Weird staggered print on HP 360

[R08]

Anyone ever seen this issue on an HP 360. For that matter it may be a Flexi problem (presently using the cloud verson). see the attached print. (this happens to be on perf).
Seems to be happening randomly near the end of prints. This last one happened three time in a row on the same file.

 

[balstestrat]

I have never heard about this or seen it so I would say Flexi is the fault.

Save the same file as Tiff or something and see if it repeats or not.

 

[Troy Lesher]

Check your encoder and encoder reader for contaminants

 

[balstestrat]

Check your encoder and encoder reader for contaminants

If that would be the case the carriage would be banging itself to the end of the rail pretty quickly.

 

[R08]

I have never heard about this or seen it so I would say Flexi is the fault.

Save the same file as Tiff or something and see if it repeats or not.

You might have something there. It doesn't happen on all files and It's been a mixed bag lately.
The last file that was shown was a vector image over a bitmap. I will do some tests. Thx

 

[R08]

Check your encoder and encoder reader for contaminants

I thought that too but I've never seen encoder strip problems quite like this. I am going to give it a clean up just in case. Thank you

 

[R08]

If that would be the case the carriage would be banging itself to the end of the rail pretty quickly.

I've had dirty encoder strips on my Roland Sc540 and carriage never banged against the end rails. Maybe HP latex printers are different?
thx

 

[balstestrat]

I've had dirty encoder strips on my Roland Sc540 and carriage never banged against the end rails. Maybe HP latex printers are different?
thx

There's so many things about this that Im not going to go so deep on this but the idea is same on both machines. However if the encoder suddenly thought that the carriage was 1 inch off set from normal it would wreck havoc on latex.

Did the print go outside of the material? If it was encoder that would happen (if you were printing close to the edge).

 

[R08]

There's so many things about this that Im not going to go so deep on this but the idea is same on both machines. However if the encoder suddenly thought that the carriage was 1 inch off set from normal it would wreck havoc on latex.

Did the print go outside of the material? If it was encoder that would happen (if you were printing close to the edge).

Thank you,
Yes you may be right. I will definitely be doing

 

[StephenOrange]

Check your encoder and encoder reader for contaminants

Nope. Dirt on the drive encode will provide consistent shifting, not a clear cut shift like this. This is software, not hardware.

 

[CanuckSigns]

You mentioned it happened 3 times for this file, did the issue happen at the exact same point in the graphic on each? Could be a corrupt file, or the file was corrupted in the rip.

I've had encoder strip issues before and it is more gradual than that, it would misalign by a small amount each pass, not 1 huge shift as shown.

Try rotating the file 180 degrees and see if it happens at the same point in the graphic, that would point to a corrupt file.

 

[R08]

In theory the encoder could be at fault if he was printing on something less than the max width of the printer. Though it would be pretty magical for debris to float into a solid enough pattern to cleanly offset an inch, then to dissipate before the printer did the next full rail sweep at the end of the print. Cloud based RIP sounds like a tremendously stupid idea on Flexi's part.

I tend to agree. The error is too clinical. I've had many encoder strip problems over the years but for the sake of abundance of caution I did a thorough cleaning today as well as changing my ethernet cable from cat5e to cat6. Problem still persists.

My spider senses are telling me software also.

By the way.. what is it about the cloud based RIP that you find stupid? Asking for a friend.

 

[R08]

and this is after a thorough encoder strip cleaning ( and this is a clean machine to start with).
Again .. near the end of a print. This was a jpg imported from CorelDraw

 

[R08]

You mentioned it happened 3 times for this file, did the issue happen at the exact same point in the graphic on each? Could be a corrupt file, or the file was corrupted in the rip.

I've had encoder strip issues before and it is more gradual than that, it would misalign by a small amount each pass, not 1 huge shift as shown.

Try rotating the file 180 degrees and see if it happens at the same point in the graphic, that would point to a corrupt file.

Thanks Canuck.
It's an equal opportunity problem. Happens with many different files . Not all the time and Not all the same kind of file. I just printed a billboard and a few other things and they were fine.

Rob

 

[R08]

Well a large portion of the RIP's job is to feed the printer data as it needs it. If you disconnect the pc from the printer mid print, and all of the data for the print has not been sent to the printer, you'll get a not enough data error on the printer side. (This is with my HP 560 and Onyx).
A cloud based RIP sounds like it's ripping images on a supercomputer, then shooting the printer data back to the workstation, which then goes to the printer. So now you have a new point of failure, if the internet were to go down mid print.
Additionally the raw data generated while ripping would eat up potential metered connection data, and if you mistakenly import under the wrong profile, you're running twice as much data just to swap profiles. Most folks are unlimited as far as data consumption these days, but it's just something to keep in mind.

To be fair, I know nothing of Flexi's cloud based RIP, and it could work around all of these issues perfectly, it just sounds like a bad idea. It's a real shame you can't get a trial of any given RIP just to try and see if that is the issue at hand, or if the problem still persists.


As far as when the issue starts, have you noticed any consistency. Is it only on prints over X feet long, or always within the last few inches?

Actually it doesn't work that way at all.
The only real difference is the software is authenticated online. Everything is including ripping is done on the local machine.

 

[R08]

.................

As far as when the issue starts, have you noticed any consistency. Is it only on prints over X feet long, or always within the last few inches?

Has Always happened within the last few inches of the print.

 

[balstestrat]

Has Always happened within the last few inches of the print.

What happens if you add, lets say 20" end of job margin in the RIP? It should just continue printing that empty space.
Now that it happens on multiple files, I still suspect it's the RIP. Very unlikely that it would be printer doing it.
One thing that points me to that is the fact that the cut between the change is very clean. If printer was errorly moving it there should be fuzziness between the passes not matching.

If you want to go extreme, go and download Onyx trial and see if that helps. Or re-install flexi.

I think you guys are taking that "Cloud RIP" a little extreme.... Like it was already said, it's only the license management that's done online. And I guess someone could also mean that as pay-per-month "cloud subscription".

 

[R08]

Next time it does it save the ripped file and send it to me. I'll print it and we will see if its flexi or your printer.

Oh wow.. that's awesome Bubba. I will do that. I think I need to change my settings to automatically save the rips. Thank You!

 

[R08]

So, is the .pdf file the rip file or am I looking for something else?

 

[R08]

Ah well that makes much more sense. My bad, I suppose I should keep my trap shut on things I haven't looked into. Cloud RIP to me spells out a situation like I described. I'd still wander how often it calls home to authenticate the license, and if that could cause a hiccup like this to occur. Like when a new game is released with an always on DRM, the server is bound to be overloaded at some point, and would boot all players, even 'offline' players, when the server authenticating the software doesn't respond.

Now I'm curious, what happens if you print something the maximum width of the printer? Surely it throws an error?

A Cloud RIP to me spells out a situation like I described. I'd still wander how often it calls home t.........

Pretty sure this problem has nothing to do with cloud. The software is not authenticated that often. My internet went down and I was still able to print/cut. License is basically renewed monthly atm.

Now I'm curious, what happens if you print something the maximum width of the printer? Surely it throws an error? ...

Ya.. that's the weird part . Usually happens on smaller prints (although not always).. Thankfully