Cadlink and Underbase issues.

[johnson4]

Another Random post. 

 

I have been using an Audley Mini for awhile now, I mean at least a few months. It works great, and actually pumps out a decent amount of transfers. On the 12"X12" i was doing It gave me almost 17 an hour. On some 11X11's it was actually 21 an hour. I don't know why the discrepancy Both of these figures are 100+ prints in 1-2 runs with maybe 4 head cleans in total- which were not necessary but rather a precaution. 

 

 

However at this point my concern is with Cadlink. I have aligned the printer perfectly, choke turned off on cadlink and verified. I get the white "peeping" around everything by about 1-2 pixels. This is evenly on all sides. So for example If I printed a square, I am getting white overlap by 1-2 pixels all around the entire image. Cool, So It's at least aligned evenly.

 

I turn the choke on in Cadink and it immediately shifts the entire white layer instead of an even choke across the entire design. Alright, I'll realign it. I get that right, setup with the choke again to where it is printing perfectly centered. I mean to the point I can print small lines and it cover it perfectly with white underbase. Things like 24 point text. 

 

Change the choke setting at all - again it shifts the white layer. Use a different image? Again it moves the white layer. However, If I rotate the image so the " main" portion prints first, ( imagine a graphic with a ground and trees, instead of the trees printing first it's the ground) it actually prints correctly without any issues. If I do not do this, huge misalignment from the get-go. 

 

So at this point I am having to realign the printer for every image, So I am basically only using it for large runs of identical prints, otherwise my under base is always off. 

 

I will try adding a single pixel to the start of my print in black, because it seems where it starts printing, if it's not a solid even "surface" it then misaligns the rest. 

 

I Have mustered through maintop and printed multiple things with perfect results in the white underbase alignment department and it doesn't do this, so it's not the printer. It's something to do with cadlink. 

 

Now I will admit I am not well experienced with cadlink, but I do believe this is a non-standard issue. I will continue to test, use and overall learn to see if I can come up with something or figure out if I am doing something incorrectly. 

 

It's not ideal, other than this it works great at this point. I just don't understand the discrepancy of the underbase based on the image placement. 

 

I have been using high quality files that I made for testing reasons. Exported correctly and all that. 

 

 

[anum11]

It is just cadlink. Not everything works perfectly it is still under development. I would contact them to inform and ask a fix.

[johnson4]

5 hours ago, anum11 said:

It is just cadlink. Not everything works perfectly it is still under development. I would contact them to inform and ask a fix.

Thanks. I haven't really had time to mess with it anymore. I was talking to someone about it and it seems to be an issue with something I am doing. I'm used to Acro and EK, which I have never had this happen with. 

 

If it's on me I don't feel like wasting someone else's time over it. 

[johnson4]

So, Using it again and got it printing fine. same print ( duplicate), on the third one, boom. White under base is all wrong again. Restarted the printer, no change. 

 

Restarted cadlink instead of messing with the settings, Started printing like normal again. 

 

Since I wasn't aware of this happening, It could have been an issue with some images printing fine and others not, because I didn't go back and reprint the one's that printed fine when it started printing them incorrectly. I will keep checking.

 

So.... There's that. 

 

Now I know.

Edited June 6, 2022 by johnson4

[TheBetterTee]

Hey I am having this exact same issue, any solution? I’ve moved to printing with acrorip for the moment but prefer cadlink.

thanks

[johnson4]

41 minutes ago, TheBetterTee said:

Hey I am having this exact same issue, any solution? I’ve moved to printing with acrorip for the moment but prefer cadlink.

thanks

Could be the image, cadlink picks up pretty much any transparency, including anti-aliasing on fake "high quality" images and poor background removals. Try " transparency 50-50" and see if it changes anything at all. 

 

For me and this specific printer, It was a little bit of a couple things. When I would align the heads on the printer then go to cadlink for a print, it was insanely off. 

 

So I thought, I'll align it from cadlink then by eyeballing the prints. Well, that worked to a degree. After I used a decent image and made sure cadlink didn't pick up any transparent-ish pixels in it ( you can check by going to the CMYK preview or print preview, whatever it's called).  then it worked perfectly. 

 

Ever since, I have to just make sure the image doesn't have any hidden transparent pixels. EKprint, Acro, Literally everything I have ever used and all of my designing programs- they do not show anything so that is new to me.

In cadlink, sometimes, It DOES find transparent data that it deems as part of the image and needs corrected before printing that no one else can find, even professionals, even people I have sent images to that work at cadlink. I don't know, But I pay real close attention to it now. 

 

I feel like the majority of what I do likely isn't the " right" way, so keep that in mind with the aforementioned. It's just what worked for me. 

 

That was my issue anyway. 

[TheBetterTee]

Thanks for the information. I’ll try this and see what happens. It just odd, prior to upgrading to the p800 I was using a l1800 with no issues whatsoever. Quick question, when you say try. Transparency 50-50 what do you mean? Is that an option in the Cadlink settings.

[TheBetterTee]

I’ve also had someone from Cadlink log into my pc and check out some of the settings and according to her everything looked fine. One thing I wasn’t too sure about was which of the 2 drivers should I use the my p800? They have Epson sc-p800 and Epson sc-p800 v2. She couldn’t really tell me which on to use and why.

[johnson4]

7 hours ago, TheBetterTee said:

Thanks for the information. I’ll try this and see what happens. It just odd, prior to upgrading to the p800 I was using a l1800 with no issues whatsoever. Quick question, when you say try. Transparency 50-50 what do you mean? Is that an option in the Cadlink settings.

It is an option in Cadlink. 

[johnson4]

7 hours ago, TheBetterTee said:

I’ve also had someone from Cadlink log into my pc and check out some of the settings and according to her everything looked fine. One thing I wasn’t too sure about was which of the 2 drivers should I use the my p800? They have Epson sc-p800 and Epson sc-p800 v2. She couldn’t really tell me which on to use and why.

V2 has a fully adjustable ink order among other small but helpful things.

Edited September 21, 2022 by johnson4