zakezuke said:
BD wrote:
Oh, total consistent, only that you will either have to take the time
and adjust the thing to center manualy, or just print slightly larger
than the disc. You can use the same disc several times to align it.
This is a pain in Canon's software as it maxes out at 118mm. Verbatium
offer 119mm discs which are not covered by CD-labelprint's range.
However it's no issue in accoustica, and accoustica permits finner
adjustments.
It is "possible" to hard code this adjustment in the printer. I forget
how descrete you can adjust it, i've never bothered. My mp760 for
exaimple is like .7mm top left -.3. My ip5200 on tray type b left
-.05mm or so, just a hair.
Follow-up on my "Great Canon CD Tray Caper"...
I did make my own tray, very nice looking, spent a lot of time on it. My
iP5000, however, spit it out on first attempt. No big deal as I didn't
really need to make it. I had already ordered a real one and only built
it while waiting for my orders to arrive. I bought the tray along with
the optional roller assembly bracket (sold separately on eBay). I highly
recommend getting the additional bracket with rollers as they help guide
the tray, pressing it down slightly so it won't lift up and so on. The
whole deal cost me "nothing" since I used the money I saved by using
aftermarket inks instead of OEM ones.
Printer setup was a piece of cake. Minor button pushing as per
instructions posted (also included from the seller), and a reload of the
printer driver. CDLabelPrint software is too limiting for my often fancy
design work. But it's great for those requiring not much more than a
couple of frames of text, etc. Instead, I figured out how to use it with
my desktop publishing software - Serif PagePlus.
1. Page Setup (in Serif) - set to "CD-R tray B"
2. Printer Properties (in Print window) - set Media to "Printable disc
(recommended)"
3. Page size (in Print window) to - "CDR-tray B"
Then it's only a simple matter of finding the disc on the page (trial
and error). I created a white 1 inch circle with a yellow outline and
sent it to print, using a scrap disc with a cheap white paper label
glued on. By luck and intuition I was only off by an inch on the
horizontal and a quarter inch in the vertical. Once I found the exact
center (3 or 4 tries), I created larger yellow circles to mark the
limits of the printable disc. They work fine with a white background but
I may have to alter them slightly (a bit smaller) when I use a color
background.
One major problem. My ip5000 would smudge the labels with minor brush-
like smudges of black ink. It would happen every time. I then set the
"Prevent Paper Abrasion" in Maintenance Custom Settings. It helped a bit
but the labels were still slightly smudged. I removed the cartridges and
printhead and thoroughly cleaned the bottom of the printhead assembly.
That didn't help, it smudged slightly in the very first attempt. Since
any smudging is totally unacceptable in high quality work, I decided to
then setup and activate my other printer, the iP4000, for the CD tray.
Setup went fine and everything worked right away. The first test worked
perfectly, there was no smudging, and I never even set the "prevent
paper abrasion" setting. So I have to assume the iP5000 is a bit buggy
somewhere. It does print paper labels and photos very cleanly, though
pages sometimes get smudged slightly when I print them in booklet
format. Strange. But that's why I keep extra printers: when 1 fails to
do the job as it should, the other takes over. Nice to have options!
I had wanted the tray to work with the iP5000 because of its superior
printing capability, over the iP4000. But when I set the properties to
print at the very highest resolution on the iP5000, I noticed it was
printing much too fast to be at 9,800 dpi. Seems like the limit is High
Quality (4800 dpi) on either printer. Quality looked very nice (though
smudged) on my Maxell matte printable discs. Should work fine and clean
with the iP4000, based on one rough test print
So on the whole I am very happy that all worked out well in my Great
Canon Tray Caper. I now have a choice of printing either paper labels or
directly on printable CDR/DVDs.
-Taliesyn
