Express the costs of consumables (over $12,100) to operate printer services offered for free to Chem majors, over a period of 1.5 years. Does not include the cost of the $2.5K printer itself.

Summary

Consumables = (Ink + maintenance kits) + paper = $10,200 + $1,930 = $12,130 over 35 months.

This comes to about $4,160/year.

Data and analysis

Page counts	Dates	Count of months	Avg pages per months (including summers) Most uses is Jan/Feb. and Aug/Sept	At 1.53 cents/ page, for just ink (a consumable)	At 0.36 cents/ page, for just maintenance kit (another consumable)	Cost for both consumables (NOT paper)
300,000	May 2011 - Nov 2012	19 months	15,000 pages /month	$4,585	$1,080	$5,670
240,000	Dec 2012 - Feb 2014	15 months	16,000 pages/ month	$3,665	$865	$4,530
Total: 540,000	May 2011 - Feb 2014	34 months	15,430 pages/ month	$8,250	$1,945	$10,200

Hardware costs, including "consumable" maintenance kits

Printer's initial cost, including 3 year warranty: $2,500

Amortizing cost of printer over 540K pages printed comes to 0.46 cents per page.

Cost for maintenance kits, up to now: $1,945

10 have been installed for the most recent 240,000 pages, at $86.40 each: $864 + $1 = $865
Thus estimate we 1.25 additional kits (~12.5 kits) for the first 300K pages printed: $1,080

Thus, $4,445 spent so far on hardware, including maintenance kits.

Ink cost calculations

Total ink costs: $8,250

Usage Dec 2012 - Feb 2014

Ink Stick color	Use	6 Sticks per package	Cost per package (These are Michael Hint's costs; Lars may pay more?)	Total costs
Cyan	28	4.67	$69.65	$325.26
Magenta	24	4.00	$69.65	$278.60
Yellow	22	3.67	$69.65	$255.62
Black	76	12.67	$221.40	$2,805.14
			Total ink costs for 240K pages:	$3,665

$3,665 for 240,000 pages comes to 1.53 cents per page, on average.
Thus, estimate that an additional 300,000 pages used previously (1.25 as much again) would cost about $4,585.

Paper costs

Cost for paper, up to now: $1,930

0.575 cents per page, if buying cheap and you don't care about the environment.
Total of 335,000 sheets of pater used.
- 149,000 paper sheets used for 240,000 pages printed.
- Thus estimate that an additional 186,000 paper sheets used for previous 300,000 pages printed.

Paper purchase cost options

0.575 cents/ page for Staples® Copy Paper, LETTER-Size, 92/104 US/Euro Brightness, 20 lb., 8 1/2" x 11", 5,000 Sheets/Ct (if $28.77 for 5000 sheets).

1.03 cents / page for Staples® 30% Recycled Copy Paper, LETTER-size, 92/104 US/Euro Brightness, 20 lb., 8 1/2"H x 11"W, 5,000 Sheets/Ct ($51.59 for 5000 sheets)

Contains at least 10% post-consumer recycled content

0.67 cents/ Staples® 100% Recycled Copy Paper, LETTER-size, 92/104 US/Euro Brightness, 20 lb., 8 1/2"H x 11"W, 5,000 Sheets/Ct ($33.43 for 5000 sheets)