Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: Samaila Sodangi on May 27, 2009, 10:21:22 am
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Hi Everyone,
I have this large volume printing work (1000 copies of 24 inches by 52 inches full color canvas prints) to undertake in one month. Right now I have a brand new HP Z3100 printer (test prints of the same size took an a hour an a half to print) and wish to purchase two more new ones to complete the job. I intend to run each printer for sixteen hours a day to each produce ten prints per day for a total of thirty prints a day and 900 prints a month and probably pushing the printers on a little harder to produce the balance of 100 prints so as to meet the deadline.
Can the Z3100 work that hard? Do I need more or less than three printers for this purpose?
Thanks in advance,
Samaila Sodangi
(Conscience is an open wound, only truth can heal it.)
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If I had a job to print 8666 square feet I'd give serious consideration to having a third party with larger equipment print the job. Of course, you'd have to get a proof to make certain that the results are satisfactory.
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Hi Everyone,
I have this large volume printing work (1000 copies of 24 inches by 52 inches full color canvas prints) to undertake in one month. Right now I have a brand new HP Z3100 printer (test prints of the same size took an a hour an a half to print) and wish to purchase two more new ones to complete the job. I intend to run each printer for sixteen hours a day to each produce ten prints per day for a total of thirty prints a day and 900 prints a month and probably pushing the printers on a little harder to produce the balance of 100 prints so as to meet the deadline.
Can the Z3100 work that hard? Do I need more or less than three printers for this purpose?
Thanks in advance,
On reducing the time to print: An hour and a half seems very long to me for that size. Best quality setting = 600 PPI input resolution used where Normal = 300 PPI on canvas would be sufficient. Time including the rasterisation in the program you print from? For multiple copies of one image you can use the spooler and repeat the job from there without the rasterisation phase. A Z3200 will be 20% faster than the Z3100. Printing a small canvas portrait wise as you have to do on a Z3100 will ask more time than landscape wise on a Z6100 60" that is also a faster machine, its 60" width should cover the size . The Z6100 doesn't have the gamut of the Z3100 but it could be sufficient. Check canvas qualities available at that width. One Z6100 could do the job easily. One Z3100 24" should even cope with it but take much more time. HP says one A1 per 15 minutes in gloss photo quality, that is 0.5 sqm, your print is 0.8 sqm, 400 hours for the job, 25 days at 16 hours a day. Two printers will give enough backup and I doubt you need the photo gloss quality. Repeat the job from the spooler or get the PS versions of the models discussed that have the job center to do the same even better.
A fast system to print from makes a difference. I'm still puzzled about the 90 minutes of your test.
Any thoughts on what really takes time: varnishing and stretching on frames ?
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
New: Dinkla Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
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On reducing the time to print: An hour and a half seems very long to me for that size. Best quality setting = 600 PPI input resolution used where Normal = 300 PPI on canvas would be sufficient. Time including the rasterisation in the program you print from? For multiple copies of one image you can use the spooler and repeat the job from there without the rasterisation phase. A Z3200 will be 20% faster than the Z3100. Printing a small canvas portrait wise as you have to do on a Z3100 will ask more time than landscape wise on a Z6100 60" that is also a faster machine, its 60" width should cover the size . The Z6100 doesn't have the gamut of the Z3100 but it could be sufficient. Check canvas qualities available at that width. One Z6100 could do the job easily. One Z3100 24" should even cope with it but take much more time. HP says one A1 per 15 minutes in gloss photo quality, that is 0.5 sqm, your print is 0.8 sqm, 400 hours for the job, 25 days at 16 hours a day. Two printers will give enough backup and I doubt you need the photo gloss quality. Repeat the job from the spooler or get the PS versions of the models discussed that have the job center to do the same even better.
A fast system to print from makes a difference. I'm still puzzled about the 90 minutes of your test.
Any thoughts on what really takes time: varnishing and stretching on frames ?
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
New: Dinkla Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
I printed from Photoshop CS4 and the print time actually included the rasterisation within CS4 but I will check on other issues.
If I get you right a single Z3100 24" can handle the task firing at sixteen hours a day for 25 days to produce my job? That I can back it up with something like a brand new 44" Z 3200 PS and that way I can hit my 1000 copies print target. Right? My primary concern is the rugedness of the machine to endure the long printing period.
Thanks.
Samaila Sodangi
(Conscience is an open wound, only truth can heal it.)
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I printed from Photoshop CS4 and the print time actually included the rasterisation within CS4 but I will check on other issues.
If I get you right a single Z3100 24" can handle the task firing at sixteen hours a day for 25 days to produce my job? That I can back it up with something like a brand new 44" Z 3200 PS and that way I can hit my 1000 copies print target. Right? My primary concern is the rugedness of the machine to endure the long printing period.
Thanks.
Be aware that there will be a difference in color between the two printers. Saturated reds most prone to differ. If you were thinking of 2 or 3 printers you could consider a cheap extra Z3100-PS model or exchange the Z3100 for one Z3200 and a Z3200-PS. Drive all with the PCL driver, feeding a TIFF of 150-200 PPI at the 1:1 scale or anything lower in resolution if the required print quality allows that.
The Z3200-PS with the PCL3 driver doesn't have a length limit either so you could gang 2 or 3 canvasses after another (Qimage), put a wide core (6 inches) on spindles at the bottom and wind the canvas there up for cutting with a roll cutter later on. Buy some extra paper spindles to preload. Is also much easier in practice if you use more media qualities after this job is finished.
1000 canvas pieces, total 800 square meters, 8 liter of ink, 6 heads involved that should last between 6 and 15 liter in total. One or two heads could meet their limit depending on the color distribution in the image. Get some extra heads and the carts after you have done 1/8 of the job, it must be clear then what you need.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
New: Dinkla Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
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Be aware that there will be a difference in color between the two printers. Saturated reds most prone to differ. If you were thinking of 2 or 3 printers you could consider a cheap extra Z3100-PS model or exchange the Z3100 for one Z3200 and a Z3200-PS. Drive all with the PCL driver, feeding a TIFF of 150-200 PPI at the 1:1 scale or anything lower in resolution if the required print quality allows that.
The Z3200-PS with the PCL3 driver doesn't have a length limit either so you could gang 2 or 3 canvasses after another (Qimage), put a wide core (6 inches) on spindles at the bottom and wind the canvas there up for cutting with a roll cutter later on. Buy some extra paper spindles to preload. Is also much easier in practice if you use more media qualities after this job is finished.
1000 canvas pieces, total 800 square meters, 8 liter of ink, 6 heads involved that should last between 6 and 15 liter in total. One or two heads could meet their limit depending on the color distribution in the image. Get some extra heads and the carts after you have done 1/8 of the job, it must be clear then what you need.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
New: Dinkla Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
That's beutiful, thanks alot.
On reducing the time to print: I also have checked on the settings I used for the lengthy test print time. I discovered that I checked "Standard" for the print quality and the file's resolution is 300ppi(PSD). The canvas I printed on was Collector Satin paper Canvas roll.
My PC is a Pentium 4, 64MB graphics memory, 1.5GB RAM running on XP Home.
Thanks in advance.
Samaila Sodangi
(Conscience is an open wound, only truth can heal it.)
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The very best solution is aqs Ernst said do this on the PS model and print as many copies as you like from the internal hard drive once the image is saved already spooled to the printer.
You then have no host computer worries, no spool times, and stand alone printing. Both the 31+3200 will do fine at this, just be aware the 130ml cartridges are not going to allow a no ink out production overnight printing if they are low at the beginning of the print run each shift.
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So how this ends??
Was Z3100 robust enough to handle all that prints??
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That is the frustrating part of answering questions like that. The "Thank you" is not what I need but a feedback afterwards gives the advice its value. Negative or postive doesn't matter, as I will learn something too.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Can the z3100 work that hard? In my experience, yes, at least if the machine is relatively new (i.e. too young to have belt decay issues). For that many prints, I'd have either a spare set of print heads on hand, or a supplier who can provide them overnight. And I'd be prepared to clean accumulated gunky ink from the underside of the carriage a couple of times during this long print run. When I've run a large set of prints (250), I found that I would get black ink dropping or smearing off the bottom of the carriage, so I had to interrupt the run and clean underneath by pulling all the print heads and using either coffee filter paper with distilled water to clean the heads and to work under the carriage (a tedious but effective method), or, if you save the little cleaning pads that come with the print heads, you can wet them with the distilled water and bend the stem to fit under the carriage. The machine itself seemed perfectly happy to print, and print, and print. I've been mightily impressed with the robustness of my 3100 over the years. (though I just bought a Canon 8300 from Shades of Paper---at this juncture in printer development, I think Canon has the best combination of output quality, build quality, price, and convenience of use.)
Congratulations and good luck with your big job!
David V. Ward, Ph. D.
www.dvward.com
David V. Ward Fine Art Photography