New life for HP 1220c wide-bed printers, for free.
- From: CliffNotes <cliffn@xxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:53:53 -0600
I was testing various printer drivers from HP with an older wide-bed 1220c
printer that someone gave to me, hoping to find a driver that would allow
me to do borderless prints with this tried-and-true work-horse. None of the
drivers from models that support borderless printing seemed to work quite
right, but what I did find is that the 1220c printer works just fine with
the HP 9300 series drivers.
Interestingly, the HP 1220c printer supports the 4800x1200 print resolution
afforded by the 9300 series drivers. The difference in dot size and
resolution is quite obvious, you need a magnifying glass to see them from
the 9300 series drivers. Equally obvious is the much slower and more
precise unidirectional print mode when printing at this resolution. You
also get to upgrade from PhotoREt I to PhotoREt III.
Another perk is when using the 9300 series printer option of "Emulate
LaserJet Margins". If you set a custom paper size of 8.5" x 11.53" this
gives you about a 3-4mm margin all around on an 8.5" x 11" sheet. No more
of those annoying large bottom margins that makes printing a centered image
lose to valuable white-space just to match margins. The 1220c driver's
LaserJet Margins option for this didn't seem to do much with the built-in
margin limits.
The "hp Digital Photography Options" are also expanded in the 9300 series
setup options panel. Instead of just the one "Image Enhancement" option of
the 1220c drivers you can now turn on Auto Red-eye Removal, or set
Contrast, Fill Flash, Smart Focus, Sharpness, and Smoothing to auto, one of
3 levels, or off. Though I wish I could have been able to get the 9800
series drivers to work as that also has micro adjustments for all CMYK
intensities in the options.
You might also like to install the 9800 series drivers, as this will give
you 9 new printer profiles. 3 of which match the ink tanks in the 1220c
printer. The 9 profiles are for Film, Paper, and Photo-Paper; in cartridge
combos of Tri-color + Black, Tri-color + Grays (photo grays), and Tri-color
+ Photo Color. The Tri-color + Black profiles emulate the 4-ink (color dye
+ black pigment) inks profile of the 1220c printer, alleviating any of the
odd color shifts with most paper selection options. Save the profiles then
delete the driver if you don't like driver-clutter on your computer.
While some of those 9800 series printer profiles worked very well with
certain papers, I found that the best match of all came from a printer
profile that was installed with Q-Image. I now use Q-Image's "Color Match
RGB", Cmatch.icm file as my default printer profile for all paper types on
the 1220c printer. Download the demo just to get the profile if need be.
Oddly too, I was using HP's inks up 'til now and always had to compensate
for odd color shifts in the blacks and grays on various papers, including
HP's own papers. But now I get the best color match of all, on all papers
HP's papers included, by using 3rd-party bulk inks from Ink-XPress Corp out
of Miami FL, USA. Four, 250ml bottles in CMYK for $33. Cheapest I could
find at E-Bay (E-Bay store "bulk ink-xpress"). That's good for about 25
large-capacity refills for less than the price of just one HP cartridge.
Rich dark blacks and grays with no odd hues, all colors vibrant, on all
regular and all photo papers, no matter which paper type I select in setup
options. HP's OEM inks fail miserably compared to the results I'm getting
from these inexpensive bulk inks.
So there you go. A way to upgrade your 1220c printer for free, not counting
the inks mentioned. The 4800x1200 print mode with much smaller dot size
will probably rival most newer photo-color ink printers.
If anyone has found other drivers that work well with the 1220c printer it
would be interesting to hear about it and what perks they might offer.
Bonus Info: I rejuvenated the paper-path rollers that would fail to grab
some thicknesses of paper in this old printer by dousing the rollers with
some naphtha solvent. You can find it at your local supermarket as
"Ronsonol Lighter Fluid" in the smoker's section for cigarette lighters, or
as just plain "Naphtha" at your local hardware-store in the solvents and
paints department for much much cheaper. It doesn't hurt the plastics but
do try to keep it on the rollers only. I tried using this solvent first as
I know that rubber absorbs it a bit and become pliable again without being
very harmful to most all other plastics. It's also the best choice for
removing gum or rubber adhesives or cleaning firmer rubber gaskets. I first
doused the rollers directly as they were turning, then fed some absorbent
paper through to dry them down. That helped somewhat but I didn't want to
risk another full wet-down. Then I wet down some absorbent paper thoroughly
with the naphtha and then fed that through the printer quite a few times.
All paper-weights and all feed paths work just fine now.
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: New life for HP 1220c wide-bed printers, for free.
- From: Arthur Entlich
- Re: New life for HP 1220c wide-bed printers, for free.
- Prev by Date: Re: Suggestions for B&W personal laser printer
- Next by Date: Re: 6color?
- Previous by thread: Best printer for money?
- Next by thread: Re: New life for HP 1220c wide-bed printers, for free.
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
