Setting up PC for auto test prints ???

[Fish Chris]

Thank you fotofreek. That is a great suggestion. That thought never crossed my mind.... but yes, it would be easy to shrink, and lighten, one of the test print images supplied with "autoprint".

Again though, the nozzle check pattern with easy photo print...... and the test print that comes with "autoprint" (which I will alter) will use SO little ink, that honestly, I think I could litterally print 100 test prints, with the same amount of ink used in 1 full color 8 1/2 X 11......

Thanks again,
Fish

 

[fotofreek]

Fish - I would suggest NOT lightening the test print as you want all jets to fire. Just make it smaller. I like the MIS purge page because it includes all the colors your printer has. When you download them you will see the one with six color bars. You want the two cyans and two magentas to fire so you don't want to lighten the image to the point that only the low dye level colors print.

 

[jackson]

On the Canon Ip series, if I scan the nozzle check to use as the 'autoprint' test, how do I know that the the actual colours (eg pigment and photo) are being used and not ,say, just the photo colours?Will the printer know I need to check all the carts?

 

[fotofreek]

presumeably, the nozzle test print requires all nozzles to fire or it wouldn't be a valid test of the nozzles. Each section of the test print would be from a single cartridge's nozzle set as this is the only way you would be able to see if each nozzle is firing properly.

 

[jackson]

Thank you, I understand that the 'real' nozzle test fires all nozzles, but since this is a scan of the test utilised for the 'autoprint' programme, how would I know I was not getting composite black?
The MIS prog. shows 3 colours and black for a '4 color' purge.I don't see how this would work on, for example, an ip3000 which has both blacks.
It seems to be geared to the Epson line, which I asume does not have this anomoly regarding black carts.

 

[fotofreek]

OOPS - interesting problem with the printers having the bci-3ebk cart. On the plain paper setting the bci-3ebk pigment black cart would fire for all black areas. Since the ip3000 has the pigmented cart mentioned above and bci-6 magenta, yellow, and cyan, all jets would fire if the printer is set to plain paper. Otherwise, black is made up by mixing the three color carts and the pigmented cart wouldn't fire. The problem will arise with the ip4000, and 5000 printers as there are two black carts - the bci-3ebk and the bci-6bk. On plain paper setting the 3 would fire and on the other paper settings the 6 would fire. From the posts I've read, the pigmented black jets are the most sensitive to clogging and the most difficult to clear. I guess it would be best to set the printer to plain paper and not have the black bci-6 fire. My #1 printer is a six color i960 which doesn't have the bci-3ebk pigmented cart. I assume that all carts would fire with the six color MIS chart or with the scanned image of the nozzle test.

 

[jackson]

Since I have an Ip3000 and an Ip5000 I would then assume that I could use the scanned nozzle test on the IP3000 (because the black areas would use the pigmented ink and the coloured patterns would utilise the photo tanks)?

On the Ip5000 I would have to contrive two scheduled prints, one print would call for pigment black and three colours (but excluding photo black).The second print would call for all photo tanks (and exclude pigment).
I can handle the scheduling part, but the creation of the jpegs escapes me!How do I create a graphic containing mutually exclusive pigment or photo black.I cant use a simple pigment text file--the Autoprint programme requires a graphic and a graphic will use pigment unless the printer is set for 'photo'.Seems like catch 22.

Anyway, the whole point of scheduling an unattended printout is that the the PC and the printer have to recover from a possible power outage and still print to schedule.I've verified that my PC's and printers do indeed recover and the schedule runs ok, but there is no way to change paper types from plain to photo if the machines are unattended (which anyway negates the whole hands off aspect of the exercise).

 

[fotofreek]

As I mentioned, I would opt for the plain paper setting as the pigmented nozzles seem to be most often clogged in these priners. The bci-6 black is totally water soluble, even when dry, and would be the easier one to clean if necessary. It is also possible that these printers also use a bit of the dye-based black when printing, even on plain paper with a multicolor jpg file. The other thing that will happen without intervention is that the printer periodically does its own scheduled cleaning and will clean all nozzles.

 

[jackson]

Thank you.Plain paper it shall be.

 

[websnail]

On the Canon Ip series, if I scan the nozzle check to use as the 'autoprint' test, how do I know that the the actual colours (eg pigment and photo) are being used and not ,say, just the photo colours?Will the printer know I need to check all the carts?

This was bandied around on the comp.periphs.printers newsgroup a ways back and the bottom line is that unless you know intimately how to write a print job that will run a nozzle check print pattern you can't be 100% sure that you are getting all nozzles to fire. However, if you apply a little common sense it's fair to say that all colours are used in the process, so if anything you may hit a small problem with the photo black (in Canon iP4xxx models for example) possibly not being used (it rarely gets used anyway).

If you want to be 100% sure that all nozzles are firing you may want to create 2 seperate printer profiles (with default settings tweaked accordingly) and 2 seperate sheduled autoprint jobs, so that all possible colour usage is explored.


Tip: renaming the original autoprint schedule job (in the schedules folder) allows you to create additional jobs.