RE: Monaco Profiler and DTP41 measurement issues
RE: Monaco Profiler and DTP41 measurement issues
- Subject: RE: Monaco Profiler and DTP41 measurement issues
- From: "Ray Cheydleur" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:06:02 -0500
- Thread-topic: Monaco Profiler and DTP41 measurement issues
Dikta wrote:
>
I have been using Monaco Profiler and the Xrite DTP-41(UV/T) with
>
great success, but recently I am getting more and more problems doing
>
the measurements. The DTP-41 is acting as the pathes are skewed while
>
reading, but they are going very straight into it. I am mainly
>
measuring RA-paper or films (duraclear or trans).
>
DTP41 refused to read the strip, I gave up
>
after trying about 30 times...
Graeme Gill added...
This isn't a problem unique to Monaco. In my experience the DTP41 is
rather more fussy over the spacers between the patches than the
manufacturer would like to believe.<big snip>
-----
Well not fussier than I'd like to believe, but sometimes fussier than
I'd like. In general, as noted in numerous posts the pattern recognition
engine works pretty well, though in some cases (as also noted) it is
hard to predict how a given target will print on any of dozens of
different media making target design harder than we would wish. Graeme's
observation of the density change between separators and patches is the
general rule of thumb, though much more happens under the hood than a
simple density change calculation. One advance that we've made in the
DTP41 Series II instrument (aside from the obvious USB connectivity) is
twice the memory for firmware. This allows us to add additional "smarts"
in pattern recognition, many of which are under test - unfortunately the
original dTP41 has no more memory left for modifications.
All of the above my be interesting, but there are practical fixes for
many reading problems. When you are having problems reading patches the
instrument successfully has read in the past there are some likely
culprits...
1) Calibration (and a current calibration reference, these are only
rated for 18 months from date of distribution)
2) Proper leader and trailer
3) Clean drive wheels - this is a tricky one, because invariably you
can't see that they are dirty, and if you touch them, the oils in your
hands are guaranteed to make them dirty! I use the ToolCrib utility to
connect to the instrument and switch to the terminal mode of ToolCrib. I
flip the instrument upside down, pull off the base and type into the
terminal DM [return]. This turns the drive motors on. Using a clean
cloth, just barely dampened with isopropyl alcohol I clean each roller.
Another DM command will turn the motors off. This fixes 80% of
instruments that read properly and have developed problems over time.
4) Several software packages (notably Onyx) offer control over the
number of dividers used in the patch design. This control, combined with
proper ink limiting based on media type, will generally make any strip
reader work better.
5) Size. A number of times I've seen targets printed out at different
sizes than the software programs the instrument for. Sometimes this is a
compress to fit option (Windows usually) sometimes it is a mismatch of
when the target was printed vs. when it was read. Sometimes.... Well
tracking it down can be interesting, but we often find it very easy to
read a series of patches in ToolCrib, but the same patches won't read in
software, which is generally an indication the patches printed are
different than what the software expects...
Hope this helps.
RayC
Raymond Cheydleur email@hidden
Lead applications specialist
Graphic Arts and Imaging, Developer Support
X-Rite Incorporated www.xrite.com
Customer Service: 888-826-3059 or 616-534-7663
_______________________________________________
colorsync-users mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/colorsync-users
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.