State of the art-printer

[Richard.Wills]

I'm back on the quest for something to replace our Canon 8400, because headstrikes on art materials are getting kind of boring.

Print mix is about 40% Canson Platine, prestige Baryta, Arches 88 (this is delicious paper), edition etching rag etc; 30% photopapers (Epson Enhanced Matt, Innova IFA24, Canson Lustre 310 etc); and 30% SAV, banner and other graphics materials.

Almost no handling problems / head strikes with the graphics materials, and the photopapers are good for 80% of the the roll (and sometimes all the way through).

Platine, prestige, and edition (and the Hahnemule equivalents), I'm regularly seeing headstrikes from half way through rolls, sometimes earlier under real heavy images. Strikes tend to occur in the first 8 printing inches, and then may recur after 40 - 50". Where the images don't need a wide white border, I can often save the printed image by running a full width 8 inch black "pre-print", where the paper gets good and soft, and offers itself up to the printhead for a little nibble. Most of the larger prints are to be framed, and have a 2-3" border, so this isn't always an option.
Platine and prestige are configured to unidirectional, with a 3 second pause, but still, problems.

Whatever I get next, I really need a take up reel for the photo/graphics materials, to deal with the volume mid-price jobs, and I'll be getting a new rip that runs on a modern mac (likely Caldera).

In the UK, Z9pros Dual Roll with v-trimmer are going for a song, but I'm not hearing happy words about them, and I'd ideally like to go up to 60-64" for the next machine. I've easily got room for a Canon 6100 (so slim), and I'm sort of familiar with Canon printer quirks and foibles (and I've already got a great Canon dealer near-by). Annoyingly, they've gone up 30% in the last couple of months. But I don't know how either of these machines deal with fine art papers in the dual roll paper path (happy to have single roll loaded). The HP 64" is double the price, and a lot larger (space is currently an issue). Finally, the Epson P20000 - getting a bit long in the tooth, but not out of the question (though, currently, space.). But again, how does it run in real life?

I'm used to, and intend to continue rolling my own profiles, so an onboard spectro is not a major issue (though I'll need to replace the rev-d i1 some point soon, while the profiler license can still be transferred)

Any thoughts / experiences...? I need to switch between speedy quality, quality, and as long as it takes jobs on a very regular basis.

[RaffiCoffee]

I forget if it is Roland, Mimaki or Motoyu(?) that use a Epson head, but are very open systems and you can print from thick materials to fine toothed detail stuff. I am not too familiar with them, but I did some photo work for a printer that was using a few large formats and he was doing canvas, wall paper and thicker board material. I think there maybe a straight through feeder. If you look up epson printhead with one of these names it should come up.

[Richard.Wills]

Thanks Raffi, seems interesting, though I'm not sure I have the time / budget / mental capacity to start home brewing a printer solution. Looking at some of the ink suppliers who do aqueous inks for Mimaki, Mutoh, and Roland, most of the machines were discontinued a decade ago.

I know that part of the problem is the nature of the papers I'm battling with - they would still likely object to a straight print path as much as they do with the sort of circular path they follow in the Canon. I've got a temperature - humidity logger arriving, so I can look at the times when printing runs good, and when it goes pig shaped. And I guess I'm just going to have to jack up the prices for the finest materials, to reflect the relatively low yield, until such times as I can find a machine that plays nicely / wrangles the unruly rolls.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

I thought all the new Canon 'prograf' printers have a vacuum platen which should reduce the possibility of head strikes.

[Ernst Dinkla]

I'm not familiar enough with the Canon iPF8400 printer but I did have similar issues with my Z3200.  Once it was a failing electric actuator that normally shifts a wedge in the head carriage to lift the head carriage a bit for thicker media. Replaced it and it worked again but still not enough for papers like HM Museum Etching, a quite rigid 350 grams paper. I actually shift that wedge deeper these days, manually with a long screwdriver on both Z3200s that I have. That helps for most HM Art papers. The Museum Etching needs more attention, I load the roll giving the leading edge some more transport that it is under the starwheels and switch automatic cutting off so the roll continues for several prints. Roll is cut at the end of the job. Prints are now almost always without any head strikes.  Unlike the older Epsons (10000 for example) that can transport 1.5mm thick media the Z3200 should not allow thicker media than 0.8mm.

A friend's iPF8300 had an issue that the transport axle bearings wore too fast but I think Canon improved that for the 8400. He has now the later models 4100 6100 but complains that the greens are less saturated than the older 8300/8400 ink sets could create. I do not recall other issues he has with the new Canon machines and they run way more square meters than mine. Similar art papers, little gloss.

I think you should check whether the carriage lift is working correctly on your printer and also check the transport axle bearings, transport issues could influence the planeness of the media.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[Richard.Wills]

I thought all the new Canon 'prograf' printers have a vacuum platen which should reduce the possibility of head strikes.

Thanks Simon, they have - I've got all the thicker papers running at Max Vac. On lighter art materials (Rag Photographique 210) this has caused print problems in the past, and ISTR we had this problem at one point with HPR.

I'm not familiar enough with the Canon iPF8400 printer but I did have similar issues with my Z3200.  Once it was a failing electric actuator that normally shifts a wedge in the head carriage to lift the head carriage a bit for thicker media. Replaced it and it worked again but still not enough for papers like HM Museum Etching, a quite rigid 350 grams paper. I actually shift that wedge deeper these days, manually with a long screwdriver on both Z3200s that I have. That helps for most HM Art papers. The Museum Etching needs more attention, I load the roll giving the leading edge some more transport that it is under the starwheels and switch automatic cutting off so the roll continues for several prints. Roll is cut at the end of the job. Prints are now almost always without any head strikes.  Unlike the older Epsons (10000 for example) that can transport 1.5mm thick media the Z3200 should not allow thicker media than 0.8mm.

A friend's iPF8300 had an issue that the transport axle bearings wore too fast but I think Canon improved that for the 8400. He has now the later models 4100 6100 but complains that the greens are less saturated than the older 8300/8400 ink sets could create. I do not recall other issues he has with the new Canon machines and they run way more square meters than mine. Similar art papers, little gloss.

I think you should check whether the carriage lift is working correctly on your printer and also check the transport axle bearings, transport issues could influence the planeness of the media.

Thanks Ernst.
I'll have a look at, and try running a test to check the head is raising as it should.

Good to hear positive feelings about the 4100 & 6100 with art papers. I can live with subtly reduced green saturation. It seems they can handle the thicker media, so the bulk of our printed work should be easily covered

[RaffiCoffee]

That is good info Ernst. 
Oddly, I have some weird looking blank streaking or thin lines or drag lines that happen JUST on glossy paper in certain areas(lifted paper?) , and this maybe head strikes/?. 

I will post in a new thread once I get some photos of it. Maybe someone has seen this.

The Canon paper path vacuum on smaller thin media maybe working great, but I can see some media that it has no or low effect on.

 

[Richard.Wills]

That is good info Ernst. 
Oddly, I have some weird looking blank streaking or thin lines or drag lines that happen JUST on glossy paper in certain areas(lifted paper?) , and this maybe head strikes/?. 

I will post in a new thread once I get some photos of it. Maybe someone has seen this.

The Canon paper path vacuum on smaller thin media maybe working great, but I can see some media that it has no or low effect on.

 

Drag lines across the paper (in head travel direction), 3-5mm apart, sounds like head strikes. Mine most commonly come in (measured from left) 30cm and 70cm, on 44" rolls. Some times very feint, sometimes like ploughed furrowes.

On the 8400, you can go inot the individual media on the printer, and adjust head heigh, vacuum strength, tension, and more.

[RaffiCoffee]

I looked up Head Strike images...And there it was!!!
Very odd! The area getting printed has rollers behind the print head keeping things down, and has the front plate throat it is fed through. I looked at my papers, I even printed on a Metallic paper
(not thick. thickest paper I have is the HP Premium Plus Photo Satin), which is not really thick, but so isn't the 2 glossy papers I used and DID get headstrikes left. So the Metallic which is very shiny did not get HStrike. Just the 2 glossies. My HP42" roll, and 11x17 cut sheets. The roll, I can see it happen at the curled leading edge. But the cut sheet?! The Satin is thicker paper even.

This is a new issue to me. It has happened on the roll before, and I would uncurl it. Well. I am sure there is likely a fix.
A few years back Mark Linquist held my hand through a process of getting the printer back up and running after some clogs and driver issues.
I spoke to him not too long ago, as I reached out with no ink coming out. So this time I had to be a big boy, lol, and went to Mark's page, and reading a couple Printhead cleaning methods, trying and searching other methods (warm water a few minutes, and blowing on the top hole in particular) cleared my cloggs!  Anyway, he was not feeling too great. I hope he is better. I am happy he has made that website with all the good info.

Ernst, do you have more info I can read about that carriage height related things you were talking about? You used a screw driver to prop it up sounds a bit intimate with the printer, but I will if I have to :-)

Richard...I think this is low enough in the thread to not interfere with your original post. So I hesitantly post this, yet, I think its fine. I will happily start a new post otherwise. I was thinking, if people read the first thread, and have an real solid answer of their own, they will post it. If not, they read on and see what others posted... lol.   ya? Hope I am saying sorry for nothing :-)

I searched electric actuator and carriage. Nothing came up.

[Richard.Wills]

No worries - Ernst has offered me the first other than a "don't go there, it's a monster" indication that I've seen about the current crop of printers that fit my needs (though I'm slightly intrigued as to whether "little gloss" is merely an aesthetic decision).

These threads often interconnect, and like a slinky spring, make new and interesting connections.

[RaffiCoffee]

So if the rollers are holding the paper down, maybe there is a way to REDIRECT the paper on these problematic media so they profile down and don't interfere with the head.

Maybe fitting the exit throat with a thin foam pad, IF the other solutions don't work.  Feed paper in, manually position it so it is pushed down by the pad.  This will make the printhead area more taught and flat perhaps.  I have to try some conventional solutions first, as mine is not any special paper, just glossy HP paper, no artsy thick Ham.

Going with a familiar machine is a pretty good idea. All these machines, no matter which, after some years need some work. And if you have an upper hand in that, it should work in your favor.

HP had been known for frugal inks and some of the DEsignjets made for warehouse like settings, while Epsons have in my experience, and this is long ago, been fussy.
Canon is robust, and pretty thrifty on inks. HP, the printheads are paired. Canon, you get 2 banks, and Epson I hope changed their non interchangeable  style.
Paper handling differs from machine to machine, but I give Canon the point in my experience. Most of the machines now don't really have a feeding issue, I dont think.

I have heard of lots of bad stuff on the Latex HP printers, but I think that maybe isolated from the other print techs. I would also see if @Neil Snape has any feedback. He has good insight with the HP, and I would think current models.

[Ernst Dinkla]

No worries - Ernst has offered me the first other than a "don't go there, it's a monster" indication that I've seen about the current crop of printers that fit my needs (though I'm slightly intrigued as to whether "little gloss" is merely an aesthetic decision).

These threads often interconnect, and like a slinky spring, make new and interesting connections.

Sorry, it was written a bit in telegram style. The friend with the Canons mainly prints on matte art papers because his customers ask for them. Glossy media is less often printed there.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[Richard.Wills]

Sorry, it was written a bit in telegram style. The friend with the Canons mainly prints on matte art papers because his customers ask for them. Glossy media is less often printed there.

That's pretty much what I thought, but felt it was worth asking. I'm going to see if I can get a demo on the 6100 / 4100, and bring along some of the <5m rolls I've got here of the troublesome artsy papers.

Shame nobody is showing love for the Z9DR - £4259, with trade in against an old 9800 - with the v-trimmer. Would save a stack of time with a lot of the production work.

[dgberg]

I keep several pigment printers around for all my high end art reproduction clients but am doing more and more with our new to us s80600.
We do a ton of canvas and we have moved all of that printing to the solvent it is that good. The 10 color gamut is right up there with the best of the pigments.
With on board heaters and roll to roll attachment it will print the highest resolution 12 pass 1440 at 200 square feet per hour which is blazing fast.
We take the prints right off the roll and gallery wrap without spraying and to date it has worked perfectly. We can still spray if the client requests it. (And of course wants to pay.)
As soon as I have a little time I want to get some profiles for some of the papers we use and do some comparisons. My guess we will be using it by the end of the year for just about everything.
Did not hear you mention canvas at all. No one buying it or don't you offer? Still some artisans out there that just don't like it for one reason or another but it sure sells here.

[Richard.Wills]

I keep several pigment printers around for all my high end art reproduction clients but am doing more and more with our new to us s80600.
We do a ton of canvas and we have moved all of that printing to the solvent it is that good. The 10 color gamut is right up there with the best of the pigments.
With on board heaters and roll to roll attachment it will print the highest resolution 12 pass 1440 at 200 square feet per hour which is blazing fast.
We take the prints right off the roll and gallery wrap without spraying and to date it has worked perfectly. We can still spray if the client requests it. (And of course wants to pay.)
As soon as I have a little time I want to get some profiles for some of the papers we use and do some comparisons. My guess we will be using it by the end of the year for just about everything.
Did not hear you mention canvas at all. No one buying it or don't you offer? Still some artisans out there that just don't like it for one reason or another but it sure sells here.

I print on canvas for just one artist. Beyond that, there seems little demand here for it (at least, not that I've seen).
How're you finding the big beast for printing onto art papers? My understanding is that there are very few equivalents to the offerings form Hahnemuhle and Canson that are designed for solvent printing.
What's it like to be around? Current printing studio has limited ventilation, and it looks like we might move in a years time to a basement space, so I don't want something that'll fry my remaining brain cell.

Price is not a lot higher than the 6100 now.

Just as I thought I was looking at an answer, more questions ;-)

[Richard.Wills]

Fortunately, just realised the doors to my current print area are only 790mm wide, so I can stop thinking about the 80600 for the time being (wonders in the back of his mind, how much it'd cost to have the door-frame extended...).

[Ernst Dinkla]

Ernst, do you have more info I can read about that carriage height related things you were talking about? You used a screw driver to prop it up sounds a bit intimate with the printer, but I will if I have to :-)

I searched electric actuator and carriage. Nothing came up.

Alright, you have a Z3100 or Z3200 I understand. My terminology for the HP parts is not always according HP's manual language and it is too much asked of me to look for the right terms. What I write here covers more than the head height to overcome head strikes.

* First of all with any roll that I have used and take off the printer I wrap a paper sheet around it, 35"x20" or 43"x20", so the leading edge will be straight next time I insert it on the printer. Too often manufacturers use smaller wraps and the leading edge corners bulge out on the printer.

* Heavy and/or rigid papers with much curl memory are better moved a bit further with the Move command on the printer panel so the leading edge is under the starwheels.  A bit of paper waste unavoidable then. To keep economy you better do all the prints after another with the automatic cutter disabled. No other leading edges then so less waste.  Curl memory in roll paper is a result of more factors; weight and rigidity of the paper, how long stored as a roll, low humidity, roll near its end. Talking about 3" cores here, 2" cores are worse and should be avoided where possible.  Some solutions to the core issue: reroll the last meters on top of a new roll that already got a wide paper sheet wrapped on it. Or if you can store them make large sheets of the remaining roll meters.

* A broken Carriage Rear Bushing is an issue that is not as rare as one might think. It is a small plastic part where the head carriage rides on in a stainless steel profile over the length of the machine. That plastic part is stuck into the wedge thing (HP calls it: 2 Levels Wedge) for changing the carriage height I mentioned before. Both can influence the actual head height when they are not working properly. Mark's pages contain an article where it is explained how a broken Carriage Rear Bushing can be replaced more easily than the HP manuals do. 

* That 2 Levels Wedge is shifted in position in the head carriage by moving the head carriage while an Actuator/Solenoid at the rear keeps that 2 Levels Wedge part locked so it can not move with the head carriage. If you search the Carriage Rail Oiler in the manuals you will see some images where a black hook like plastic item is shown just behind the oiler. That is the Actuator/Solenoid thing that locks the wedge part when the carriage height position is changed. If you ever take off the right side cover of the printer you can also take out that small lighter grey part where one usually stores a pen or knife or a new cartridge. When the right cover is put back without that compartment there is a perfect view possible on the mechanism I am writing about. There is a stage in the printer's initialisation where the firmware tests the Actuator. If it does not lock the wedge there is an error reported and the initialisation stopped. I guess by measuring the shift the head carriage should make, too wide and the firmware thinks the actuator is not working properly. That process does not cover whether the wedge actually is shifted enough. I also am not sure that in going from a thin media preset to a (custom etc) thick media preset all this works properly. I have watched it on more Z's and am still not convinced. On my first Z3200 it actually did not work as a wire connector to the solenoid did not make contact, exchanged that and it worked again. But that fault did not show up in the initialisation process, quite strange.

* I changed the way the Actuator is attached to the printer. I can move it away from its normal position and stick a thin long screwdriver underneath it to shift the 2 Levels Wedge manually to the thicker media position. As I almost always print thick art papers I keep it there. I only have to be aware that the actuator has to be in its normal position when the printer has been powered down for some reason and then has to be restarted. Maybe not a solution for everyone. Anyway it assures me that it is in the right position. A further hack for higher heights could be found in a thicker Carriage Rear Bushing.

I do not deny that it is all more laborious than one would wish but at least I am wasting nearly no prints that way.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[RaffiCoffee]

Yes, the z3200Photo.

Thanks for that explanation. Yes now I know which piece you are talking about, the one someone also made a more rigid version with some carbon fiber or such . I see. Hmm, I will check if mine has a problem or broke.  I think what you mention about the rolls is key. As I now think of it, I was on the last 10 feet or so of the 42" roll, and it has sat in a AC dry room.

Great info Ernst. Thank you! 

On another couple notes....

I have a Z3200 Post Script that does not run, as I think the tubes are dried out, and it was used in high volume, so it may need more things.
I intend to convert my Photo into a Postscript. if I ever get the chance. I know that the boards and HDD as well as other things need to be swapped so it recognizes it. But, so far just sitting.

Good news is that my Pro-1000 is now RUNNING back to 100%!  I think after it went through a bunch of cleaning or maybe what I imagined of some ink spilling on the mainbaord from improper move may have dried out or something??  Well, it is working, and I forgot how fast this thing is!  Now I need to get out the patch reader to make some profiles for the HP cut sheet papers I have so I can use on the Canon. Z3200 with smaller cut sheets is not so practical.


fyi...
Love how you have the roll holders for each paper you use :-)  I have lots of paper and rolls, but 2 of the HP holders and less space
:-)