Not an amp issue per se... (home made faceplate issue)

[pinkphiloyd]

I hate to bring this here but I've searched all over the web and tried everything I can think of on my own and I'm at my wits end, so...

For this last build I did, I downloaded inkscape and made a faceplate. I've measured the chassis and my drawing now multiple times and it's dead on. Overtime I go to print, though, the last 2 thirds of the drawing seem to get logarithmically compressed somehow.

Power switch, fuse holder, pilot light, all dead on. But my first tone control is a little further in than it should be. Second is even further than that, and it just gets worse from there. I tried moving all that stuff over manually and get the same results. I've tried screwing with my printing settings, nothing. Anybody know offhand what I'm screwing up? Or is this just a byproduct of trying to work at home with a cheap inkjet?

[sturgeo]

Have you got scaling turned on or fit to page?

I've never used inkscape but know i have to tell illustrator not to scale things when printing.

[pinkphiloyd]

Scaling at 100%.

[norburybrook]

I had the same issue when my gfx design guy sent it to his regular printer and I think it was to do with the printer allowing for bleed.


I sent the same PDF file to a different local printer and it was fine.


Marcus

[pinkphiloyd]

I got it. I finally measured how far off the last couple of holes were, did a little math, and printed the whole thing again at 102% scale and it's perfect. I don't know. Weird. And I don't know why I didn't take that approach 20 pieces of poster paper ago.

[JMFahey]

I have that problem sometimes and it's a printer transport problem, either the rollers don't grab paper well or way too smooth glossy paper slips (what I use for iron on transfer PCBs) or paper bends inside the printer and it "thinks" more or less paper has already gone through and "tries to compensate"which is probably your case.
Or simply it has bad servos.

In a nutshell, at least for me, it has always been printer mechanical problem.

What I do to minimize variables is to virtually "print" the drawing to .PDF, and then print that PDF , no scaling/stretching/anything.

Once you turned it into a PDF the original software is out of the map.

I have installed freeware Foxit Reader which includes the "Foxit Printer" .
You can use Control panel to add it as an extra printer; the beauty is (for front panels , T Shirts and other large drawings) that you can set it to print on *any* size paper (think A0 which is around 3ftx4ft if needed) , then you "print" and it creates a PDF which is understood by anybody.

If it fits in a regular printer sheet (Letter or Legal) , fine; if larger you carry it in a pendrive to the nearest Graphics Center and have it printed there.

Just last Friday I was printing a new transparency for a Bass Preamp front panel silkscreen, and my Laser started misbehaving (lots of pinholes in the black areas and toner "banding"), my faithful old Epson inkjet, which can print up to 44" long in a single page, perfect for panels, has clogged heads (ink dried for lack of use) so I took the pendrive to 2 closest Cyber Cafes for printing (their Lasers were far worse than mine by the way) , and finally went to my son's Engineering University, where they gorgeously printed it on their A0 sized plotter.

I had to supply my own vellum/transparent drafting paper, but they charged me all of 1 buck

[pinkphiloyd]

I have that problem sometimes and it's a printer transport problem, either the rollers don't grab paper well or way too smooth glossy paper slips (what I use for iron on transfer PCBs) or paper bends inside the printer and it "thinks" more or less paper has already gone through and "tries to compensate"which is probably your case.
Or simply it has bad servos.

In a nutshell, at least for me, it has always been printer mechanical problem.

What I do to minimize variables is to virtually "print" the drawing to .PDF, and then print that PDF , no scaling/stretching/anything.

Once you turned it into a PDF the original software is out of the map.

I have installed freeware Foxit Reader which includes the "Foxit Printer" .
You can use Control panel to add it as an extra printer; the beauty is (for front panels , T Shirts and other large drawings) that you can set it to print on *any* size paper (think A0 which is around 3ftx4ft if needed) , then you "print" and it creates a PDF which is understood by anybody.

If it fits in a regular printer sheet (Letter or Legal) , fine; if larger you carry it in a pendrive to the nearest Graphics Center and have it printed there.

Just last Friday I was printing a new transparency for a Bass Preamp front panel silkscreen, and my Laser started misbehaving (lots of pinholes in the black areas and toner "banding"), my faithful old Epson inkjet, which can print up to 44" long in a single page, perfect for panels, has clogged heads (ink dried for lack of use) so I took the pendrive to 2 closest Cyber Cafes for printing (their Lasers were far worse than mine by the way) , and finally went to my son's Engineering University, where they gorgeously printed it on their A0 sized plotter.

I had to supply my own vellum/transparent drafting paper, but they charged me all of 1 buck

Our printer is just an inkjet that was cheap when we bought it 8 years ago. Probably time for an upgrade for sure.