z3100 slow slow printing

[Charles Gast]

The printer only makes one or two passes then the head goes to the right park position and jerks back and forth a few times then makes another one or two passes. All the stops to do whatever it is doing make a 24x36 print take about 45 minutes to print.
\Another thing I notice is that at the start of a 24x36 it prints continuously for about 20 passes and then at the end of the job the last 20 or so passes go without interrruption.
It happens with semigloss or matte papers. The ethernet connection is good and nothing has changed with that connection since I installed the printer.  I remember the very first couple of small prints I made when the printer was new it did this but then it started behaving normally.  It is not unusual for the head to go off to the right once or twice when printing. I think it is detecting a clog and clearing it. Problem is that whatever it is doing it it is doing it at every pass.  The utilities do nothing to tell you how often if finds clogs during printing. All the automated  maintenance utilities think everything is just fine.

[Geoff Wittig]

I had the same experience, until I figured out what was going on in the driver. The printing resolution can vary from 300 to 1200 dpi, and the number of printhead passes can vary up to 16. If you have everything set to maximum quality, highest resolution, greatest detail etc. in the various driver pages, you end up printing at 1200 dpi with 16 passes. I'm guessing that this absurdly high level of resolution forces the printhead assembly to pause at the end of most passes to orient and locate itself with high precision, requiring multiple repositioning attempts of paper and printhead. I printed a 24x36" image on Hahnemuhle photo rag satin that took about 2 hours! Once I figured this out, I saw that more reasonable settings like 600 dpi yielded much faster print times with no difference in quality.

[Charles Gast]

I had the same experience, until I figured out what was going on in the driver. The printing resolution can vary from 300 to 1200 dpi, and the number of printhead passes can vary up to 16. If you have everything set to maximum quality, highest resolution, greatest detail etc. in the various driver pages, you end up printing at 1200 dpi with 16 passes. I'm guessing that this absurdly high level of resolution forces the printhead assembly to pause at the end of most passes to orient and locate itself with high precision, requiring multiple repositioning attempts of paper and printhead. I printed a 24x36" image on Hahnemuhle photo rag satin that took about 2 hours! Once I figured this out, I saw that more reasonable settings like 600 dpi yielded much faster print times with no difference in quality.
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Thanks for the reply!

I am printing at the same detail level I always have. I select best quality and more passes but I do not check the 600dpi box. I send it 300 ppi files. I tried sending some 600ppi files at setting the res to 1200 and it definitely took longer but with no visible improvement.  The printer only does 600 dpi so the 1200 setting must be some kind of psuedo-1200 dpi. I always assumed it prints at 600dpi whether or not it is checked.

[dkeyes]

Have you tried a test print to see if the heads are clogged? I had similar slowdowns two times. Once  one head was clogged and the machine kept cleaning/checking it. The other time was when I printed back to back large files (600mg +) so one was spooling while the other was printing. Are you sending 8bit files as well? 16bit would slow it down.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Have you tried a test print to see if the heads are clogged? I had similar slowdowns two times. Once  one head was clogged and the machine kept cleaning/checking it. The other time was when I printed back to back large files (600mg +) so one was spooling while the other was printing. Are you sending 8bit files as well? 16bit would slow it down.
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Right now I'm changing the print server to a faster one. Still not an up to date machine but when it only has to do the printing it will cope. This one has one raid but I will add another drive for the spooling file + next to the normal ethernet I will add a Gb ethernet card that will directly connect to the Z3100. I know it will not deliver that Gb in practice but at least it will be higher in speed than the rest and will not have to share any other network processing. Before that I have used different methods in spooling to keep the printer at speed like letting the printer start after the rendering + spooling stage or feeding it from two systems. The last will remain an option if I still find the process too slow.

With Qimage and old files that still have the Epson 360 PPI native resolution but will be downsampled to 300 PPI for HP you better drop the anti-aliasing to the lowest setting otherwise it takes days. Usually there's no special PPI in the files themselves but I have several computer art ones that were made for the Epson right away.

Ernst Dinkla

try: [a href=\"http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/[/url]

[Charles Gast]

I spoke with a tech rep at HP. I was surprised that I actually was able to rather quickly get connected with someone who knew the printer. She had me look at dry time. It was set to Optimal. She then had me run a head cleaning cycle and that seems to have taken care of the problem.  Just watching the task manager on my computer and the network traffic indicated to me the data was transferred without any delays.   I'll get back here if the problem returns.   I am surprised that since the printer was detecting a head clog and repeatedly going over to the cleaning station with nearly every printing pass it did not at the very least give me a warning or other message that a head cleaning job was needed.  I could detect no significant change in the ink cart levels after the cleaning. I remember doing a power clean on the epson4800 and I was amazed at how far the ink levels dropped.

[CameronT]

Hi Charles.  I've had a similar experience with my z3100 lately.  I tried the head cleaning this morning, and I was curious whether or not the hp rep that you spoke to, suggested that the dry time be set to "optimal" or something else, to also remedy the situation.  Any other settings recommended?

Thanks,

Cameron

[Charles Gast]

Hi Charles.  I've had a similar experience with my z3100 lately.  I tried the head cleaning this morning, and I was curious whether or not the hp rep that you spoke to, suggested that the dry time be set to "optimal" or something else, to also remedy the situation.  Any other settings recommended?

Thanks,

Cameron
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Cameron,
Optimal must be the default setting since I have never changed it. There is an extended and a reduced setting too. She suggested maybe going to reduced but I did not need to since I got the printing speed up to normal with the optimal setting. With increased dry time she said it stops between passes. I did not try it though.  It is odd that the dry time is in the menu under "print retrieval".