Print Sub-Scan Magnification Adjustment

[blackcat4866]

This is the first time anybody has ever asked me this:

On a KM-2552ci at an engineering firm, the customer hands me an InDesign created document. It's a circle with diameter 150mm. He says that if he prints it LTR the one dimension (sub-scan) is 149.3mm, and the other dimension (main-scan) is 150.0mm. If he prints it LTR-R it's the opposite (still sub-scan slightly reduced to 99.5333%, main-scan still 100%). That part is good, since I can't really adjust the print main-scan magnification.

I've been doing image adjustments for a long time on Kyoceras, but the magnification adjustment is for scanning not printing, and won't affect prints. On most of the new machines now you can adjust motor speeds, and I figured that if I could slow down the primary transfer belt a little, I could stretch out the print.

It would have been really easy to find if Kyocera called it "print sub-scan magnification" or something to that affect. It's U053 > Motor 2 > Trans Belt = 0 (default). The manual tells me that I can adjust from -5000 to +5000. My final value was -65 to magnify 0.4666% (or 139 increments for each 1% if it's linear).

Naturally the color registration was horrible as a result, but doing a color calibration tightened it right back up.

Machine specifications are +/- 0.8% magnification, so it was technically within specs, but I'm not a stickler for that sort of thing when I can improve on it. I just thought that was interesting to get such an unexpected request. =^..^=

[Santander]

Hi Blackcat. Had a case about a year ago on a 2551ci installed at an electrical contractor that does hydroelectric installs. Like you the unit was well within specs and when questioned further they responded that their sub-contractors actually used a ruler on the engineering drawing to determine placement of components, even though the actual dimensions where printed on the drawing! What was really interesting in this case was they had a wide format Canon printer that was even further off and were using the 2551ci because it was better. What I could never understand was why the sub-contractors would being using a ruler on the drawing instead of the printed dimensions? Made a few adjustments like you to satisfy them, but it still baffles me why they would be measuring dimensions instead of using the measurements printed on the drawing?

[blackcat4866]

My enduser is quoting jobs in various stages, and each stage is a different color printed on transparency, so a finished job might be several layers of transparency. They noticed when some of the pages got printed LTR and some LTR-R, and the differences became apparent.

I can imagine the sort of inaccuracies inherent in taking physical measurements from a 1/100 scale drawing, rather than using the printed numbers. Idiotic. =^..^=

[Santander]

Thanks for the additional info. Definitely would highlight any deviance when doing overlays on transparencies and then combining them.