Does anyone know where I can find i

[anawrocki]

Does anyone know where I can find info on what performance gains can be expected by adding an EIO Harddisk to a 4100 series laserjet? And also what needs to happen to take advantage of the hard disk? I know I can buy one, but the technical details I have found so far are sketchy at best.

The reason I am asking is that I have a printer that is used to print checks using a custom accounting package. Every time it prints 1 check it sends 3 post script files. 2 of which are the same file every time, one is a signature, and one is a logo. It takes 2 minutes to print one check! I am trying to find a way to get this closer to ppm specs that are advertised.

Please keep in mind that I am not a PS guru and yes I know, this sounds like bad design (I whole heartedly agree)but re-writing the app is not an option at this time so it is time to break out the duct tape.

Thanks for any ideas.

 

[jlasman]

That is terrible! What do the makers of the software say?

It should only tar a few seconds to download the files. Do you know how large the download files are?

How is the printer connected to the computer? LPT? Network?


Jim Asman
jlasman@telus.net

 

[anawrocki]

Yes it is terible. The maker of the software (in house developers that were here many moons ago) are not available for comment. The app dumps raw postscript, (as near as I can tell) into a local windows print queue connected to the LJ printer via LPR.

The reason I say raw postscript is that it makes absolutly no difference what print driver you use, generic text, PCL or PS, the output remains the same, pretty logo and all.

According to what you can see in the print queue, each check is about 8 MB each if you add the three files that get sent.

This was OK until business picked up, now it takes a while to print 700 checks.

What can I say, it is job security.

Any ideas on the optional hard drive?

 

[jlasman]

Well! My checks with pretty logo and all might be 10K ea, probably 3K.

How that gets inflated to 8mb is beyond me.

You would certainly save some time with an internal drive,
but you don't know if the absolute transmission time is the issue or not. Maybe it is the processing of the data once it gets to the printer.

Is there any chance that this was sabotage?





Jim Asman
jlasman@telus.net

 

[anawrocki]

I am fairly certain this was just incompetence, not sabatoge.

I know a drive will allow more to spool to the printer, but my question is will it help the checks print out any faster?

 

[Jomama46]

Dont know if you saw this one

http://www.printerworks.com/DataSheets/laserjet4100.html

But with only 32M RAM installed, I think I would upgrade that first. Certainlty it will make the job faster. How fast is hard to say.
I dont think the HD will make a diff in the speed of the job as it is used for spooling and not page memory
GL

Jomama

 

[anawrocki]

Ours has 160 MB of RAM, that was the first thing I did and it did not help.

 

[JimInKS]

The app dumps raw postscript, (as near as I can tell) into a local windows print queue connected to the LJ printer via LPR.

I'm not realy familiar with this but it makes me suspicious. I am wondering if the print queue is getting serviced in a timely manner or there is some kind of timeout that is triggering each print job.

How busy does the print server seem while printing?

Does the printer seem busy the whole time (ie receiving data the whole time) or is it bursty?

Lastly, if the printer appears busy the whole time what is your network like? Is it 100M and lightly loaded?

 

[anawrocki]

This is a dedicated printer, but we have tested it on thers with simular results, also, any "normal"printing of Word or Excel documents is speedy as you would expect it to be.

Yes it is 100M and the print server is not working very hard.

The output is very consistent and when it is not printing the busy light is flashing.

 

[hpwizzard]

Why not incorporate the signature and logo as a macro on a flash DIMM mounted like RAM in the printer. Just like you would do when using OCR-B fonts for girocards and other printouts requiring special fonts

 

[anawrocki]

Can I do that with a PS file. I knew I could do it with actual fonts but I did not know if this was possible with PS files.

 

[hpwizzard]

Jetcaps.com is the official font/macro DIMM service partner with HP and should be able to help you.