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Speed problems Epson 1290s

nickser

Well-Known Member
Hi,
Do any other 1290s users have to wait a long time for their prints to finish? I timed a 10 X 8 @ 1440dpi at 23 minutes plus!! My brothers canon 9000 spits them out in minutes. Is their something I am missing or not doing right?

Paul
 
I have a 1280 and it is quite fast - I've been very pleased with both speed and print quality. Since these printers don't have a built-in RIP, your computer RIPs the image. Have those of you complaining about the 1290s speed looked at the possibility that your computer is the problem, not the printer itself?
 
Hi Paul, I don't think that the speed of my computer is the problem. It is a 2.0 gig Athlon machine running on XP Pro with 1 gig of ram and a 64 meg video card. It fairly shifts along in PS7 and other programs. It sends it to the 1290S printer within five seconds of hitting the print button. It just takes an age to print when it gets there. I have asked Epson a few days ago about it but haven't had a reply as yet. I bought it thinking I could print out clients pictures fairly quickly. Printing a roll of 10x8's takes all day and then some!! Have you any suggestions?

Regards
Paul
 
Which type of connection does your printer have to your PC? I know that firewire (mac term is firewire, i forget what you pc-ers call it) is light-speed compared to usb, and usb is fast compared to serial. That might be your bottleneck. (there is also scsi somewhere inbetween these speeds but that's besides the point) A RIP really isn't going to give you anything if you're printing directly out of photoshop - all a RIP does is interpret for programs that don't speak the right language for the printer; programs like quark xpress. -Lynn
 
For those interested...

Here are the speed for USB and firewire (IEEE1934) ports:

USB 1.1 = 12 Mb/s
USB 2.0 = 480 Mb/s
Firewire (current) = 400 Mb/s
Firewire (future) = 800 Mb/s

Note: MB = Megabyte, Mb = Megabit (8 Mb = 1 MB)
 
Hi Lyn, My pc uses the USB 1 connection to match the USB 1 on the printer. IThe Epson 1290s only has parallel and USB 1 connections. There is constant tooing and froing from the printer cartridge mechanism so it is doing it's job but it just does it so slowly. Maybe if I was to be accept prints at 720 dpi I would be happy as it is quite quick then!
 
I use the Epson 1290 (usb 1.1) and as far as I know the 1290s is slower in speed than the older 1290

What makes a big difference in speed is the sttings in the printer option menu. If you go to perefernces of the printer menu (i.e. out of Photoshop), you can choose in the general stting automatic mode or manual. Choose manual and within the pop up window set to bidirectional printing. That means that the printer is putting the ink while going over the paper in both ways (on the way forward and backward). This doubles basically the speed. Epson sais this "could" reduce slightly the print quality. I have not the feeling that this makes a difference, but I have not tried it yet on A3 size prints with both settings on the same scan.
 
Hi Dirk,
I looked at the bi-directional printing option but I can't select it at 2880dpi. I also didn't use it at 1440 dpi as Epson said the print quality would diminish. If you say that there is no real difference between having it on or off I will use it next time I do 1440. I just wish that the 2880 setting was a lot quicker. I will do a comparison test between 1440 & 2880 when I get a minute (or an hour or two!) to do it.
Many thanks,
Paul
 
ahhh, o.k., I di d not see that you are suing it at 2880dpi. Did you compare results already with 1440? There is a difference, but I decided that it is not worth the extra time for the print in the higher resolution.
 
Hi Dirk,
Yes there is a big difference between 1440 and 2880. I can get away with 1440 for proofs, small prints and people who are not very fussy about these things. I myself want the best image quality, even from my poor results so I use 2880.

Paul
 
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