Lexmark (Kodak) PPM200 -inks/drivers/gripes etc....

[Brian W]

Hi

Seems it may be a common problem that the PPM200(mac) driver won't
load into chooser. I have read of similar sounding problems in the
setup wizard experienced by windows users as well. Is there any
answer to this?

Are Kodak/Lexmark still manufacturing this "printer"? Apart from
reading/printing direct from a smart card, as anybody got one of these
to actually print direct from a mac/pc more than just a test page
during the setup procedure? Funny that, it will always print a test
page - just doesn't seem to have a functioning driver on any platform.

Although the printer PPM200 is supposed to take "Kodak" ink
cartridges, will any other ink cartridges fit? I read that it uses
special Kodak inks. I don't care anymore. Really, will any other ink
cart fit and give some sort of output. Even black?

 

[Martin]

I recently saw a pair of cartridges for this printer and apart from a
different coloured top section (and probably a slightly different
shape), these are the Lexmark 12A1990 photo colour cartridge and the
12A1970 black cartridge from Lexmark.

My understanding is that there is a small plastic lug on these
printers where the cartridge goes into and this forms itself into the
top of the cartridge - hence you can only fit a Kodak cartridge into
it rather than a Lexmark because the plastic top is different. However
if you remove this plastic lug from the printer then there is nothing
to stop you fitting any other Lexmark cartridge into the printer and
using that! I've seen this in use by companies that remanufacture
Lexmark cartridges - they can test a whole range of cartridges on one
printer once the plastic lug has been removed.

Good luck...

Martin

 

[Brian W]

(e-mail address removed) (Brian W) wrote in message

Cheers Martin, I'll give that a try when I can find a way of getting
the mac chooser to load the PPM200 printer driver.

Brian

 

[Brian W]

You could be right, Todd. On the other and, why shouldn't their
stupid driver work? I rang Lexmark "Mac- Technical" section a while
back and was suprised they don't know anything at all about the PPM200
printer, nor did they have any useful things to say about drivers or
about their own or any other software. I just got referred back to
Kodak who also don't know anything about ...etc. No wonder Kodak are
finding it hard to survive in the face of all the competition these
days. A dud deal like the one they struck with Lexmark over the
PPM200 shows that Kodak is pretty useless as a manufacturer. Really
glad that I haven't got one of their crap digital cameras.

Brian

 

[Brian W]

That's a bit funny that Lexmark's reps woudln't have any knowledge of the

Kodak printer their company manufactured.

When I said they didn't know anything about the PPM200, I meant the
Lexmark rep that I spoke to was a A grade novice and had to look up
everything from scratch. He didn't seem familiar with printer issues
or the product range. Such information as he appeared to have
available was only sufficient to deal with small issues. Start
talking about operating systems or firmware and the Lexmark rep was
clearly out of his depth.

Iwork at OfficeMax and I
couldn't find Kodak ink carts in our catalogs at all. Maybe this is a
machine Kodak and Lexmark both wish would go away.

The guy from Lexmark also didn't know whether the PPM200 printer was
still in production. I can't see why Kodak and Lexmark wouldn't
support the product properly. I think this driver issue is limited to
a few users with specific OS or hardware issues. I happen to be one
of them. You would imagine that Lexmark would be ready with the
answers.

Lexmark has rolled out two new photo printers, but their construction is
flimsy and reliability is questionable. Also, their inksets aren't very
lightfast; Canon and Epson are much better and HP printers that use the
PhotoREt IV system (#57 color with #58 Photo carts) boast lightfastness of
up to 73 years in ideal conditions (Wilhelm) , 20-25 years average (Livick
and other independent photographers). The Lex prints hardly held up a year
before fading began to occur.

I'd suggest Canon's i850S, available at Sam's for $118 including USB cable.
The photos aren't *quite* as good as their 6-color i950, but they're
amazingly good for a 4-color machine and the ink is relatively cheap, and
comes in 4 separate tanks. C M & Y are 13ml each, and the K (black) is
27ml. Quite a bit for the money...

I am going to check out the i850s as soon as possible.

Brian

 

[icon]

Look for a Kodak Printer info file just called "PPM200" on your apple
desktop. I don't think the file showed on my desktop until after the
printer driver had been selected and after I had re-booted my mac.
After installing the print driver the mac would not reboot at all but
I just kept trying.

It may just be a case of having the right extensions turned on. Check
out this wording from the README if you haven't seen it.

===========================
KODAK PPM200 Read Me
===========================

This driver has been tested by Lexmark and is supported on Mac OS 8.6
and 9.0 systems that have built in USB support. It has not been tested
with third party USB cards added to a Mac or with Mac clones. Some
third party cards are known to require Apple MAC OS USB support
version 1.3.5 or higher. Limited testing has been performed with third
party USB hubs.

AND NOTE---

Additional system requirements
=============================

The printer driver requires that ColorSync and QuickTime be active.
Failure to have them enabled may result in "Printer driver could not
load" errors.

now the rest of the PPM200 story.........

You also must have the desktop printer and print monitor extensions
turned on in the extensions manager and it is rumoured that you also
need virtual memory turned on in the memory control panel. So do
that.

If you get everything just right the PPM200 will grudgingly spring to
life, but you may still have trouble with the printing operation and
some additional fine tuning may be necessary. I would say don't
expect everything to work. Even the software which I successfully
installed will not report ink-levels in the cartridges. All round the
PPM200 struggles and clunks with the cultural differences between the
apple and pc environments.

After the obligatory session where the printer only spools jobs and
doesn't print them throwing up more complaints as it goes you will
find the PPM200 to be a competent but slow printer with a pleasing and
fairly high quality output.

Like you I don't understand the lexmark philosophy offering no real
product support. Installing a printer driver is not supposed to be an
adventure.

 

[icon]

You'll find a really thorough review of the Kodak Personal Picture
Maker 200 at the following URL:-

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRINT/PPM200/PPM200A.HTM

Interestingly they say that the mac software driver does not replicate
all the facilities on offer in the windows version. It does work
though with a mac and the printer really is capable of giving
worthwhile results.