Designjet 500, Maximum media thickness.

I'm gearing up to do some print work with my new to me Designjet 500 I picked up for free.


I am looking to print on 42" matte canvas art media. I see in the manual that HP studio canvas (C6771A) is listed, but its seemingly unavailable and only came in 36" rolls. The thickness is listed at 20 mils. I'm looking to use something such as HP Professional Matte Canvas which is listed at 22 mils.

Does anyone here have any experience with max media thickness in the Designjet 500 or know where a max thickness might even be found listed? Maybe some of you have some other similar media types that you would recommend?

According to this web site:

For example, older model printers (such as the HP Designjet 500 and HP Designjet 800) use dye inks and were designed primarily to print drawings on uncoated and coated bond papers, vellum, and mylar. These printers and other older HP Designjet printers can’t handle popular photo papers, canvas, or self-adhesive materials that are 10 mil or thicker.

Click to expand...

One mil = 1/1000 inch (0.001 inch)

10 mil = 1/100 inch (0.010 inch) = 0.25 millimeter

So, look for paper less than 10 mil (0.25 mm)

See paper weight conversion chart here.

Found the manual for the Designjet 500 here.

Click on the "Media & Ink" tab, then "Media Choice" link, then "Paper Types", then "Physical Characteristics Of Paper Types" and then read through the two pages of listed paper types. The greatest weight is 20 mil for the HP studio canvas (C6771A) as you mentioned before and all other media is 10 mil or less.

Generally, if the manual does not state you can print at a specific heavier paper weight then you probably cannot print at that specific paper weight.

Consider calling or emailing HP and ask them about maximum specs your printer can handle. Another option is asking your question on the HP forum.

Thanks for that handy chart!

I had found that website as well in my searching but it appears to be a bit misinformed. I believe the reason it states it cant handle the thicker media is do to the cutter? I have the manual here infront of me listing materials such (see images) as HP Studio Canvas (20mils, unavailable) as well as other medias such as photo paper and self adhesive vinyl. I have read that the printer disables the manual cutter in the canvas setting which is what leads me to believe the cutter is the reason for the confusion.

I've seen videos of the 24" DJ500 being used to print canvas and reached out the find that a 280gsm canvas media was being used but the particular media he mentioned does not come in a 42" roll which led me to the HP Pro Matte Canvas. I noticed in the spec sheet above for the studio canvas that it is listed at 22 mils there contrary to how its listed as 20 mils in the DJ500 manual. Maybe I'll be just fine. Some guys are indeed around printing canvas on these older machines, maybe somebody here has some first hand experience I can tap into before I drop 200 bucks on a roll of media.

I'm going to hop on the HP forum now, thanks for pointing me in that direction.

Let us know what you learn from the forum and how the printing goes.

Nobody replied on that forum yet, but I've got some updates, I found tech sheets for the Studio Canvas which lists it at 22mils, and a tech sheet for the HP Pro Matte Canvas listing it at 18.1 mils (The data entry people had one job lol) and they are both compatible with aqueous ink, so my hopes are high that it will work just fine. Intention is to do gallery wraps on home made stretchers.

I've finally got this thing up and running. I picked it up for free, a local highway department was giving it away so that's pretty cool. I'm no printing expert but I am technical savvy and knew better than to pass it up, I do some 3d modeling in inventor so i figured at the very least it would be useful for blueprints. It was dumping magenta ink all over when i first got It, so I had to order a new printhead port to repair the ink tubes (9 bucks instead of 150) that went well. And I just got it to complete its first alignment since I got it after soaking the printheads in IPA and Ammonia over night and blasting a few color pages through it.

Overall Pretty Excited

Since It was free and isn't worth much anymore I'm sure ill be trying lots of interesting things with it. As soon as needed I'll be ordering some continuous ink tanks and aftermarket ink. I'll be sure to post up my adventures here for the enjoyment of everyone.

You may submit this image with the printheads as a POW - picture of the week.... it def. would qualify for it

Ink stained Fingers said:

You may submit this image with the printheads as a POW - picture of the week.... it def. would qualify for it

Click to expand...

Could you kindly point me to where to post it, Mr. Ink Stained Fingers?

You may post it here

https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...ion-and-submissions.9937/page-140#post-113282