Hello everyone. I'm Dixon and I'm happy I found this forum!

cdx54

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I have a Canon Pro-10, a Pro-100, an HP Designjet 500 42 inch, and a Designjet 510 42 inch printer. Oh, and my everyday document printer is a Canon Color imageCLASS lbp622Cdw laser printer. I have had my Pro-10 for 6 years, my Pro-100 for about 3 years.

The Designjets are both senior citizens, and I have done a total rebuild of the 500. It actually only needed a new x-axis drive belt, but parts for it are cheap and I had to tear into it anyway.

My Pro-10 suffered the dreaded B200 error a couple of years ago, and it also resulted in the head being stuck at the parking station. So, I had to disassemble that printer as well, just to replace the printhead.

I do digital art and fine art photography, and I make my own prints. All my printers are calibrated every six weeks, as are my monitors, with an x-Rite i1 studio device. If I plan to use a paper I've never used on a certain printer, I'll calibrate for the paper as needed. I mostly use Ilford Galerie Fine Art Textured (which looks a lot like canvas) and Red River UltraPro Satin 4.0, but sometimes I will experiment with more exotic mediums, such as metallics or cotton rag.

The Pro-100 is reserved for high gloss prints. The colors are so much more vivid than the pro-10 on glossy paper, due to the dye-based inkset.

For prints over 14" wide, I use the Designjet 500 (the 510 is just a backup printer), mostly with the Ilford textured paper on 75 foot rolls, or with real canvas. I use a UV semi-gloss spray over anything done on the Designjet, as I have found that the HP dye inks have less fade resistance than the Canon CLI-42 or PGI-72 inks do. However, with 2 to 3 coats of Krylon UV Archival varnish, I haven't found any fade on a test print that gets window sun for 6+ hours a day, so I'm keeping the old Designjet large format printers, rather than replacing them as I had planned to do.

Buying 2 cans of spray a month is much cheaper, and I have at least a few years worth of replacement inks for those guys anyway. The 500 also does a fine job on gloss paper, particularly HP Pro Advanced paper, but I really try to discourage any client from ordering gloss prints that large (16 to 40" wide). Too much surface area creates some ugly glare in less than perfect light.
 
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stratman

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Great introduction. Welcome to the forum, Dixon. Happy printing!
 
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