Poor quality acetates on Epson SX535 Printer

[Yorkie]

I've mentioned before that when I had a Hewlet Packard Deskjet printer it used to print excellent PCB layouts onto OHP film to use as masks for a UV exposure box. The printer packed in last year, and I shopped around for what I'd hoped would be a good quality printer that would print at least as good as my ageing HP one. I settled on an Epson SX535WD, which at the time was aboyut £150, but as is the norm, by now, the price has plumetted to about the same as a set of new OEM cartridges.

Using the same brand of acetates that had always been excellent on the HP, the results on the Epson were very poor indeed. I tried the printer on various settings to no avail - there isn't an OHP film option and I don't think there is with any current make of printer. I did wonder if it was that the brand of OHP film that wasn't compatible with the Epson, so I've tried another brand of OHP film and have just wasted five sheets on difrrent printer settings from high quality gloss line-art to matte photo, basically, trying to get this printer to do what it isn't up to the task to do - print a decent copy of a PCB layout onto acetate. The edges of the tracks are ill defined and ragged, and even with three acertates place on top of each other, light can be seen through gaps in the tracks. I can't imagine what sort of a job it would make of ink-jet decal paper, and I'm not going to bother to find out.

I'v still got acetates I printed on my old HP printer - solid thick black lines and clearly defind PCB pads. I did try Epson's disinterested 'help' line, thinking I might not have set the printer to the optium setting and got the dismissive response that 'no - none of our printers support OHPs and nor do other makes'. Maybe they should do a bit of reverse engineering then? Surely there must be SOME current printers that support OHP film - it doesn't seem a very big ask to me.

Oh well, I'm doing less and less homebrew these days, so am making fewer and fewer PCBs anyway.

Maybe I'll have to resort to using a paper print and spray it with WD40 or something to 'transpartentize' it, which is a bit 'low tech'.

[AlanBeckett]

I'm surprised at you young David. This is clearly self-inflicted as you should have stuck to hp

Seriously, my Photosmart C7280 has a Presentation Setting and you can also set/increase the density of individual colours, including Black.
I haven't tried it, but it sounds promising.
I don't think I've got any OHP film either.
I could get some and give it a go, but not for a week or so.

Alan

[Yorkie]

Yes, you're right Alan -, I've only myself to blame.

Burn before reading - I'm just a whinging old fogey who expects a printer to print, which it does well enough on paper.

Annoyingly, none of the write-ups on printers that I've seen mention whether they have a transparency option, but when you look at the film they say 'select the transparency option in your printer set-up'. I think that what's happened over time is that originally people used paper flip charts, then OHP projectors took over, sometimes with people using felt-tip pens to make their own OHPs, then software such as 'Freelance Graphics' came along, and ink yet printers. Now, it tends to be Powerpoint presentations from a laptop, via a digital projector onto a screen. Hence, I guess that printer manufacturers consider OHPs to be obsolescent, if not obsolete, technology.

I was really happy with my HP printer, which was far more robust than the present offerings, but after more than 10,000 sheets it gave up the ghost. Today's printers seem much of a muchness - built down to a price rather than up to a standard, as a loss leader to try to use us as 'cash cows' for over-priced inks, but it's self-defeating, and ultimately unsuststainable to charge more for a set of OEM inks than the printer costs.

I saw an Epson SX325 three-in-one wi-fi ink-jet printer/canner/copier at Ryman's the other day - it was £35.00. Take off the VAT that leaves £29. The retailer wants a cut, as do everyone else from the factoy and in the suppy chain. They've got to get them half-way round the world from the factory in China, Indonesia or wherever. Of course, they come with half-empty cartridges, hoping that the customer will by a full set of OEM at £45, and wonder why they get alternative ones for a third of that price. It can't go on like that.

I guess it's become such a cut-throat and the technology so complex and changing by the day, that the makers just consider printers to be expendible. It certainly seems that way when I go to the local tip, and see them stacked alongside 40" flat screen TVs, hi-fi, compueters and what not.


Ho hum

[Geaney]

The traditional business model for consumer inkjets is that the user will replace the printer about every three years. In general if you printer last significantly longer than that you're lucky. The model assumes that your consumption of ink will generate the required minimum profit. No manufacturer makes any money on the printer itself. Since consumers tend to print less and less these days the model is breaking down and as you may have read, Lexmark just existed the consumer printer business. I doubt they will be the last. I believe Kodak have filed for Chapter 11 in the US so that's another source likely to disappear very soon.

Personally I'd prefer to pay a decent price for a decent printer and an appropriate price for the ink. Unfortunately your 'average' consumer will assume a printer for £120 is a better deal than one for £150 and doesn't consider the total cost of ownership.

I've currently got a HP Photosmart 51xx (an all rounder) and a baby Photosmart 470 just for printing photos. Both are about two years old and I've no complaints so far - other than the cost of the ink

It's not just printers either - I was chatting with a bloke who works for a large 'Nordic' mobile phone maker and he explained that their research shows the average punter replaces their phone every 18 months - so they design them to last that long!

Cheers, John

[Yorkie]

Personally I'd prefer to pay a decent price for a decent printer and an appropriate price for the ink. Unfortunately your 'average' consumer will assume a printer for £120 is a better deal than one for £150 and doesn't consider the total cost of ownership.

I've currently got a HP Photosmart 51xx (an all rounder) and a baby Photosmart 470 just for printing photos. Both are about two years old and I've no complaints so far - other than the cost of the ink

I concur with your comments John, which is why I bought what at time time, was the most expensive home/office Epson, and assumed it would print acetates, but it has no such setting.

As a matter of interest, do your HP printers have a setting for acetates, which I think are generally referred to as 'transparencies'? In my Photosmart that gave up the ghost, I didnt have to change any settings - it recognised the acetate and went slowly back and forth as it would if printing photographs, and produced excellent dense tracks. You could see the wet ink on the acetate, which dried in a couple of minutes and was perfectly opaque. I wouldn't trust this one with decal paper, even though it is paper - not acetate.

As to mobile phones, the world's gone mad. How bizarre that nowadays, some people have mobiles because they can't afford a landline, and in many developing countries they've never had landlines - they've skipped from no phones to cell-phones!