repowers Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 I'm doing some short-term work in an office with a very old inkjet plotter (CalComp TechJet 720 -- from poking around on the internet, it looks like it was old back in 1997, and really ancient now!) I'm working in Autodesk 2002. The drawings I'm working with have a thick border rectangle. Today, the plotter has started tapering the vertical lines of this border, so they're full width at the bottom, but minimally thick at the top. The horizontal lines are unaffected. I've tried rebooting to see if that was the problem, and no change. I have no idea what could be causing this or how to fix it -- any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strix Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 which orientation is it coming out of the plotter in? are these tapering lines made by a single pass of the inkjet carriage or are they constructed as the page passes through and down the drawing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
repowers Posted August 26, 2008 Author Share Posted August 26, 2008 which orientation is it coming out of the plotter in? are these tapering lines made by a single pass of the inkjet carriage or are they constructed as the page passes through and down the drawing? It's happened in both orientations. The lines are constructed bit-by-bit as the carriage crosses the drawing, ie they're perpendicular to the direction of the carriage movement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strix Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 and is it only the ones perpendicular to the carriage travel? does it happen perpendicularly when you rotate the plot through 90, or does the same line on the 90 plot come out wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
repowers Posted August 27, 2008 Author Share Posted August 27, 2008 and is it only the ones perpendicular to the carriage travel? does it happen perpendicularly when you rotate the plot through 90, or does the same line on the 90 plot come out wrong? Rotating the same drawing 90 degrees gives the exact same result -- the same line, now parallel to the carriage travel, is still tapered, and in the same direction. Also restarted the plotter while I was at it, so a mememory screwup there doesn't seem to be the problem either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strix Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 If that's what's happening, I'd be inclined to believe it's not the plotter that's having the trouble, but the drawings themselves (or AutoCAD) which version is it? and can you interrogate those lines to see what they think they are what does the plot preview look like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
repowers Posted August 27, 2008 Author Share Posted August 27, 2008 If that's what's happening, I'd be inclined to believe it's not the plotter that's having the trouble, but the drawings themselves (or AutoCAD) which version is it? and can you interrogate those lines to see what they think they are what does the plot preview look like? The border looks completely normal in the plot preview - uniform thickness all the way around. The border is a polyline rectangle, with a thickness applied via the Global Width setting. If I explode the rectangle, the lines revert back to being a standard thickness. Properties also says that "Linetype Generation" is disabled. I have no clue what that means! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strix Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 Sorry - that's got me completely foxed then hopefully all the info will be of use to somebody who is able to help though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
repowers Posted August 27, 2008 Author Share Posted August 27, 2008 Sorry - that's got me completely foxed then hopefully all the info will be of use to somebody who is able to help though Well, I appreciate the effort regardless. Sometimes I find it's helpful to try a push-a-little-further approach to problems like this. So I took the same border, stretched it so it's smaller (sized for 10"x36" instead of 24"x36"), nuked everything else, and printed it on a custom sheet size (12"x36"). Lo and behold, it eliminated the problem. So I tried adding in some more of the drawing content and printing again. Still no problem. So I tried removing just the drawing's title block and printing the full sheet. The problem came back. So I tried printing on a *custom* 24"x36" sheet, with all the drawing content and title block and everything, and... whaddayaknow, the problem is gone again. Apparently the plotter doesn't like AutoCAD's pre-set sheet sizes. Huh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strix Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 Ah well - at least you got to the bottom of it Drives you nuts doesn't it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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