HP 120NR and VW 8.5

[Kevin]

I have a HP plotter that is 5 years old, 455CA. I am now operating under OSX and Gimp Print. While I do not have experience with your model, it sounds like HP is using the same method as mine. Laserwriter makes a postscript file and then the HP software rips it.

My experience with HP tech support is excellent. They always wanted to help even if we are on the phone for 90 minutes trying to solve the problem.

The hardware has been excellent, the software has been mediocre. It would act up every few months and need some trashing of files to get it going again.

1. Overlay-I believe that transparency is not supported. Katie in tech support can confirm this for you. I just tried transparencey last week and it did not work.

2. Rotation- In my old HP RIP there is a rotation button. This is a confusing subject, but with trial and error you figure out how to get the results you want.

3. Crashing-Don't know about this. As I said the software is mediocre. HP will not support OSX on my model so I am forced to go to a third party for software.

4. Epson- You will see a posting on this board from Kurt Magness. He has recently purchased a 42" Epson. It sounds like it is working fine for him. Perhaps he will respond to this post for you.

[Barry Williams]

Were using VW 8.5.2 on Mac OS 9.2.2 and have recently purchased a HP 120 nr along with the optional RIP.

We have a mixture of G3 & G4 computers on an ethernet network, one G3 computer acts as a dedicated print server.

Each workstation has the HP Rip set up as a desktop printer using Adobe PS 8.8, which creates a PS file which it send to the RIP which then send it to the printer.

We have a number of problems and have had little help from HP.

1. Overlay layers don't work, they just print as if the layer is in paint mode. Any ideas???

2. With a 610mm roll of paper installed, an A2 landscape drawing prints in portrait format on the printer. We have got over this by creating an A2 landscape page in custom page sizes. The problem now is that the automatic cutter doesn't work on the custom page size. I suspect this is a problem for HP, but just wondered if anyone else has had this problem.

3. When sending more than one copy to print, the first drawing print out fine but the printer seems to crash half way through printing the second drawing or just cuts it short. Again this is probably a HP problem, but would like to here if anyone else is also suffering.

Do all HP design jets suffer this much when printing from a mac??? Should we just return it and buy an Epson?

[Kurt Magness]

See my post under plotter purchase... in regards to Epson printers. Custom page sizes always seem to be problematic. My epson in OS9 works fine for custom page sizes, in OSX it does not work that well although epson has a new driver that I have yet to install. I think OSX has some issues with custom page sizes. I also have a HP455 like Keven and agree with his comments. The 455 in OSX has cutter problems too, like cutting the paper at 3/4" past the last image but I just solved it by having a border line at the edge of the sheet to force the cutter to cut at 36" (D size). All plotters are a bitch to set up. You might find the epson has it's own issues. I think I would keep the HP and call them again, perhaps you got a new tech person that was not helpful. Some techs know there stuff and others just don't care. Tech's have bad days too. Keep calling until you get satisfaction. If one guy can't help, hang up and call again and get somebody else. VWKS 8.5 is pretty old. Perhaps you should upgrade. Crashing sounds like a corrupt font issue or software conflict. Try doing a simple drawing with basic fonts to see if that crashes.

[Barry Williams]

We've now finally got to the root of the problem (we think). After a lot of phone time with HP technical support the conclusion is that the printer's firmware has a few bugs. Apparently they're planning a new release in August sometime.

We can't wait that long and have sent it back. We've been advised that the way to go is to get a HP design jet 500, with Microspot Graphicpak RIP software.

I tjink this is what we'll be doing.