Océ TDS400 Rotates Plots

My firm has an Océ TDS400 for its production plots. I have sheets set up in paperspace with an XREF in modelspace. I have placed a block in my sheet border that sets the plot limits. This block generates the proper border spacing when "Center the plot" is selected. I have used this setup on previous machines including an Océ 9600 successfully. However, with the TDS400, it keeps rotating the plot. I am using D+ (ARCH D) paper size and the centering block is well within the plotting limits of a 24x36 sheet. The plots come out at a 90-degree rotation and therefore have 12" of whitespace on a 24x36 plot. Does anyone have ideas on why it insists on rotating the drawing?

Other info:
I am printing at landscape on a 36" roll. I have tried plotting portrait and it plots the same.

Kenny Anderson

(remove e'x'es to reply)

 

Out of Curiosity sake, are you using Oce Publisher? If so, do they show up
rotated in your thumbnail?

 

Could the plotter have a physical margin?

My JDL (5000E & 5000E-II) plotters will rotate anything wider than 35.5"
because of a physical .25" margin (on each side) that can't be overriden.
If Auto Freesize is turned off the plots will not rotate, but the image will
clip accordingly.

Hope this points you in the right direction.

Rich

 

No, we are not using publisher. I am aware than most laser printing devices have a non-print border of about 0.3". The print limit block is well outside of this range. The dimensions of the extents are 33.7"x23.24". If anything the vertical direction would be out of range, but this would only cause a taller sheet (say 25"). The horizontal is not out of bounds so that it would cause rotation on a 36" roll.

Thanks for the input. I hope this additional information leads to a resolution.

Kenny

 

Which version of AutoCAD and which Oce driver? We're using a TDS 600 with
R2005 and found the OCE drivers that come with R2005 work far better than
the Oce Windows drivers. No rotation problems at all - our standard size is
36 x 24 and they automatically come out landscape on 36" rolls.

John

in paperspace with an XREF in modelspace. I have placed a block in my sheet
border that sets the plot limits. This block generates the proper border
spacing when "Center the plot" is selected. I have used this setup on
previous machines including an Océ 9600 successfully. However, with the
TDS400, it keeps rotating the plot. I am using D+ (ARCH D) paper size and
the centering block is well within the plotting limits of a 24x36 sheet.
The plots come out at a 90-degree rotation and therefore have 12" of
whitespace on a 24x36 plot. Does anyone have ideas on why it insists on
rotating the drawing?

 

You're a GENius! I was using a Windows driver (by Autodesk, it claims). In my search to find out I found two pc3 files I didn't know were there. One was a Windows driver (presumably the same as above) and the other was an Océ driver. Now I just need to tweak the plot limit block. On past machines, some sort of offset was built in. I'm guessing it has to do with the aforementioned plot border. However, the TDS400 appears to be plotting right to the edge of this block, so I need to extend it. (The cut sheet measures 23" high and there is only a minimal border on the right.)

Thanks for the help.

Kenny

PS--We're running AutoCAD 2004.

 

To solve the border problem you discussed below (so that the image is where
you want it for stapling, etc) we created an "invisible" color. All of our
title blocks have tiny circles (with crosses) in each corner of the paper
space and the title blocks are positioned accordingly within the circles.
When the plotter processes the "invisible" circles it prints them as white
space (zero screening) and that causes the sheets to plot exactly where we
want it positioned for stapling, etc. It also serves to ensure the sheets
come out exactly 24" instead of 23.89", etc., after the "invisible" circles
are correctly positioned.

I don't know why I call them invisible circles. You see them on your screen
and you even print them, but you can't see them on white paper because they
don't use toner. After you create the "invisible" pen to get your prints
the way you want, you'll find that you can also use the pen as a mask. For
example, you can print "SAMPLE" in big white letters across your drawing.
Just type the text on top of everything else with the "invisble" pen.


Rich