Printing on Disk

[outerbank]

The first time I printed onto a DVD disk, Label Creator worked perfectly. This was approximately one year ago. Attempted to print on a DVD disk again. The print was off kilter even though I attempted to calibrate my printer. I use an Epson Stylus PHOTO R320. When performing the calibration steps the vertical fine adjustment letters never touch the disk circle. For example, the string of letters beginning with the letter "A" at the top of the circle falls about 5/32" outside the radius of the circle. Of course, the letter "A" at the other radius of the circle is 5/32" inside. Horizontally, the circle of the disk touches the letter "K" on the left side and the letter "O" on the right side. It appears that horizontal alignment is off by about 1/4". Since the vertical letters do not touch the circle at all, I'm not certain what letter should be selected and entered into the calibration adjustment tool to correct for this out of alignment. I did select the letter "A" (nearest the circle) for both top and bottom. When printing on an old disk the print was off about 3/16" top to bottom. That is, there was a gap at the top of the disk. I then selected the letter "E" thinking that might move the print up about 3/16". This didn't work either.

 

I seem to recall that when I performed the calibration steps the first time using Label Creator, all four of the letter scales touched the circle and I only had to make a minor alignment adjustment.

 

Any ideas or suggections?

[Brendon]

I can't test it myself at the moment because my Photo R320 is in getting a broken belt fixed, but Jean Rosenfeld suggested in this topic

 

In Label Creator, on the Print page, click preferences. Check fine tuning, type a number in H offset to move the print to the left (+ number) or right (- number), and in the V offset to move down (+ number) or up (- number). Dimensions are in cm.

 

You might want to try it.

[outerbank]

I tried the Fine Tuning suggestion. Entered a rather large number in the vertical offset to move the string of letters down. Printed out the calibration page. The string of letters did not move one iota. The string of leters are from "A" to "Q" for both vertical and horizontal alignment, with the letter "I" representing the center of the string. Based on this, measuring from the letter "I" to the edge of the circle representing the diameter of a disk, the "I" is 5/8" above the circle. And the "A" doesn't even touch the circle. For the horizontal, this is about 1/4" too far to the right.

 

Any other ideas?

[sknis]

I tried the Fine Tuning suggestion. Entered a rather large number in the vertical offset to move the string of letters down. Printed out the calibration page. The string of letters did not move one iota. The string of leters are from "A" to "Q" for both vertical and horizontal alignment, with the letter "I" representing the center of the string. Based on this, measuring from the letter "I" to the edge of the circle representing the diameter of a disk, the "I" is 5/8" above the circle. And the "A" doesn't even touch the circle. For the horizontal, this is about 1/4" too far to the right.

 

Any other ideas?

 

Just to clarify; are you calibrating for paper and then trying to print onto a disc?

[outerbank]

I am trying to calibrate for printing on a DVD disk. As described, I had previous success printing onto a disk. About two weeks ago was my last success. I didn't perform a calibration because the printing was centered on each disk. However, during my last three attempts to print on a DVD disk this past week the print has been off by varying amounts. In one instance there was a circular gap at the bottom and to the right side of the disk. The gap was about 1/4" at the widest point. In the second instance, the gap occurred at the top of the disk (about 3/16") at the widest point and seemed to be fairly centered horizontally.

 

I've clicked on the "Calibration" button that includes the two steps one performs to claibrate. The first prints out the disk circle with instructions on how to reinsert the sheet of paper back into the printer for the next step. The second step prints out the alignment guides. That is, the string of letters going from A to Q at what should be the quadrants of the circle. Then the next step provides a visual of how the alignment guides touch each of the four tangents. It then asks one to select which letters are closely associated with the circle to enter into the boxes provided. This instruction in of itself isn't very clear especially when two of the alignment guides (top and bottom in my case) do not even touch the circle. So I don't know whether to enter the letter "A" which is closest to the circle, or the letter "I", which is the center of the string of letters. Based on the language used, it would seem that I should enter the letter "A" because it is "closely associated with the circle". And for the horizontal, I should enter the letters "K" on the left and "O" on the right because the circle cuts right through these two respective letters. I then clicked on "Done" and go on to click on "OK" to print on a disk.

 

Hope this rather lengthy explanation is of help.

[outerbank]

Happy to report that the print on disk is working quite well now. Thanks, Brendon, for the link. Although changing the numbers in "Fine Tune" didn't work at first, after a second attempt it did shift the print on a test disk that I made out of heavy paper stock. I had to make a couple of additional changes to the settings, but finally was successful. I can't explain how the settings got out of wack. Never had to fool with them before this last episode.

 

Thanks again for the help.

[Brendon]

Thanks for the update.

 

I just got my printer back from the mender, and it saves me having to step through everything to do it on mine.

It's a good printer, but the wire from the sensor on the CD tray broke due to all the opening and closing it has had to do.

 

Regards,

Brendon

[outerbank]

Note to Brendon. Since you have the Epson R320 printer, allow me to address this question to you. In the printer manual it describes a blank cardboard position check disk that is included with the printer. I no longer have this cardboard disk. Rather than waste a few printable disks to see if the print calibrations made to the printer were okay, I made a couple of cardboard disks out of heavy paper stock. This was a time consuming task. Do you, or anyone else on this forum, know if such printable test cardboard disks are available for purchase? If they're not, this seems like a market opportunity. The ones I made myself worked quite well. In fact, I was able to use each of them twice by flipping the disk over to use the otherside.