Displaymaker XII and obsolete interpretation of EPS

[Jukka Paulin]

Hi all!

I'm testing out a used Colorspan Displaymaker XII 62" wide format printer at
work.
With 70 personal flight hours behind now, I've concluded that:
1. The printing quality itself is okay, but...

2. The printer is quite unreliable: can't leave working alone, can't be sure
whether
you're going to get a work printed in 1 or 10 hours after all the fixups
necessary.
I've had head motion errors, problems after changing media (can't
automatically measure it),
sudden stopping of the head during a print (followed by rebooting), etc.
I've cleaned the
band which contains small marks for the head to locate itself. I've also had
a service technician
here, twice. He's specialized in Colorspan printers and has been looking at
one from both the
view of a repairman as well as a graphic designer. He updated the software,
and gave a lot of
precious guidance as to the practical side of printing, but said he doesn't
know of a solution to
the EPS format problem (see below).

3. The Colormark Pro rip server's software seems to be obsolete to modern
standards of EPS.
There is something inside many EPS pictures that the Colormark refuses to
process.
The error occurs when RIPping a picture (this is the third stage -- first
you open a picture, then
decide into what priority it will go, and the third stage is RIPping).
It might go fine for example up to 75%, but then the picture gets thrown
into a Tracking Log,
with quite an uninformative error message: "Postscript error".
I'm saving works from Illustrator 9 or getting them from a customer. Both
ways have had problems.

I've not yet nailed down what command exactly is it in the EPS that the
Colormark can't
handle.

I'd really like to see the workflow less complicated. No unnecessary
conversions
just to satisfy the Colormark server. Any hints?

Version information:
Displaymaker XII:
-ColorMark Version 7.94
-Software version 1.76.6625
-Media usage: 6050 meters, area: 7190 square meters
What mileage do you owners have with Displaymaker XII? Is 6050 meters a lot?

-ColorMark Pro Server Software version 8.82-UL
-ColorMark Plus version 1.50

(C) 1994-2000 MacDermid Colorspan, Inc.

Regards,
-Jukka

 

[Alan]

I've not yet nailed down what command exactly is it in the EPS that the
Colormark can't handle.

When exporting EPS from AI you can choose "compatibility" with earlier
versions of AI, and separately the PS level. Try to push back both
these. Newer versions of AI default to a format more like PDF than
older PS.
Alternatively, get them saved as PDF and you can try printing them
from Acrobat with various settings, &/or use Acrobat to export EPS in
various settings if you really need EPS.

Another possibility is just that the files are too complex and
overflow memory. You could try printing at lower resolution, if that
works then that's the problem, maybe you can get more RAM for the
printer in that case, or live with lower res.