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HP L26500 Printing Skewed

Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
In the last month I've noticed that my signs are not printing square. I print a lot of things that are small square and rectangle parts that. I usually print rolls of about 200-300 inches long and then cut the parts up after words. Well now these parts are printed so Skewed that they are impossible to cut to size. Any ideas what would be cause this. I've got my Max Skew Setting down to 39. I've tried printing in 54" wide white oracal vinyl and .010 polycarbonate.
 
Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
A little more information so someone might be able to help me. When loading the Material with the Max Skew Setting at 39 (the lowest it will go) it still errors out at 1.0Mils/IN now does this mean that if I were to print there that over 48 inches it would be out of skew .048". This doesn't seem very tight to me at all. I was hoping when I bought this machine before that it would be in the .010" - .020" over 8 feet. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Am I missing something?
 
P Wagner

P Wagner

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Skew refers to lateral (sideways) movement of the media across the width of the printer platen. It has nothing to do with the size of the printed output. The firmware default value for skew is 3.0mm per 1 meter of media travel (on the x-axis). I can't imagine why someone would need to adjust this value.
 
Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
Well here is my problem, Maybe i'm not looking in the right settings or know the correct terminology. Say I print a large right angle triangle. In my design program (corel x6) I check the hypotenuse and know that it should be 40" long. When I print this same triangle on my printer it is coming out anywhere from 1/8 to 3/16 to long. Any ideas what would be causing this problem? I assumed it wasn't printing in the correct spot because the media was moving sideways (X-Axis) while printing.
 
P Wagner

P Wagner

--
Ditchmiester said:
Well here is my problem, Maybe i'm not looking in the right settings or know the correct terminology. Say I print a large right angle triangle. In my design program (corel x6) I check the hypotenuse and know that it should be 40" long. When I print this same triangle on my printer it is coming out anywhere from 1/8 to 3/16 to long. Any ideas what would be causing this problem? I assumed it wasn't printing in the correct spot because the media was moving sideways (X-Axis) while printing.
Click to expand...

What you are describing is a scaling issue, and not related to media skew. For example, many PVC banner materials are physically thicker than paper, for example. This means that each rotation of the media feed drum causes more physical movement for banner media than paper (sort of like snow tires changing the odometer readings on a car).

Most RIP software will offer a scaling adjustment that is generally tied to the specific media that is being printed on. I can say with certainty that Onyx, Wasatch, and Caldera do, and I am reasonably sure that Versaworks and SAi offer this feature as well.
 
Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
Most RIP software will offer a scaling adjustment that is generally tied to the specific media that is being printed on. I can say with certainty that Onyx said:
Wow, this does sound more like my more like my problem. The more I thought about the skewing the more I realized this wouldn't cause the ink to be laid down in a different distance from each other. Any Idea where to adjust this setting. Also is it based on material so they may all be different scaling factor.
Click to expand...
 
P Wagner

P Wagner

--
Ditchmiester said:
Wow, this does sound more like my more like my problem. The more I thought about the skewing the more I realized this wouldn't cause the ink to be laid down in a different distance from each other. Any Idea where to adjust this setting. Also is it based on material so they may all be different scaling factor.
Click to expand...

It depends on the RIP that you are using. For example. in the case of Onyx, it would be found in the Media Manager > Media Library > Media / Mode > Edit button (among other ways to get there). In the case of SAi, as I recall, it is in the Production Manager module.
 
Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
Castek Resources said:
It depends on the RIP that you are using. For example. in the case of Onyx, it would be found in the Media Manager > Media Library > Media / Mode > Edit button (among other ways to get there). In the case of SAi, as I recall, it is in the Production Manager module.
Click to expand...

I found the scale part of Onyx and I am calibrating it as we speak. Thanks for your help this is a life saver.
 
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