C253 printing barcodes ? fuzzy not clean lines

[fishleg]

We have a customer who has recently started printing barcodes for labels which is fine but the problem we have is that the c253 print doesnt seem to be fine enough i.e. the lines on the barcode arnt clean enough on the copy.

Since the lines are quite close anyway on the barcode instead of there being a white space between the lines they all blend together so you get one line mixing with the next throwing the reader off.

If you increase the size of the barcodes its no problem but they need to be huge before the gaps between the lines is so great that one cant blur with the other.

Is there a way to either increase the print dpi or anything else that would make the print detail better ?

I checked the obvious black drum, laser glass etc and obviously the customer is printing the barcodes straight from her computer.

Cheers for any input,
Fishy

[KenB]

That can be (OK, is) a tough one.

It all depends on how the barcodes are getting to the machine.

There are a TON of possibilities. Is this AS/400, or SAP? A Windows app with the barcode as a True Type font? Are the fonts installed on the printer? 3 of 9, 2 of 5, or "other".

You get the point. Most issues with unscannable barcodes have nothing to do with the print engine itself.

[fishleg]

The problem I have they also have stand alone printers and another copier and all those can do the job just the c253 falls over with the same print job.

[fixthecopier]

You might try to print the barcodes in another color. That may tell you if it is related to the black supplies or a bigger issue. What about the transfer roller?

[BIG PAPA]

Which driver are you using?

[fishleg]

Tried both the pcl and postscript drivers both seem to give the same output well actually the postscript was alot worse for some reason. PCL seems the best but its still not fine enough for the scanner to pick up the bar codes.

[bigdcopy]

are you printing in black and white or full color? Could be a color registration problem.

[emujo]

Try setting up an additaion printer driver just for printing these bar codes, and use a Generic HP laser 4 or 5. Had the same issue with a BH 601 and this resolved it. Obviously you can't use the driver for anything else. Emujo

[fishleg]

I even tried the driver thing :P. I used a HP Laserjet 6 Driver and it did make it a little clearer but still not enough. I tried colour black and white altering densities, brightness, contrast etc nothing makes big changes to it.

[bigdcopy]

Her's a good one how old are the drum units and transfer belt? Were they chipped/fused or replaced?

[fasfwqef67]

Re: C253 printing barcodes ? fuzzy not clean lines

are you printing in black and white or full color? Could be a color registration problem.

Yes, I also think so. Now I am using a barcode printer which does not support colored barcodes to print barcodes. So I do not need to worry about this. So why not use a simple tool?!