Any suggestions for Wide Format Printers?

[attrofy]

Howdy all,

We currently own an HP Designjet 500 24" - non Post Script model. We are considering upgrading to a wider format printer. Most ofthe models wehave looked at are still in the HP Designjet line. The 42" 500PS is the right price, but I have not been overly pleased with the 24" model, so I am leaning towards the 800PS 42". The price is a little higher then we were looking for, but might consider it if it is a resonable upgrade.

Any other recomendations for printers in this category? Just so you know, we predominately print Retail style banners, advertisemnts and displays, for strictly in-house use - we are not a commercial printer or anyhting. Also, we use Corel Draw as our primary software, on PC's. Thanks in advance for the input.

 

[gbaughma]

We have a DesignJet 500 42", and I am in love with that machine. I use it with both CorelDraw and AutoCad 2000, with never a glitch. Put a NIC card in it, though if you're going to share it. Spooling up documents to that baby on a local PC with shared printer will slow things down.

--Greg

 

[attrofy]

That is good to hear. We have had a lot of glitches with ours. Our biggest problem comes in trying to print large images with large fills (i.e. background color of banners, etc). We usually end up with either half of the image filled, or just the outline of the image. We have found this is only really prevelant when we set the print quality to "best". on "normal" or "draft" things seem to print properly. I have discussed this at length with both HP and Corel Draw, and everyone seems to be in agreement that it is an HP issue. My theory has been that it is because of the non=PS model, but I had no way to confirm it.

Thanks for the input - still looking for more.

 

[Brushman]

Is it possible for you to make a pdf from Corel (Acrobat or Jaws)and print that to your printer, may solve the postscript thing. Also try printing from Corel but NOT using the print preview. If you are using loads of blends and transparencies the files can get huge on print this may trip the printer up
Alan

 

[attrofy]

We have had some success converting to a single .jpg, if the resolution can be handled properly, I haven't personally tried a pdf file, but some one else did and she reports moderate results, occasional success, occasional failures - I will give that a go next time. Most of thet time we do not print too complex of blends for background info, and the closest thing to transparencies are usually text with wrap features. For the most part, our backgrounds are solid blocks of color. I recently puchased v12, and haven't had a chance to instal it yet, so I am hopeful that that that will resolve some issues.

 

[ablair]

Printing large images on a designjet 500 can be troublesome. Ideally you should add the HPGL card and 128MB RAM. Also, I wouldn't bother going Postscript, you can purchase a PosterJet RIP for about the same difference in price. PosterJet is Postscript 3 complient and they guarantee that your files wil start printing in 7 seconds.

 

[attrofy]

I'll check into that. At last check, the upgrade to add the memory card with memory was around $400. At the time, that was almost the difference in price for the PS model. Due to budget constraints, this was an issue then. Now maybe things have eased up - it is worth looking into, as well as the software you mentioned.

 

[JoeCoolDowning]

Hey, I'm having an issue with printing long files. I can print anything up to around 55", but over that and the job stops half way and then spools out the rest of the way blank.

I'm using CorelDraw 10 for Windows and the Designjet 500.

Any ideas how to overcome this one?

 

[attrofy]

We had a similar problem. The solution was to go into the print profile, and ensure that "print quality" was NOT marked "BEST". Since I am at home going form memory, I think we chose the middle option (normal?). Whatever is above "Draft". HTH

 

[gbaughma]

Yup... that's the solution.

I printed out a pictoral history of the town I worked in... it was about 8' long... it would drop fonts and so forth at the highest setting, but printed fine with the "normal" setting.

Just for giggles, I tried printing it in "Draft" also, and realy didn't see much of a difference in quality.



Just my $0.02

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify its owner." --Me
--Greg

 

[attrofy]

We had similar findings. I noticed on very large fills, with many "Fountain fill steps", we would get part of our fills filled, and the other parts would remain blank. The only difference I noticed between draft and normal was in these fills. The Normal has much more solid fills, where thedraft would be much more "blocky".