We have both the HP2500CP and HP2000CP here at the USGS in Rolla, MO. I am the "Que Operator" for the HP2500CP. In fancy words that means I am the one that maintains it. The opinions and comments here are mine alone, and not those of the USGS nor the Government. If you print or ever plan to print Post script files, then you must have the HP2500CP plotter. The 2000 does NOT print Postscript. Some of the problems I deal with are as follows. 1. File size. When file size starts to get above 200 meg, it can in some cases take several hours to print. When they start getting around 400 meg, then the customer risks having their job bomb. Either the Plotter hard drive or plotter memory can fill up. I have read some posts about their being some settings you can change on your PC's printer driver that will stop that. If so, I haven't found them yet. 2. Margins. The plotter needs a 1" border around all its prints at the default setting. It will take that 1" whether you want it to or not. One of the things I try most to explain to some of my customers is the difference between "Image size" and "Print size." the image size has got to be at least two inches smaller then the print size. I know this is basic to most of you. But if you deal with very many users, you will have some that need help. Here, I don't mind. That is one of my jobs. 3. Ink fading. I don't think this is a 2500 problem, but more a printer/plotter problem, but. When we got the printer in Nov 97, we printed out a large sample photograph. Last November we noticed that the photo looked faded. So we re-printed it. Boy, it had faded big time. Our conclusion was (as a lot of you may already know.) that a color plot is not a long term product. Lastly, Yes, we do like it very much. It puts out beautiful work. With both maps and Photos. We love the end product. Support costs. We are Government. I don't get involved in the costs of paper and ink for the plotter. However, if you are Private Enterprise, some things might be of concern to you. 1. Paper costs. I see a lot of small prints on big paper. I try to help the customers as much as I can to understand the differences between image and print sizes. Plus, a lot of them don't yet understand how the nesting can help them with small prints. They are getting better with checking with me to see if nesting is turned on before they send several copies of small prints. I try to leave nesting on, but for various reasons, can't always. 2. Ink/toner replacement costs. We have had the plotter about 14 months. There has so far, only been two times when a ink cartridge managed to get all used up before I had to change it. Usually for some other reasons, it will error out and make me change a color long before the ink is much over half empty. I do believe that a lot of the problem may be in the amount of use the plotter gets. If they aren't used regularly, I think the ink and or print heads can dry up and clog various parts. The HP 2000CP's that we have, set for over 6 months before they got them going. We wound up having to change all the ink systems before we could get it to work. I don't think that was really all the fault of the plotters, I suspect that most any plotter or printer might baulk if treated that way. Hope this helps Jack ************************************8 I would greatly appreciate feedback (either positive or negative) from anyone utilizing any of the following plotters; HP2500CP HP2000CP HP755 HP750 Regards, --------------------------------------------- Domenic Scardamaglia Department of Lands, Planning & Environment, Northern Territory Government (Darwin). Tel: (61-8) 89993413 Fax: (61-8) 89994445 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
