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BigInkjet

Overview

The Poster Printer is a HP DesignJet 650C with Postscript Level 2 engine. This is a ca. 1995 machine.

To print, bring a PDF or JPG on USB memory stick to the white "eMac" in the 2nd floor copy room. Or you can copy your file from the net at that machine. Open Terminal and use scp, or put it up on the web and use Firefox to bring it down.

It's best to use a draw program to prepare posters. PowerPoint is actually a reasonable draw program, and you can size a single slide to be your desired output size of the final poster: up to 36x60 inches. Then output as a PDF.

Please do not use heavy color backgrounds—this will waste lots of ink. Just leave a blank sheet (white) background and do spot color, text, or other graphics.

Note: DO NOT TRY TO PRINT SUPER COMPLEX DOCUMENTS. See FAQ below, My document will not print.

 

Set Up Printer Drivers on Your Own Machine?

As noted above, you may wish simply to bring a PDF or JPG to the eMac that is already configured for the printer.

 

 

OK you want to try printing from your desktop. I don't recommend this because you won't be there to see the huge amounts of paper that will be wasted when you make a mistake.

 

 

OK you want to do it anyway.

Networking

The IP address for the printer written down on a piece of paper on the front of the machine. Go there to find it.

Or, if you are on the CS department network and you are on a Mac, your Mac might find it with AppleTalk. It's the HP DesignJet 650C1.

Print Driver

All I have is Postscript Printer Description file from the Mac OS 7 era that I hacked myself to add some page sizes. Here it is:

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~fredm/dept/HP_DesignJet_650C1.ppd

It seems to work.

 

How To Print

On the eMac, open your PDF in Adobe Reader. In case you are not a Mac person, you can bring up a context menu by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the document icon. Go into the “Open With...” menu choice, and select the newest version of Adobe Reader.

After your document is open, choose “File:Page Setup...”:

• In the “Format for” menu, select “Poster Printer via AppleTalk.”
• Select the paper size that most closely matches your document (or what you want printed).

 

After this, select File:Print. You will see a preview showing how it will appear on the page. You may need to click the “auto-rotate and center” option. Then Print.

 

While the job is unspooling, the printer will display “STATUS: Receiving” and the Mac's print queue/unspooler window will display “Processing job” with the rotating-barber-pole, please-wait-indefinitely gadget. There is no progress indicator, only the barber-pole activity indicator. This is a live demonstration of the halting problem.

If the Mac dialog completes, but the printer continues to display “Receiving,” that is a good sign. Continue to wait—the printer is still computing.

If you hear activity and the printer says “Plotting,” you are in luck!

 

FAQ

The printer is printing in black and white, but my document has color. On the printer's front panel, there is a pushbutton to select Color or Mono on the printer. Make sure it is set to Color.

My document does not print. Reduce its complexity. In the worst case, render it as a JPG of 1000x1000 pixels or less.

Note: if the PDF takes a long time to image on the eMac, it will probably blow the PS stack on the printer and fail to print. Do not make an overly complex design. Wait up to 30 mins or so before giving up.

JPGs should be no bigger than 1000 x 1000 px or they will fail to print. You can print using Preview or Graphic Converter. Make sure to scale to proper size for how big you want it (up to 36x36 inches).

Help! It's printing the wrong thing, and I don't want to waste paper. Press the button labeled Cancel on the printer's front panel.

I keep getting the error "Power off printer. Check pen path." The carriage needs to be lubricated with WD-40. Add very little oil since the pen carrier will spread it out evenly. Also, you don't want any oil to drip onto the electronics below. Ask for help if you don't want to do this yourself.

Supplies

Faculty who have overhead money should take turns buying supplies. It's actually not too expensive to operate.

Plotter paper is best bought from WBMason, HEWC1861A (cheaper paper, $20/roll) or HEW51631E (better paper, $50/roll).

Inks are available there, but their prices aren't great:

• HP 40 Black Inkjet Print Cartridge (51640A) WBMason HEW51640A, about $28
• HP 50 Cyan Inkjet Print Cartridge (51650C) WBMason HEW51650C, about $31
• HP 50 Magenta Inkjet Print Cartridge (51650M) WBMason HEW51650M, also $31
• HP 50 Yellow Inkjet Print Cartridge (51650Y) WBMason HEW51650Y, also $31

On-line vendors sell remanufactured cartridges for about half the price of WBMason, even after the univ. discount. Search on the HP numbers (e.g., 51640A, etc.).

 

Technical Info

Here is a link to HP's information about the machine.