[ale] More Lightscribe for Linux

[Greg Clifton]

One caution on Epson printers, they are piezo printers vs thermal printers
like HP, etc. The technology allows for much smaller ink droplets and much
finer control of the ink delivery, hence the higher quality results from
Epson. The heads are also more durable than the thermal units, which is one
reason the Epson heads do not get replaced with the ink cartridges as with
most others. HOWEVER, they don't like sitting around not being used with
some regularity. I.e. if you don't use it and the ink dries out in the head
you have great difficulty reviving the printer. Caveat, this info comes from
my experience with Epsons from ~6 yrs ago so Epson may have improved the
heads in that time. It is my understanding that their wide format printers
have a [ink-o-phobic] coating in the printer nozzles that helps to prevent
clogging. I don't know if they have applied that technology in the $100
printers.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 2:15 PM, Scott Castaline <skotchman at gmail.com>wrote:

> On 07/11/2011 10:02 AM, arxaaron wrote:
> > On 2011/07/09, at 15:26 , Cornelis van Dijk wrote:
> >
> >> Thanks to all that replied to my previous post about Lightscribe for
> >> Linux. Meanwhile I succeeded by using inkscape at 180 dpi and get a
> >> good sharp image with the Memorex Lightscribe drive.
> >>
> >> Another problem that I have with Lightscribe for Linux is that it
> >> takes about sixteen minutes to burn a label. This is probably because
> >> the bitmap covers nearly the entire cd surface. Usually I have quite a
> >> bit of text, so cutting on that is not going to help much. Not only
> >> that, but after one burn the image is barely legible so that I have to
> >> do a second burn on top of the first one to get a decent image. While
> >> this works fine, it now takes me over half an hour to burn a label!
> >> Is there a way around this?
> >>
> > Your experiences with bLight Scribble, as reiterated by others
> > on this thread, just reinforces my previous observation that
> > the technology is a gimmick.  Perhaps fine for labeling one
> > or two disks in pinch, but too low contrast, low quality and
> > time consuming to be really useful.
> >
> > Only thing to suggest for improving speed and output is to
> > push the contrast of your image before you send it to print
> > (e.g. output from scribus as pdf file, load into gimp&  adjust).
> >
> > If the background areas are maximum white, they should
> > be read as "transparent" in printing and the laser might
> > not have to etch those areas.  The increased contrast may
> > help overcome the marginal contrast of the technology as
> > well and keep your process to one pass. Interesting that
> > you can do a "second burn" pass and have it align to the
> > first, though.
> >
> I'm glad that I wasn't the only one that had questionable thoughts on
> this. I was thinking that it maybe possible to get the alignment correct
> if you could tell the sftwe to write twice without stopping.
> >> I know that hp sells a specialized printer for cd labels
> >> (saw it a Fry's), but it uses special blanks and probably
> >> uses Windows. Anyone know about this?
> > I've used both Epson and HP inkjet printers with CD/DVD
> > printing capability.  At least for these low cost units, the
> > Epson produced much better quality than the HP.
> >
> > Linux CUPS print drivers will be available for either
> > since Mac is CUPS and they work fine from OSeX.
> >
> > Repeating my earlier recommendation, get yourself one
> > of the several Epson Stylus or Artisan models with CD/DVD
> > print capability and be happy.  Inkjet printable media is
> > equivalent in cost to non-printable media.  Only costs are
> > in the ink cartridges - my production runs come in with
> > around $0.10 per disk for crisp, high quality black and
> > white or gray scale (that blows bLight Scribble out of the
> > water), or about $0.35 per disk for photo quality color.
> > With my low end Epson models (Stylus 200 / 260), disk
> > print times are 3 to 6 minutes per disk depending on
> > complexity and color of the image.
> >
> > Looks like an Epson Artisan 50 can be purchased
> > and delivered for less than $100.
> >
> > Epson Artisan 50 Inkjet Printer - Color - CD/DVD Print,
> > Photo ...
> > $82 - 3 stores
> Good info Aaron, at that price I might even consider getting one for
> that purpose only. As I prefer to use duped CD's in the car then the
> original and I can't read my own handwriting as my hand written with
> Sharpie label.
> >> Thanks, Cor
> > peace
> > aaron
> >
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