequency is 7.689 MHz. Variations in this frequency will produce printed images that are either too wide or too narrow. A fairly large number of printers from some of the other companies involved in these conversions did not have quite the correct frequency. This problem is easy to correct by changing the crystal.

Adjusting the Scanner Assembly and Left Margin

The scanner assembly must be mounted on the printer frame at precisely the correct angle for the image to be shaped properly. If skewed, the image will not have the correct shape. The left margin can also be varied slightly by moving the scanner assembly. To correct the left margin position beyond the limits possible with placement of the scanner assembly, it is necessary to rotate the mirror with the scanner box that reflects the laser beam down the fiber optic cable to the DC controller when the beam is at the left margin. Most controllers allow some software adjustment of both the top and left margins within certain limits. In order for the left margin to be correct within the capabilities of the QMS JetScript controller, The Printer Works adjusted this mirror to bring the left margin further to the right. LaserMaster WinJet controllers offer much wider control of the left and top margins, so changing these mechanical settings is usually not necessary.

DC Controller Modifications

The DC controller board must also be changed along with the scanner. The micro controller on the DC controller checks to see that the scanner is rotating at a speed within certain limits, by clocking the time between left-margin beam detect signals. The microprocessor's clock is controlled by a resonator on the DC controller at location CF201. The 415 dpi DC controller uses a faster clock rate (higher frequency resonator or crystal). (A resonator is a low-cost, less accurate substitute for a quartz crystal.) Two capacitors at locations C224 and C227, part of the oscillator circuit, must also be changed from 150pF to 220pF. The DC controller for 415 dpi printers used a 16.5 MHz resonator and the 300 dpi DC controller used a 11.9 MHz resonator. If the time base on the DC controller does not match the crystal on the scanner, the printer will shut down and light the "A" LED on the status panel. If a resonator is not readily available, a quartz crystal of frequency 11.7 MHz to 12.1 MHz will work just as well.

Changing the Color

The external covers and panels of the Federal Express engine were molded in purple plastic. This plastic can be painted if the correct type of paint is used. The painting contractors used by The Printer Works employed Sherman Williams poly-urethane paint, color S63EXH4300. Some other paints used by other companies that converted Fed Ex engines are known to change color as the paint slowly reacts chemically with the plastic. Only the upper covers need to be painted, because the base, which was not visible when the printer was fitted into the Zap Mail machine, was always molded in the standard Canon color.

Adding the LED Status Panel

The top cover of the Fed Ex engine was molded without the usual plastic frame for the standard OEM status panel. LaserSmith Corporation had custom molds made for a new LED status panel and a font cartridge slot cover that neatly filled the holes left in the Fed Ex printer lid when the original blanking panel was removed. The Printer Works used this status panel or a whole new lid with the LaserSmith control panel for the CX engines we sold with JetScript cards. The LaserSmith status panel is pictured on the control panel page of the parts section of this catalog. As of this writing, we still have several hundred of these two-piece kits in inventory.

The components necessary to perform your own Zap Mailer to CX VDO conversion are listed under Ordering Information, below.

REFURBISHED PRINTERS AVAILABLE

Although the Federal Express Zap Mail printer has been discontinued, The Printer Works offers refurbished printers in like-new condition with a full-one-year warranty. For a price quote, select the part number of the model that interests you in the ordering information table.

Supplies and Accessories

Model Information | Converting the Zap Mail Printers to CX-VDO Units |
Ordering Information | Text Only

You can check prices or order these items from the ordering information table below.

TONER

The Federal Express Zap Mail printers use the same toner cartridges as all other CX-based printers.

PAPER HANDLING

The Federal Express Zap Mail printers use the same shaped paper trays as all other CX-based printers. All versions are physically interchangeable, although there may be slight color differences. (See also Diagram 300.)

CONTROLLER UPGRADE OPTIONS

There are no controllers currently available that work with an unconverted ZapMail printer. For converted (to 300 dpi) models, see our page on external and host-based controllers.

Ordering Information

Model Information | Converting the Zap Mail Printers to CX-VDO Units |
Supplies and Accessories | Text Only

For price and ordering information or to place the item in your shopping cart,
select a Part Number in the table.

Model Information | Converting the Zap Mail Printers to CX-VDO Units |
Supplies and Accessories | Text Only