Lost installing QTR/PZ

InkjetMall Customer Support Piezography Inks & Printing
1

Really, I’ve tried pretty hard to follow the bread crumbs, but I’m frankly struggling to get my stuff installed on my 9900. I have the physical stuff down - PZ Pro Set 9 is loaded in the carts, with the GO moved from LLK (which is dead) to Orange. Green is dead too, but that one is not used anyway. I have Piezoflush in the G and LLK. I installed QTR 2.7.8.pkg, then ran Piezography-Community-Edition-v2.03. I copied the .icc profiles to /Library/Colorsync/Profiles and they appear correctly in Lr. All that was fine.

Now I get lost. I’m on a Mac, running High Sierra. I ran /Applications/Piezography/Curves-HD/4900-7900-9900-P2/Install9900-HDP2.command. Actually when I clicked on it, it failed with a permissions problem, so I launched a terminal, pushd to that directory and ran it via sudo, whereupon it completed properly and appears to have done the expected things. It created a printer called Quad9900-HDP2. First, this is a problem as the printer apparently MUST be connected via USB to properly install, which I did. However, the computer is many feet from the printer and I don’t want to leave this 30 foot USB cable on the floor; meanwhile there is an Ethernet port right behind the printer. I did stumble across a readme or maybe it was the QTR Tutorial somewhere that talked about how to convert it to Bonjour, but I can’t find it again. (There is no lack of documentation, but that too can be a problem as I find it incredibly hard to find what I need when I need it through the forest of tutorials, manuals, readmes, etc.)

When I attempt to print from this to a matte paper (I can’t do glossy yet as I’m far from certain that the curves are right, and to do glossy I will have to remap the GO from LLK to orange), I get terrible output. I picked the first supported paper in the pile, which happened to be a box of Hot Press Natural. I used the P2-NU-UHD-EpHotPress curve at 100% and clicked print.

Now I am pretty suspicious that these are the wrong curves, particularly after I see the output. I think this is the set of curves to be used for regular K7 inksets, since I see Selenium, Warm Neutral, Special Edition and the like. I also see the GO-30000, etc, and I know that this inkset puts down the GCO in a single pass with the other ink.

From looking at file names, it seems like I might want to install Curves/7900-9900-Pro-K4/Install9900-ProK4.command instead, but there seem to be two problems with that idea. First, it’s not a HD curve, and I know I have HD blacks. Second, am I supposed to be using K4 anyway? I kind of think so, since the Pro seems to be two K4 sets in one 8-channel printer (plus the GO, HD PK and UHD MK). But since I have set 9, I’m really kind of using a “K3” right? But still with HD blacks.

To summarize, my questions are:

  1. which thing do I install for my Pro HD Set-9?
  2. I’m happy to install it with the printer plugged into USB, but how do I convert it to network connectivity?

Last question, which is really for the future: I have some paper that’s not on the supported list / doesn’t have curves. Where do I read about how to make profiles/curves for these papers?

2

Ok. So you have PZ Pro Set 9. This means you are only printing Matte Black. That is fine.

You need to run the installer for Quad9900-Pro-K5. This will install Gloss curves too, just don’t print with them. (P2 ink sets are for our Classic K6/K7 inks just with the PK in the Yellow position).

If you need to do this over ethernet, simply turn ethernet on on your printer, plug it into your network in the back, and print a diagnostic sheet from the printer panel to find the IP address. Double click the install command and it will ask you for an IP as long as there is no USB plugged in.

Learn Piezography & Technical Support | Piezography (setup steps)
Choose Piezography Printers & Ink Placement Charts | Piezography (ink configuration guides)

This will get you running,
best.
Walker

3

No, set 9 has both glossy and matte. It’s set 8 that can only do one or the other. I have Cool-{Dark,Medium,Light} + Warm-{Dark,Medium,Light} along with Ultra HD Matte, HD Matte, and GCO = 9 channels.

Where is the installer for Quad9900-Pro-whatever? Is it in ${Piezography}/Curves or /Curves-HD (or somewhere else)?

On the IP thing, I guess what you’re saying is that I have to have a fixed IP address, I can’t get it via DHCP and then Bonjour.

4

Sorry. You want 9900-Pro-K4 curves folder (the ones that do not print with Very Light Grey).

best,
Walker

5

You want 9900-Pro-K4 curves folder

Just to verify: use Curves, even though I have HD blacks.

6

The Pro inks always have HD blacks (right from the get-go) and the curves that you are needing to use are in the folders with “Pro” in the folder name.

The ReadMe.pdf that shows up after installing the community edition is what explains this . . .

best,
Walker

7

The ReadMe.pdf that shows up after installing the community edition is what explains this . . .

Which ReadMe?

Honestly (and I mean this constructively) there are so many readme’s and documents that it’s not easy to follow what’s going on. This is symptomatic of many open source projects, it’s not necessarily a Piezography problem. (On the other hand, the terminology confusion isn’t helping, and that definitely is a Piezography-specific thing.)

8

The ReadMe that pops up after installing the community edition.

Try it. Download and install the community edition here.

-Walker

9

Well, after installing the right stuff, things do work remarkably better. Sorry about being rather grumpy yesterday, it was a frustrating morning both at home working on the printer and at work.