X-RIP

[DWHarper]

Has anyone dealt with the product X-RIP (Mac OSX plotter driver)?

I was considering purchasing the HP 120 for my upstart engineering business; however, print times are too slow. It looks as though "macroenter.com" (got the company/product link form Architosh web page) has this X-RIP which will drive an HP400 plotter. The HP400 speeds are much better than the HP120, and the price is almost the same:

HP120 - 2'x3' (6 minutes per page)

HP400 - 2'x3' (1 1/2 minutes per page)

Am I going down the wrong path considering X-rip and an HP400?

Perhaps there is another plotter, comperable in price to the X-rip+HP400, that is compatible with OSX?

Please advise.

Thanks again,

DWHarper

[Guest]

Right now, X Rip will print in monochrome rather than color. If that's important to you, X rip may not be the choice.

[DWHarper]

I only need B&W; therefore, sounds as though this would be an inexpensive alternative?

Faster printer at the same cost....

If you know otherwise, please comment.

Thanks again,

DWHarper

[Kurt Magness]

Gimp print is a free OSX driver for most printers & plotters. Check out the many posts about it here in the printing section.

[aersloat]

Are you talking about the HP430? or is there actually an HP400? Gimp print claims to support the 430. Keep in mind that you will have to get some kind of print server as the 430 does not have an ethernet interface. Instead of buying one from HP you might want to try one a third party. I have a dsl/cable router at home that came with a parallel print server attached which has worked flawlessly. If you get it I would defintely try gimp print before buying x-rip.

[Kurt Magness]

Austin:

I have a Asante' cable dsl router with the print server /parallel port too. Is this your setup ? But I haven't tried to use it to driver the plotter because Asante' said the printer needed to be post script. I use a HP jetdirect server instead. How did you get the IP address, etc. of the plotter through your print server/router? If I can elminate the Jetdirect, then there would be one less power brick on the power strip.

Kurt

[aersloat]

Kurt

I actually have a maxgate ugate 3300 cable/dsl router with parallel port print server. AFAIK maxgate is out of business. I believe that the Asante and all the others are essentially the same products. I have a Lexmark Optra E312L laser printer hooked up to the parallel port of the router. The ip address of the printer is just the router's address. In my case that is 192.168.0.1. The Lexmark has emulated postscript as well as a ppd (it has a usb port intended for mac use). I just created a LPR/LPD printer in print center and input the ip address and selected the ppd.

Asante is correct that normally you would need either a postscript device or a native printer driver. However, with a gimp-print supported device you should be fine.

Give it a go and let us know how it works out. The cable/dsl routers are getting quite cheap and if they work (with gimp-print) in lieu of a jet direct server that would be great for a bunch of folk.

[aersloat]

Kurt,

By the way, I just got an Asante FR1004al to replace my Ugate (I needed better wireless range) and the print server in the asante doesn't work for me. The problem is that the parallel port on the asante is unidirectional and stalls on some more complicated jobs. My old Ugate, and others like I think the SMC barricade, are bi-directional.

[Stereo]

With the Designjet 120 you're having an excellent printer that does not need any X-Rip or other driver. Just use the driver HP provides, this one should be fast:

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software2/COL3312/pl-11451-2/hp120officemx.hqx