Calibration for LabelManager 280, 6mm tape

[jgoerzen]

Hello,

Thanks again for Labelle! It is working well on this device with the 12mm tape, but with 6mm tape, the text prints too far down and cuts off the bottom edge.

I am not entirely sure how to run the calibration on this tape, but I ran labelle --sample-pattern 64 and it gave this output:

[maresb]

Oh, this looks really odd. Usually the bottom edge is row 1.

Could you please try:

labelle --sample-pattern 32
labelle --sample-pattern 34

[maresb]

Is this the full height of the printable area?

[jgoerzen]

Hi,

Thanks for looking into this!

I should have mentioned: the widest tape the 280 can handle is a 12mm tape, and that tape works fine. It is only the 6mm tape that is giving trouble. The 6mm tape works from the Windows app.

Here's a photo with a bunch of samples:

From top to bottom, they are:

• 12mm tape with h=64 (works fine)
• 6mm tape with h=64 (the same sample as above)
• 6mm tape with h=32
• 6mm tape with h=34

Is that helpful?

[maresb]

That is very helpful, but I still don't understand what's going on. As far as I know, for all other printers we've seen the cartridge is irrelevant to the behavior of the printer. The printer just utilizes the full print head regardless of which type of tape is underneath.

Curiously the 12mm tape shows only rows 4-61, not 1-64, so there are 3 pixels missing from both the top and bottom of what would normally be a 64 pixel head.

The 6mm tape prints rows 18-47. Intriguingly this is 17 missing pixels from both the top and bottom.

@tomek-szczesny, do you have any thoughts on what could be going on with the hardware here?

[tomek-szczesny]

Assuming that both tape sizes are centered around the same line (which we pretty much take for granted for sizes at or below 12mm) , these test prints match what we would expect from 6mm printout without bottom side padding.

Padding used to be handled by the LUT that I introduced eons ago, but can't seem to find it now in the code..
Wasn't there some discussion about removing it in favor of some other solution?

Missing pixels on 12mm printout may be related to tape quality, and width of its inking ribbon.

[maresb]

@tomek-szczesny sorry I think there may have been some missing context. The test pattern should not be software-clipped, so row 1 of the test pattern should always correspond to pixel 1 of the print head in the sense of the raw data that we send to the printer.

So it seems to me like the device itself is clipping the printable area which I don't think I've ever seen before. Other printers would just print those pixels outside the borders of the tape.

[tomek-szczesny]

@maresb I forgot that test patterns are not padded, in which case these test prints are completely fine. I don't see anything suspicious about them.
All three test prints on the 6mm tape consistently have 17 dots missing on the bottom, which is what we expect.
The missing dots are a result of smaller tape, and even smaller ink ribbon.

@jgoerzen could you show us an example of a print that you attempted and was clipped from the bottom?
What brand of tape do you use?
Perhaps we just assumed too wide margins of error for this size of tape.

[maresb]

All three test prints on the 6mm tape consistently have 17 dots missing on the bottom, which is what we expect.
The missing dots are a result of smaller tape, and even smaller ink ribbon.

@tomek-szczesny I am confused why you expect this. My expectation based on previous experience (for example see here) is that there are no dots missing unless they physically extend past the boundary of the tape. Thus when the tape is smaller than the print head I expect no margin.

[maresb]

Also all the printed labels in the photo are clipped from the bottom since row 1 is missing despite that it would always fit on the tape.

[jgoerzen]

Missing pixels on 12mm printout may be related to tape quality, and width of its inking ribbon.

I have tried another 12mm cartridge and got the same result. It is possible I have a defective unit, I guess? I tried cleaning the printhead and that made no difference. These are Dymo D1 12mm labels, PN 1926208 as in https://www.dymo.com/labels-tapes/labelmanager-d1-tapes/dymo-d1-standard-labels-2-count/SAP_1926208.html

The 6mm cartridge is Dymo 43613 as from https://www.amazon.com/DYMO-Standard-LabelManager-cartridge-43613/dp/B000067SPT?th=1

[jgoerzen]

@jgoerzen could you show us an example of a print that you attempted and was clipped from the bottom?

Here is a photo from running:

labelle --tape-size-mm 6 ABCDEFGQ

on the 6mm tape:

[tomek-szczesny]

Okay, now I think we're discussing two different things, that's why we cannot find a common ground. :)

Indeed there is a gap between the lowermost dots and the lower edge of the printout. I think that this may be a result of either misaligned, or physically smaller ink tape inside the cartridge. @jgoerzen, could you take a look at the back side of a tape in the cartridge and see if the black ribbon isn't narrower than the tape?
What happens if you try to print text on 6mm tape, but with 12mm set in labelle? If 12mm printouts were fine, then it would be interesting to see what happens.

The second issue is that the printout is too low and doesn't fit. the "ABCDEFGQ" print looks like it misses padding, which should be about 17 dots. Even if the whole tape was printable, this text wouldn't fit.

[maresb]

could you take a look at the back side of a tape in the cartridge and see if the black ribbon isn't narrower than the tape?

Ohhhh, yes, that could explain it perfectly! I'm very curious now.

[tomek-szczesny]

I have a faint recall of this happening to someone in the past. I looked my only original Dymo cartridge and it doesn't seem to display such property.

[jgoerzen]

could you take a look at the back side of a tape in the cartridge and see if the black ribbon isn't narrower than the tape?

Interesting!

On the 6mm cartridge, the black ribbon is wider than the tape.

On the 12mm cartridge, the black ribbon is narrower than the tape.

This may explain the missing top/bottom pixels on the 12mm test image, I guess. But the black ribbon is actually wider than the 6mm tape.

Here is a photo from a 6mm cartridge with labelle --tape-size-mm 12 ABCDEFGQ: