HP Designjet 500, experience?

[Jefferson]

I have an opportunity to pick up an HP Designjet 500, about 3 years old, with very very low hours for $500. [24" model, which covers all of my plotting requirements.]

This is about 25% of retail minus sales tax and/or shipping for my neighborhood. Does anyone have any experience with these machines good or bad they can report?

I have been up to now "subbing out" my plotting but this does get old with the time/communication factor as well as lack of control. A natural progression is to acquire "plotter" [they're really printers these days] but the right one at the right price.....................as always with me $ output is a factor.

T.I.A.

[aahatimo]

jeff,
i have owned a basic 24" dj500 for almost 4 years. i assume for the price the one you are looking at is the basic model. they are overall great machines especially for the price. i had similar needs to yours and have been very happy i can do most all my plotting 'in house'. i think i paid $2200 for mine with the document stand. this 500 did light work most of it's life, but for over a year i shared it with a firm down the hall who did from 200 to 400 plots / month. i think it was running 8 or more hours a day...
over the years i have done a few upgrades, a jetdirect internal card ($300 +/-) for network printing and the hpgl2 card and 128mb memory ($300 to 400). the hpgl2 card really makes this a much smarter machine. you can use plotflow, reprint jobs, and speed things up with the add'l memory.
you may want to get a info printout showing total hours of use, printhead remaining life, error messages and other info. they can access that from the printer setup screen > printer info> print report. that will show how light of use it has had. the printheads are about $40 each. if they have not been replaced yet, it may be time. this summer i had to have the ink service station replaced, that was about $300. i have a new belt on order right now, looks like that may be getting old. the climate around here is a bit dryer than up there so that may have lead to the belts demise.
you may also want to consider where you locate it. they are a bit loud, so i would not want it too close by. there is a vacuum that holds paper down while printing, so it is quite a bit louder than earlier hp plotters.
i believe the year of heavy usage is why i am having some of these maintainence issues now, if the one you are looking at is really low usage, and at that low a price you should really get lots of prints out of it, for much less cost than you are paying now.
good luck!

[Anonymous]

I use the dj500 also. I think overall it is a good machine. I used other brands previously (Oce and Canon) and prefer it to the previous machines.

I have had mine for 2.5 years. I only just replaced the yellow ink cartridge! I go through about 1 black every 2 months. I use about 2 rolls of paper per month (50m rolls). In Australia the ink cartridges are about $80 each and would be cheaper in the US I imagine.

It is quick for my needs and produces a quite good image. Every now and then HP give away special papers with quantity of other papers purchased. I received a roll of photographic paper for free which gives excellent quality prints for best presentations.

The only problem I have had with it is that I cannot run it through a switch box with another printer. I was running it through a Zip drive to give it enough power to work through the switch box but with an upgrade to the Zip drive that no longer works ????? So I run one printer now through the parallel port and the other through the USB port. Seems ok.

As mentioned in another post I cnat get it to print JPEGS but it will print 3D images in Photoshop PSD format which are good enough for me.

I dont use the HPGL2 card as I have not needed this so far. Downloading from my wireless network can be slow though. So I tend to print through one machine. That is probably an issue with the network thought rather than the printer. The printer comes with a network cable slot and could be hard wired into a network.

Regards,

[Jefferson]

Thank you one and all! [got some PMs and a call as well] Sounds like I'm getting "screaming" deal since we're talking stand and basket included........... My other printer is an HP Deskjet 1220C and it's worked without a hitch aside from cranky printing on heavier paper stock.

It's always good to hear from those who've traveled the road before you, in essence the true value of this talk board!

[Piotr Dobrowolski]

Hi,

Check out if the machine is equiped with the HPGL card... if no - You should buy one as it lets You print bigger plots which can be managed inside the computer (You will receive "avoid out of memory option" when using this card and the proper drivers).....

Best Regards,
Piotr

[Jefferson]

Well, this had to be TOO good to be true. Right before I was to go and pick it up I find out out it was actually a Designjet 430, b+w only no less. Off to sulk for a while............

[Anonymous]

We are looking for a new plotter – as well as a large format printer to print from photoshop
Using OSX 10.3 with Mac G5’s and G4’s

We were about to buy a hp designjet 500 or 500ps only to now find out that we would not be able to print (from photoshop etc. ) is this true?

Has anyone been able to solve printing issue with new hp drivers or other solutions??

Thanks, Ron

[Michal Forejt]

I have HP DesignJet 500 (not PS!) working with G4 and OS 10.3.5 without any problems. We bought HP-GL/2, 128MB RAM and JetDirect (ethernet connection) and it is ok. My HP retailer also told me, that I'll not be able to print from another application then PlotMaker. That made a little bit sad But I was so surprised, when I realized, it ain't true!!! I can print from every app without any problem.

And I am really satisfied with this plotter

Michal

[Anonymous]

Can you print to photoshop or adobe illustrator?

[Michal Forejt]

I can print to Photoshop, but I don't have Illustrator, but I guess it should work, because plotter is by system visible as all other printers. So you can print to it from any application.