jon@msunix.UUCP (06/06/87)
It seems that every couple months someone asks for advice on color hardcopy devices, so here is my $0.02 (and that's about all this is worth...) Not included are film recorders like Matrix QCRs, Dunn, Celco, Geni, Dicomed, etc. I'm talking printers here (though a Matrix 3000 with an 8x10 Polaroid back would probably qualify). In order of decreasing quality: 1) Dainippon (sp?) Inkjet Printer - ~$50K-60K. Big, expensive inkjet printer from Japan. Supposedly does 304dpi, and each dot has 64 possible density levels. They claim this thing is a digital proofer, I'll believe that when I see it. No doubt it's good though. My manager told me it has a SCSI interface, and to be ready to write a driver for it because I may show up for work and find one of these things occupying half my office. 2) IRIS Inkjet Printer - price unknown. This is another big inkjet printer, it'll print stuff bigger than a square meter. They say it takes any type of media, including fabric. Hey, I could make T-shirts on it! The literature I have says it's 240dpi, but my manager says the one he saw was 400dpi. I think I have the Eikonix-Kodak Ektachrome picture on an IRIS print, and it looks pretty good, greater than 240dpi, so my manager must be right. The company is in Boston. My guess is it is at least $30K. 3) Versatec C2700 - $8995. This is my favorite under $10K printer. Thermal transfer, with optional 4-color donor rolls. This way you can get a *real* black, not some gross dark blue masquerading as black. (100% transfer of the cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments results in dark blue, not black) 304 dpi, which is acceptable. The dots are small enough here so you can do some halftone-dot simulation, and the results don't look to bad (I think it looks great, Graphic Arts professionals say, "Well, it's certainly acceptable as a rough comp.") Seems to exhibit "reverse dot gain". The pigments absorb light better when they land on top of each other, rather than on bare paper. My guess is that when they land on top of each other the thermal print head melts them all togeether and they spread out, but this doesn't happen when the dots aren't on top of each other. Seems to suffer paper jams regularly, but that may be operator error. Transparencies jam unless fed one at a time, which is a pain. Suffers slight registration problems (possibly due to paper stretching after the yellow (first) pass thru the printer. This is only noticeable in grey backgrounds with a 3-color donor roll. Since we only support the 4-color donor roll, this isn't a problem for us. Centronics interface, perhaps an RS-170 analog interface in the future. At NCGA we got beat up by our customers over lack of *good* color hardcopy, so we took a look at everything we could find. This seems to be the best one under $10K. Versatec is not marketing this thing very well, no one knows about it. The problem might be they are used to selling electrostatic plotters to the CAD types, and they don't know what to do with this new printer. 4) Seiko 5312 - $9995. I hate this printer. I've got one of these and the Versatec in my office. Guess which one we never use. It's another thermal transfer printer, but they only offer 3-color donor rolls. So you can't get it to print black, only dark blue. The 5312 does 203dpi, which is really too low to do any halftone dot simulation, but the only other option is dithering, which looks awful. So you end up with big dots. When transfering the pigments to the paper, it doesn't do an adequate job unless you operate it in bold mode, which heats the thermal print head up more. I think it needs to run hotter yet. 50% transfer on the Versatec looks like 50%, 50% on the Seiko looks like 35%. One nice feature is that it has buffer memory to hold a full screen full, so you can do multiple copies. The Versatec can't do this. It comes with a Centronics interface. For about $1300 more you can get an RS-170 analog interface, which sucks the big one. They use totally retarded algorithms and the results look awful. My algorithms going into the Centronics port give far better results than the (RS-170 equipped) Seiko's internal software, and I'm not even doing anything real whizzy. Seiko is certainly marketing this thing well, everyone knows about it, and everyone I know who has seen one has been brainwashed into thinking it's wonderful. I love to see the expression on their faces when they see output from a 4-color donor roll equipped Versatec. There is some question as to whether their analog interface can accept a true RS-170 signal. Supposedly they want 0-1V, and we give them -0.3 to +0.7V, so everything comes out dark. 5) Tektronix 4696 Inkjet Printer - $2395. Well, it's certainly cheap. About 125dpi as I recall. Dots are too big for halftoning, so you have to dither, which looks pretty awful. Make sure you do under-color removal (replace cmy ink dots with black), otherwise the paper gets so saturated with ink that it drips into the little pan. Seems to suffer from registration problems, so the dots don't line up too well. Centronics interface. 6) Tektronix 4692 Inkjet Printer - $12000. About 152dpi. Again, forced to use dithering, and again, awful looking results. No control over the black ink - it "decides" for you. If I want lousy looking hardcopy, I'd use the 4696 - at least it's cheap. Centronics-"like" interface. Giving it a strobe while Busy is true causes it to crash and burn (yeah, I know I'm not supposed to do that). Standard Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, blah blah blah... Jonathan Hue DuPont Design Technologies/Via Visuals leadsv!msunix!jon
klm@munsell.UUCP (Kevin McBride) (06/23/87)
In article <306@msunix.UUCP> jon@msunix.UUCP (Jonathan Hue) writes: > > >It seems that every couple months someone asks for advice on color hardcopy >devices, so here is my $0.02 (and that's about all this is worth...) >... >... >2) IRIS Inkjet Printer - price unknown. This is another big inkjet printer, >it'll print stuff bigger than a square meter. They say it takes any type >of media, including fabric. Hey, I could make T-shirts on it! The literature >I have says it's 240dpi, but my manager says the one he saw was 400dpi. I >think I have the Eikonix-Kodak Ektachrome picture on an IRIS print, and it >looks pretty good, greater than 240dpi, so my manager must be right. The >company is in Boston. My guess is it is at least $30K. Yes, you can print cloth with it! But you can't do T-Shirts, sorry. The head to drum clearance is not sufficient to pass rolled over seams in the material, I checked. :-) Also, Iris' inks are water-based, the first time you wash the fabric, the design is gone. (YOW! Have we discovered erasable plotting media?? :-) You may indeed have our picture on an Iris print. Both we and Iris were giving them out at Graph-Expo East last fall. We had an Iris at our "booth." We have an Iris ink jet printer (a couple actually). The model we have will handle paper up to "E" size. Price tag is around $125K. A smaller model that prints up to 24" x 24" is still up there around $80K. Not Cheap. The device is extremely finicky and needs constant attention to keep it running. When it works (which, unfortunately, isn't often enough), the results are beautiful. We have calibrated our design system to their inks and have been using it as a quick and dirty proofer. Not too accurate color wise, mind you, but certainly good enough to be able to distinguish a picture from line noise. :-) My relationship with Iris is as a user, and it's a Love/Hate relationship; some days I love it, others I hate it. Iris is aware of the reliability problems and seems to be trying hard to correct them. >4) Seiko 5312 - $9995. I hate this printer. I've got one of these and the >Versatec in my office. Guess which one we never use. Ditto. Can you say "Sucks"? I thought you could. -- Kevin McBride |Disclaimer: These | harvard -\ Eikonix - A Kodak Co. | opinions are mine, | ll-xn ---adelie-----> munsell!klm 23 Crosby Dr. | not my employer's, | decvax -v talcott -v | Bedford, MA 01730 | So There! | allegra ------------encore