HP-1050 and nested plotting

With the HP-1050 you can't configure nested plotting as part of the driver,
you have to change it on the plotter. My question is, has anyone just turned
nesting on permamnently? With nesting on, does a 30X42 on a 30" roll just
come out normal, while two half sized 30X42s come out side by side?
The trailing edge is still going to such because an HP can't handle a 1/4"
trailing edge margin (even if the manual says it can) but beyond that, does
this work consistently in a fairly heavy use environment?

Also, we are looking to replace our 1050 with an Oce soon. Anyone have any
comments on reduced printing on an oce? Do you nest two half size on 30"
paper and trim with no waste, or print them singly on a smaller second roll
to minimize waste?

Best,
Gordon

 

We run our HP-1050c with continuous nesting. Only for special GIS and
large file plotting do we change the machine environment to not nest. We
however only run 36" wide rolls. I have found that for good nesting your
actual selected print area should be as close to or less than your
intended paper limits to print within the plotter print zone. If your
total print area is greater than this print zone it will not nest. Watch
the "Auto Rotate" feature, it may have some affect on your nesting also.

Ron Meicho

 

Ron, I turned nesting on, and it works, to a point. The problem is it waits
the full two minutes to start plotting, even when the plot is full sized, in
other words it CAN'T be nested. Is there a setting that would allow a full
size plot to just go thru, and if a half size plot is sent, it would wait
while I full sized is sent, and then actually plot with the third plot sent,
if it was a half size, or just run with wasted paper if another hald size
didn't show up to be paired with within the 2 minute limit? This is what I
would expect nesting to do. Not what I would expect HP to do mind you, just
what I think nesting should be.

Best,
Gordon

 

Gordon,
You can turn the nesting time down to one minute or turn nesting off
completely. Ours always checks even when a full size plot is run. It
would be nice to bypass the nesting check with a full size plot, I
agree. We also run ours with the nesting set to optimized (works well
when we have lots of plots in the queue). With our GIS plots we turn off
the nesting and try to run in batches to minimize the wait time. This
also helps free up all the memory for processing large files. We have
learned to live with the wait for most of our work. Our nesting issues
diminished considerable when we got an HPColor5500 to do the 11x17
stuff. The issue for us was cutting out the trim time. So now the
HP1050c does mostly full 36" wide plots.