I am having intermittent (but frequent) problems printing GO. I am using QTR and the print module on Mac OS 10.6.8 on an epson 9890 connected via USB.
The problem is that often but not always the printing will stop part way through the sheet - once it even printed a bit, skipped a chunk of the sheet, printed some more and then stopped prematurely. Most of the time it just stops part way through. This only happens when printing GO, not when printing images (so far).
My workflow is to print an image from a roll and trim out the image plus enough border to apply the GO where needed. I then feed the sheet back into the printer and enter a custom size of the dimensions of the sheet into the page setup dialogue. I open a 1x1" 300dpi file that is white (grayscale 8 bit) and print using the GO curve.
On the QTR forum Jon suggested leaving the image file open and adding a white layer and printing that with the GO curve. Wasn’t sure how to make that happen given you need to open a file in the print module so I created a new white file with the exact dimensions of the original image printed and printed that (as opposed to the 1x1" file). Same problem occurred.
As this problem does not occur all the time and I’m using the same workflow each time I’m not sure what to try next.
On the QTR forum I did not realize you were printing from roll. So my suggestion on the QTR forum will not work.
I do believe still that your problem is related to page setup size. You will need to make a custom page size for each sheet you print. You will have to actually measure it and then create a custom page setup - if you prefer to print from roll and then print 2nd time from sheet. One workaround to your workflow would be to sheet the paper first from the roll and then print the inks. That way you could use the same size page setup for the inks and the go.
The printer gets a command from the OS as to what page size is being printed. You have to make sure that the paper in the printer fits that page setup size. So if you have a 22.75 x 36 sheet of paper that you have cut from the roll. You will need to make a custom page size of 22.75 x 36 in order to print the GO.
[QUOTE=jon;41]On the QTR forum I did not realize you were printing from roll. So my suggestion on the QTR forum will not work.
I do believe still that your problem is related to page setup size. You will need to make a custom page size for each sheet you print. You will have to actually measure it and then create a custom page setup - if you prefer to print from roll and then print 2nd time from sheet. One workaround to your workflow would be to sheet the paper first from the roll and then print the inks. That way you could use the same size page setup for the inks and the go.
The printer gets a command from the OS as to what page size is being printed. You have to make sure that the paper in the printer fits that page setup size. So if you have a 22.75 x 36 sheet of paper that you have cut from the roll. You will need to make a custom page size of 22.75 x 36 in order to print the GO.[/QUOTE]
Jon
I am doing just what you say when I put the sheet in for the GO. I measure the sheet and create a custom sheet size with 0 borders all around (any chance the 0 border values are the culprit?). This is how I’ve printed on sheets to wide format epson printers for years.
What is puzzling is that the problem is intermittent even though I’m using the identical procedure each time. Also so far it has only happened with GO printing. As I said, I’ve had it happen with the recommended 1x1 inch “white” file as well as a white file the identical size to the original image printed.
There are no zero borders in QTR. It has a border (defined in the manual) on the sides/bottom and top edges.
You have to use the QTR Printer as the printer you are setting up the page for and not the Epson Pro printer. You are probably setting it up for the Epson Pro 9890 instead of the K7 9890, or you are entering in custom border sizes. Just accept the default borders for the K7 printer setup for your printer when you do the custom page size.
[QUOTE=jon;47]There are no zero borders in QTR. It has a border (defined in the manual) on the sides/bottom and top edges.
You have to use the QTR Printer as the printer you are setting up the page for and not the Epson Pro printer. You are probably setting it up for the Epson Pro 9890 instead of the K7 9890, or you are entering in custom border sizes. Just accept the default borders for the K7 printer setup for your printer when you do the custom page size.[/QUOTE]
I am using the QTR printer but was entering in my custom sheet setup all 0s. So I just tried it using the default QTR borders of .125 left/right and .556 top/bottom on an 8.5x11 sheet with an image on it. Create a custom sheet, 8.5x11 with the default borders. Worked a few times on some test prints but then again failed in the same way - stopped about 2/3 of the way through the sheet.
So the problem is not caused by the fact that I was entering non-default borders apparently.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that even when the coating “works” it doesn’t leave .556 top and bottom. It always seems to leave .125 on one end and then the other end is variable - sometimes about .5, sometimes .75, etc. So I’m wondering whether it’s ever really doing what it should do which is leave .556 top and bottom. Perhaps it’s always failing but sometimes in a small enough way that I still get my image coated since I always leave a reasonable amount of white border around the image. Not sure if this is good or bad news - maybe it’s not an intermittent problem which could make it easier to resolve. Should there be a true .556 top and bottom? How accurate is that margin in the QTR printer?
In the QTR PRINT WINDOW,
Under PAPER SIZE / MANAGE CUSTOM SIZES
in the NON PRINTABLE AREA where it defaults to User Defined in the pull-down Menu…
have you tried selecting instead your K7 printer model and accepting the values that QTR puts there for you?
[QUOTE=jon;49]In the QTR PRINT WINDOW,
Under PAPER SIZE / MANAGE CUSTOM SIZES
in the NON PRINTABLE AREA where it defaults to User Defined in the pull-down Menu…
have you tried selecting instead your K7 printer model and accepting the values that QTR puts there for you?[/QUOTE]
I just tried exactly what you suggest here, selecting K7 printer model instead of user defined and using their defaults (and did note that the default borders are .13 top and sides, .56 bottom). I put in a 12.5 x 24" sheet, opened the 1x1" white file and printed GO. It stopped 4 inches short of being done.
I appreciate the quick turnaround here on feedback/suggestions - do you have another idea of what is going on?
The only final suggestion I have is to check your queue to make sure that you are not printing remnants from previous jobs - if that is not it, you wither have a QTR problem or a Macintosh Operating System problem. I would first contact Roy Harrington of QuadTone RIP. He produces and supports the QuadTone RIP. If and only if he thinks your issues is OS, then contact Apple. I do not believe it is an Epson printer issue. Having said that, when you send a print job to the printer that does not fit the sheet loaded by the printer, it prints partially and reserves the remaining portion for the next sheet inserted into the printer. It is possible, that by the time you issue the next print job you may not realize that a previous job is still printing. So this is why I askey you to check your queue.
At first I thought your latest suggestion had done the trick. I select the Quad9890 printer in the page setup to use it’s default borders of .125 top/sides, .556 bottom. I open the printer queue to make sure there are no previous print jobs still active. I ran a few 8.5x11s through and it all worked perfectly.
Unfortunately this morning I did not have the same success, still have periodic failures of premature stopping.
Since this problem occurs only when printing GO, never printing the original images, it’s hard to imagine it’s an OS or printer problem. Seems much more likely to be a rip issue. I have sent Roy an email about the problem this morning.
Given that the problem is confined to GO, can you think of anything else I should try?
Yes, you should always use the printer’s default borders when printing with QTR- with both ink or GO. Has Roy helped resolve this for you, or do you still need assistance? Have you tried deleting the Epson 9890 driver, downloading a fresh copy from the Epson site and reinstalling, as well as deleting your Quad9890-K7 printer and reinstalling it (after reinstalling the Epson driver)? I have certainly heard of some very strange issues being fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the two drivers. When you load the 12.5x24 sheet and printed the 1x1 white square with the GO curve, did you make a 12.5 x 24" custom page size? I would be happy to review your screen captures if Roy is unable to solve this for you. We have other customers who are happily printing Piezography gloss with their x890 and x900 printers, so I know it works.
Thanks for checking in - I’ve traded a couple of emails with Roy but so far he has no ideas about it. I sent him a long email last night detailing my workflow to make sure I’m using the print module correctly (couldn’t find documentation on it). I’d like your feedback on it as well. I will try reinstalling the driver and printer and let you know - in the meantime here is info on how I’m working.
I’ve focused my testing on 8.5x11 sheets to minimize expense with the exception of the 12.5x24 sheet I was trying to do for a client. In addition to the GO problem which is frequent, I’ve noticed one glitch when printing and image. My test image is 7.3x9.2 - sometimes when I print it on the 8.5x11 sheet a thin line of the image (1/16th") prints then there is a gap of .5" and then the rest of the image prints. I did one test of 1) start computer and printer up 2) open print module 3) open test image and print (see screen shot of setup) - first print comes out with line, I hit print again with new sheet and it prints fine. Next day I did exact same steps and both prints came out fine.
The GO problem is more erratic, prints different amounts of the sheet before stopping, I’ve even seen it print some GO skip part of the sheet, print some more and then stop prematurely. With an image it is always exactly the same failure (1/16th" line), although it occurs intermittently.
Since I am usually printing different size files and want to use paper economically I always setup a custom page size in the page setup to be somewhat larger than the image (always more than the default margins). I do this printing from rolls as well and have not seen any problems so far doing that but have not been doing a lot of roll printing til I get this resolved. Also for GO printing seems you pretty much have to print in sheet mode.
A normal workflow to print a 16x20" print from roll would be to create custom page size of 18x22" for example and trim off excess paper from roll to end up with 18x22 sheet. Measure that, reinsert sheet in print in sheet mode, set up custom page size to 18x22, open 1x1" white GO file and print with GO curve. If starting with a sheet it’s the same, the initial custom sheet size is whatever size sheet I put in printer.
BTW printing on FAP with the type5 curve did not work well - I’ve been unable to coat them to do final testing because of this issue but it’s clear just from looking at my test print that the curve is far too heavy in the quarter tones. We’ll get back to that once I can reliably print GO.
I was unable to upload my screenshots using the attachment manager for some reason - all four failed with a red exclamation mark but no other indication. They are .png files. I will send them separately to you via email.
I deleted the 9890 printers, reinstalled the epson driver from the website and then reinstalled the K9890. Unfortunately this did not resolve the GO printing issue. Please let me know when you’ve had a chance to look over my workflow and see if you have any suggestions.
Hi Bob~ We have received a second report of GO not printing over the entire sheet form someone using a 4900 (you can read that thread in the “Miscellaneous” section of this forum). I did some tests yesterday with our 7900 and confirmed there is a problem. You are doing everything correctly based on the screen captures you emailed me, and the problem seems to be caused by the printer’s sensor and not related to QTR. I am continuing my testing to determine the proper paper margins that the printer needs to print GO over the entire sheet and will let you know what I find. Please tell me the specific image dimensions and paper sizes you have tried printing on and your results, so I can compile all the facts to help find to an answer.
Interesting! I got an email from Roy yesterday saying he was hearing from others of a similar problem also and requested the GO .quad file, which I sent him. He’s out of town and may not look at it until next week. He did ask me to try turning off the paper size check in the printer control panel which i did without effect.
The main test file I’ve been using which is failing frequently is an image that is 7.33 x 9.2" and I’m printing it on an 8.5x11 sheet using the default borders for the 9890. I’ve also had failures on larger prints such as a 16x20 image on an 18x22 sheet.
I find that it doesn’t always fail in the same way, in other words, how much of the sheet gets coated varies and sometime is finishes with no problem. I’d guess it fails about 60% of the time.
Hi Bob~ I have communicated with Roy a few times, and have done lots of tests with our 7900 to try figuring out what it needs for margins in order to fully print GO over the entire sheet. So far I have determined the printer sensor is seeing printed area and stopping suddenly without much rhyme or reason… Do you have any input of image/paper size ratios that HAVE successfully printed GO over the entire sheet? Have your successful image/paper size combinations worked consistently (if you print multiple copies of the same image, or print different images with the same image/paper size)- or does it work sometimes, but fail other times when printing the same image/paper size? I am still working on this and appreciate your input to put together the pieces and hopefully figure out what the printer needs. This is specific to the x900 and x890 printers, and is not a problem with the older model printers such as the x880 and x800s.
Best regards~ Dana
I called epson support and told them I’m overprinting images (didn’t mention piezo or GO) and they told me to turn of the Paper Size Check - the sensor can get confused if there is anything but white there. This did not make the problem go away.
I have printed on several sizes and all have failed. Most are 8.5x11 test prints but I’ve tried to coat 12x18, 16x20, 14x14 maybe one or 2 others. The success rate on the 8.5x11 seems better maybe 50% the larger prints seem to succeed less often but I don’t do as many of them (it’s expensive!). Doesn’t seem to be image specific but I haven’t test for that in particular. Most of the 8.5x11s are the same test image and some fail and others don’t.
Roy sent me a new GO curve and file to print (not 255 white) - don’t know if he told you what he did, he modified your GO curve in some way. This didn’t work either.
Another new problem related to GO has appeared which worries me also. 3 of my last 6 or 7 prints have had far too much GO printed to the point where it actually pools and smears on the paper. Again, not consistent and only recent, never seen it before. Could this be a bad cartridge? What else could cause that?
Please keep me posted. I’m pretty much dead in the water with this printer…
Bob
Was the amount of GO too much using Roy’s GO curve or my GO curve?
Was the amount of GO too much on 3 sheets of the same paper as the 6-7 sheets of paper - or were different grades (brands) of paper affected differently?
1- That was my first thought, that Roy’s curve did something to cause it. However, I then went back to your curve/file and it did happen again.
2- I have seen the problem on different papers - at the time I wasn’t paying particular attention to what paper I was putting through as I just was seeing if GO worked. They were all photo type papers - I know I used fine art pearl, epson premium lustre and I think I had it do that on a metallic paper as well.
What I don’t understand is why this would suddenly start happening and, if it is as intermittent as it seems, I’m not sure how I’d properly adjust for it. It seems more like something that has always been working (the amount of GO printed, not the area covered) is suddenly working intermittently. Have you ever seen something like this caused by some kind of mechanical or other (cartridge?) failure?
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