I purchased a Canon iPF8000 (ImagePROGRAF) Large Format Printer about 2 months ago. The thoughts on this printer as of 2008 are posted here.
Overall, there were very few initial surprises with the Canon iPF8000. The major one I found was that the roll holder that was shipped with the unit could only be used on rolls with 2″ diameters. Most of the photo paper I use have 3″ cores, in fact photo papers have 3″ cores . You can’t just put a 3″ roll on a 2″ roll holder because the paper doesn’t unroll correctly. I called Canon Customer Support and they said I need to buy the 3″ Core Roll Holder (RH-43) at nearly 175.00. I thought this was riduculous and annoying and asked myself, why didn’t they just include an adapter so that the thing would work.
After thinking about it for five minutes, I found a way to fashion my own adapter. I have not seen the Canon iPF9000, but I imagine that this is also will turn its 2″ roll holder into a 3″ roll holder, too.
- Get the plastic end piece that Canon ships their paper with. Other brands may have this to.
- I used a dremel tool to cut out the inside at approximately 2″ (to mount onto the Canon 2″ roll holder. And, I trimmed the outside to be approximately the diameter of a 100′ roll of glossy paper. This dimension doesn’t have to be perfect (just not to big). You could also use any number of tools to cut this out. I also filed the cut edges with a file. The outside diamter is what was formed by the paper maker at the factor (the 3″ part doesn’t need to be cut because it is set for a 3″ roll). Here is what it looked like.
- Slide the adapter down the 2″ roll holder.
- This is the final product. Slide your 3″ roll of paper on it and it’s good to go.
- Here is the end cap from a 3″ epson core. You could easily just cut at the dashed line.
There you go. In 15 minutes, Buzzdroid saved you nearly $200. Feel free to leave comments and tell your friends about this one.
Charles Wood wrote,
Contrary to the assumption that a 3″ core won’t unspool properly on a 2″ adapter, upon the suggestion of a staff person at one of the companies from which I buy paper, I tried a 3″ core on the 2″ adapter. It works perfectly. I have no feed problems whatsoever with my ipf 8000.
Quote | Link | February 18th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Chet wrote,
Hey Charles,
I didn’t assume that the 2″ roll holder wouldn’t work. I tried multiple times to get it to operate properly on my 3″ cores. It would feed in the machine and print fine. The problem I was having was the roll was never balanced correctly so it would not unroll uniformly. Instead one side was overweighted, and it would unroll excess paper which would droop down and contact the black coat-hanger looking things (canon calls them ejection support). It would pooch out and risk marring the surface of the unprinted paper and hit the exiting paper. Also when this excess was just hanging there, it would not spool back up properly when the printer reversed paper directions (this would exacerbate the problem).
There may be a difference between cores or papers (or just operators), but my ipf8000 would never work like it would with a 2″ core on the 2″ holder. This was a 15 minute fix and now I don’t have any worries. I just put it on before the core and it’s like having a 3″ roll holder.
Maybe it was just me or my setup. Perhaps other people will report their experiences.
Quote | Link | February 18th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Chuck Phelps wrote,
I have been looking for your review on the canon 8000. Maybe you have not used it much yet? I have not been able to find much info on this printer and my 2 epson 9600 are about to expire. Your impressions on the canon?
chuck phelps
Quote | Link | March 18th, 2007 at 2:52 pm