Z3200 is cutting my print a little short

[Jdejesus]

Hello all,

First post, but i've been lurking for a few months 

From a lot of opinion from this forum, I decided to get a Z3200. Been loving it and learning a lot as I'm printing. I've noticed on the last few prints i've done from the printer, the last inch of my print has not been printing. It doesn't matter if I feed the sheets or have a roll on the printer. The printer wasn't doing this in the past. The only work around I have found to do is to add an extra inch on the long side of the print, so that the printer will not print that last inch. I have recently moved the printer from one location of the studio to another part of the room. No lifting, just rolling the printer 10 feet.

I'm hoping it's just a setting I need to reset. I'm using the print drivers that came with the machine. Would a RIP have better control over the stoppage? When I first started printing, I was able to make an overall print dimension in Photoshop (i.e. a 24x36 print size) and put multiple images in that work size. And I noticed that the printer would print up to approximately .30" on all 4 sides.

Any help or advice on how to better diagnose my problem would be most appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

-Josh

[Ernst Dinkla]

Hello all,

First post, but i've been lurking for a few months 

From a lot of opinion from this forum, I decided to get a Z3200. Been loving it and learning a lot as I'm printing. I've noticed on the last few prints i've done from the printer, the last inch of my print has not been printing. It doesn't matter if I feed the sheets or have a roll on the printer. The printer wasn't doing this in the past. The only work around I have found to do is to add an extra inch on the long side of the print, so that the printer will not print that last inch. I have recently moved the printer from one location of the studio to another part of the room. No lifting, just rolling the printer 10 feet.

I'm hoping it's just a setting I need to reset. I'm using the print drivers that came with the machine. Would a RIP have better control over the stoppage? When I first started printing, I was able to make an overall print dimension in Photoshop (i.e. a 24x36 print size) and put multiple images in that work size. And I noticed that the printer would print up to approximately .30" on all 4 sides.

Any help or advice on how to better diagnose my problem would be most appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

-Josh

A RIP should not be needed to overcome hardware or driver issues!

Describe the OS, the application you print from, Z3200-PS or normal, the driver PCL3/PS3 you use.

If I recall it correctly there has been a thread here on a similar issue.

The normal print margins are 5mm for rolls, so the print page set in the driver (PCL3) will have 5mm unprintable at the edges and this reduced size will show in the application you print from. For sheets it is the same but at the trailing edge an extra 12mm can not be printed, a total of 17mm at that edge then. In the PS3 driver the print margins are already reduced in the driver itself so what you select is what you get as a netto print page.

In the Driver>Printer/Quality>Margins/Layout menu is the setting anything other than Standard? I only use Standard. In the Driver>Features menu the Remove Top/Bottom blank areas is not set?

Using Qimage Ultimate? and the Remove White Space at Bottom Page not set?

That sums up what I know of possible software setting issues right now.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2016 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[Jdejesus]

Thanks Ernst for taking the time to go over a few things.

Tomorrow when I get into my studio I will print out a test print and check it's margins and see if they are the 5mm/17mm your describing. I did look at the driver settings I have used in my Margins/Layout tab. In the past I have always used 'OVERSIZED'. I don't have a 'STANDARD' option. That is also making me think that I need to update my firmware......

I'm on OS X 10.10, the printer is the PS version, and i'm printing directly from Photoshop CS6 (using cmd+p and adjusting all of the settings from the tabs).

I'll update my findings tomorrow. Thanks again for taking the time to problem solve my issue.

-Joshua

[Brad P]

Having Meener Dinkla's attention is certain to help, so give a lot of attention to what he says.  I hope I can pay some of his help to me forward to you.

Seeing you are printing from Photoshop and have OSX and a z3200 as I do, I've run into similar issues after I got my Z3200 four years ago.  It's a great machine no matter what the Epson or Canon fans say, and I have always found their customer support extraordinary (once you get the right telephone number).

If you are printing from Photoshop, my best guess is after selecting File>Print, click on Print Settings. (Eventually you have to understand what all the settings do in this series of menus to really control the printer from Photoshop). The settings change when you click on Layout and select the other options in that pop up menu.  (When you do this, by the way, you are also changing some of the print settings in the underlying HP Printer Utilities application too.)

I'd try two things first.  After selecting File>Print to bring up the print menu, click on Paper Size to pull up your particular paper.  Most common papers are listed here. But I don't see 24x36" on my screen so I suspect this might be your problem.  If you see the same thing, you will need to click on Manage Custom Sizes on the bottom and follow the series of menus to create that paper size in the fairly self explanatory menus there.  Make sure to understand what you set as print margins.   It will thereafter appear at the bottom of the previous pop up menu, and that paper size needs to be selected whenever you change papers to that 24x36"paper size.

Before printing, do this second step.. Go to File>Print, click on Layout and select Margins.  Make sure you have not selected "Clip Contents by Margins" (I usually select Oversize), or if you do, make sure you haven't clipped your image by your margin settings in the step above.

Hope this works.  Photoshop actually interacts with the printer driver settings so you shouldn't need to go there first.  You can check and change those settings in the HP Printer Utility menu later if this doesn't solve your problem. 

[Mark Lindquist]

If you are sending a 16 bit tiff file to the printer that is larger than 32,768 pixels you may be exceeding the file capacity and it will clip the bottom of the print.  Try a test:
convert your file to 8 bit jpeg and make a print.  If it prints fully, that would be an indicator that the file size is too big. Since you are using Mac OS 10.10, that in itself could be an issue.  If so, you might consider downloading and installing 10.9.5 which might be more stable.

Another thought:
The I/O Timeout setting may be too short. Increase the I/O timeout setting (Setup Menu/I/O Setup/IO Timeout) and try again.

Mark

Edit for numbers facts

[one/and/a/half]

I think I am just experiencing similar problem. Printing on roll paper and small sheets is as expected (OSX), but just today I loaded some 19x13" (HP Fine Art) and there is ~2" missing from the bottom. And the printer acts odd -- it pauses printing for a long time at the end with unfinished print (fuzzy border) and then finishes it in a couple of seconds (sharp border) and unloads with too big a bottom border.

No problem with A3 paper (nor with bigger total size prints from a roll).

This is really odd :/

[Jdejesus]

A huge thank you for everyone chiming in! I'm sorry to be absent, as last week I also got a HP Latex 110 and the installation process was a complete nightmare in compared to settingup/installing the Z. Coupled with promised deadlines from the new HP, it put all of my attention and focus away from my beloved aqueous printer.

I will go over all of these points and report my findings. Before checking this thread, I tried printing a long 10x48 print from a sheet and it was clipped about 4 inches short. Will be back in a few 

[kers]

if you make some screendumps of how the printer is setup within photoshop - especially- the paper format and margins- i think the problem will be solved...

Pieter Kers

[Jdejesus]

I believe I have identified the problem to my case. For all of the paper sheets that have been fed in 'without a skew check', the printer is defaulting it to 39 inches long. I saw it in on of my last prints today. I made a custom 10x33 paper profile with 0 margins and the printer warned me that the paper was 39 inches long. I know that the Z didn't scan the entire paper length when I select sheet paper without a skew check. This is making me think that the printer is somehow defaulting to 39" on a non skew check.

I believe my long term solution is to just buy a paper roll and use that instead of sheets. When I first bought my Z, I went ahead and got 200 feet of a 10" lustre roll thinking it would work fine. Little did I find out that 11" is the minimum roll width needed.

I'm still looking for the i/o settings. Will look for it again tomorrow when I get back into my studio.

[kers]

Yes you are right;

i forgot, without skew check the printer no longer knows exactly how long the paper is and therefore makes less use of the complete paper...
it happened to me too... some time ago...
All these machines and there little quirks
I only want to know to use those machines that are really worth it and the z3100 is certainly one of them...
Mine is doing a great job since 2007! ( knockknock) and my last  and the first testprint look identical.
It is my reference.

[one/and/a/half]

For me it must be something different, as I always load sheets with skew check and the printer reports proper size (13x19"). I attach my print settings - nothing unusual there (note the printer was offline now but when it is on it's the same).

[Ernst Dinkla]

I believe I have identified the problem to my case. For all of the paper sheets that have been fed in 'without a skew check', the printer is defaulting it to 39 inches long. I saw it in on of my last prints today. I made a custom 10x33 paper profile with 0 margins and the printer warned me that the paper was 39 inches long. I know that the Z didn't scan the entire paper length when I select sheet paper without a skew check. This is making me think that the printer is somehow defaulting to 39" on a non skew check.

I believe my long term solution is to just buy a paper roll and use that instead of sheets. When I first bought my Z, I went ahead and got 200 feet of a 10" lustre roll thinking it would work fine. Little did I find out that 11" is the minimum roll width needed.

I'm still looking for the i/o settings. Will look for it again tomorrow when I get back into my studio.

Yes, No HP Z will measure the actual length of a sheet when No Skew Check is selected, it gives an arbitrary length of 39" in the driver. On top of that I experienced another problem when I got the Z3200 first, it slows down on roll printing when I keep the No Skew Check setting as the default for sheet paper. I did report that to HP Barcelona a long time ago and they admitted it was a bug. As it wasn't solved then I never used the setting on the Z3200. It might have been solved meanwhile with firmware upgrades but I have not checked that. On the Z3100 it never was a problem.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2016 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[kers]

For me it must be something different, as I always load sheets with skew check and the printer reports proper size (13x19"). I attach my print settings - nothing unusual there (note the printer was offline now but when it is on it's the same).

i can only think of this

choose the printer-defined super A3+ size
choose margins standard

[one/and/a/half]

@Kers, thank you. I'm out of town, but will report back if it solved the issue. Bests.

[dajaka]

As to your issue with 10" rolls there is a way to make the printer accept narrower paper than 11"

Hold a piece of paper in the paper path to the left of the roll or scrap you are trying to load.
I use 6x9 note cards for this. As the printer does its final width check make sure the piece you are holding is more than 11" from the right side and the printhead will think this piece indicates the actual width.

I do this all the time to use small scraps that I've saved while trimming my prints.

The only problem is to remember the actual width and don't position a print in the print preview to go beyond that point since the printer will not stop printing at the edge of the smaller piece.

[one/and/a/half]

Unfortunately my Z3200 just won't print A3+. Regular A3 works fine, roll paper works fine. But with A3+ it just sends errors near the end of the print (OSX/printproxy is not responding). Mysterious.

[Brad P]

I see you've set three of your margins to 0.2 inches.  Have you tried changing these to .67 inches or greater?   In the distant past I had weird margin problems similar to yours and others' posts.  For my purposes, I solved by making sure I set up custom paper sizes set up as needed (as you appear to have done) AND make sure I have a minimum margins of more than .67" -- usually 1" so I can safely handle the prints.  That solved my own problems (which were more related to lack of centering) so I didn't pursue it further.  I have the B model BTW.

If you do have problems after this or the less margins result is unacceptable, I'd give a ring to HP's customer service.  If you're still under warranty (and get through to the right number) they are very helpful and will even send techs out to service the device, which may be needed.  You can also purchase an extended warranty (which I have done) and you'll still get exceptional service esp. if you're in a remote location.

[one/and/a/half]

This one really drives me crazy I tried making bottom margin wider (1" - that is the amount that my printer stops at). Then the printer ceased to print even wider margin.

OSX Printer Status asks to load paper, but the sheet is still in the printer (the printer has no difficulties transporting nor measuring sheet dimensions). Tried from various applications - same effect. The only thing that helps is reducing number of passes or quality in the driver settings -- then margins are normal.

The printer is out of HP service coverage. So I guess roll paper that is... (I've just lately stockpiled hundreds of sheets of Baryta and Hahnemuhle matte papers :/ )