Exactly what's the machine doing? HP 26500 type machine....

[CES020]

Exactly what's the printer doing for the 7 minutes or so it sits there before taking off. Seems like a lot of things happening, but no printing. I see the head move back and forth a number of times and it looks like it's checking, double checking, and triple checking things. I'm just genuinely curious about exactly what it's doing and checking for so long. I thought it might be the heaters heating up, but if you send another job right over, it starts the clock ticking again.

 

[Tim Aucoin]

I have the 25500... pretty sure it's the heaters heating up (and again when you send another right away). Second job (if sent immediately after the first one stops) shouldn't take quite as long, but it will still require a heat-up, as once the job(s) finish printing, it cools off pretty darn quick.
I think that's all there really is to it!! I'm sending one as I type this... I kind of like that little "clikkity, click" noise it makes during the process too!

 

[JoeBoomer]

very scientific answer

It's heating up the dryers and the curing unit. Plus it also preheats the first part of the media. Also, it's doing some type of initialization with the media advance.

I think..............

Sure sounds good regardless.



It is a pain in the *** sometimes, but I have managed to minimize the time by turning down the preheat offset temps. Also, I am constantly clicking the "Prepare Printing" button in the Rip to get it to warm up before my files are even ready. In my opinion it is the biggest downfall with the latex printer, but it really isn't that bad. I would still give my left leg for latex over solvent.

Go Team!

 

[CES020]

We just stare into the windows and see it moving a little here and there and say "It's doing something. I don't know what, but it's doing something. It must be important because it keeps doing it"

 

[FrankW]

What the printer does too is to move the media back and forth to avoid exposing one little part of the media to the heat for several minutes.

 

[Baz]

It's HP's internal programming to suck out your ink and use up your heads so you can buy more more more!!!




Lol ... Just kidding ... I couldn't resist

 

[MikePro]

warm-up and cool-down.
it feels slow when you're standing there watching it happen, but a combined <10min of warm-up/cool-down time still beats the heck out of letting solvent prints outgas overnight prior to lamination.

 

[P Wagner]

As others have correctly said, the main thing that is happening is that the heater systems are warming in stages to the temps defined in the RIP (media profile).

The carriage movement is the 'drop detection' system that determines the performance of the 12,000+ nozzles prior to every print. It takes 52 seconds on an L2x, and is performed concurrently with the heaters being energized.

 

[PrintItBig]

HPs old aqueous printers do this as well and probably the newer ones.

I just assumed all HPs do this. The carriage moves and seems to check every single head. Slowly. Twice.