Printing to Epilog Laser Custom Size Not Holding

Rhino
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1

Printing from Rhino8 to Epilog Mini/Helix. Previous versions of Rhino would stay in custom size and allow me to set size of material through Epilog Dialogue box. Rhino8 update defaults to the closest paper size to what I am asking for. Is there a way to lock Rhino8 print dialogue to custom size?

2

In Rhino 8 the print dialog maps to the driver’s named paper sizes, which is why a free-form custom size gets snapped to the closest standard one. A workaround other Epilog users have had success with:

  1. In Windows, open Printers & scanners → Print server properties → Forms, check Create a new form, and enter your bed/material size. (With Epilog drivers Portrait/Landscape tend to be flipped, so you may need to enter width and height swapped.)
  2. In Rhino 8’s Print dialog, choose that named size from the size list. It should now hold.
  3. Optionally, to make it the default, set the paper size in %appdata%\McNeel\Rhinoceros\8.0\Plug-ins\Commands (02bf604d-799c-4cc2-830e-8d72f21b14b7)\settings\settings-Scheme_Default.xml under TestPrintDialogCallback.

Also make sure you’re on the latest Rhino 8 service release, as newer SRs remember more print settings. More detail in this thread: Can't save default printer settings in Rhino 8?

3

Thanks for the quick reply. If I understand, this fix allows me to save the bed size of my lasers as default. While this is better than what I have it is not totally satisfactory. In the past, the default size was set to custom in Rhino print dialogue. When in my print driver dialogue for Epilog, I could set the material size which would allow me to osnap to the center of the desired layout rectangle.

4

Update: Settings do not hold. We have SR35 installed. Also when using print window, there is a situation where picking the grey window by its center and attempting to align over the geometry, I am sent back to the dialogue box and unable to align the print window.

In summary:

  1. need to make custom print size default to allow Epilog print dialogue to determine the grey print window size.

  2. need to allow user to move the grey print window to allow osnap to target rectangle for printing.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

5

Thanks Paul, that’s really helpful, and sorry the workaround didn’t do it.

To make sure we’re on the same page, there are two separate problems here:

  1. Rhino 8 isn’t respecting the custom material size set in the Epilog driver dialog (it snaps to the nearest standard size), whereas Rhino 7 stayed on “Custom” and let the driver define the print window.
  2. When you try to drag the grey print window by its center to snap it onto your target rectangle, you’re sent back to the dialog instead of being able to place it.

Could you help me reproduce these here?

  • Run the SystemInfo command in Rhino and paste the results.
  • Which Epilog driver and version are you using (Epilog Dashboard or the older driver)?
  • What material size are you entering in the Epilog dialog, and what size does Rhino 8 switch it to?
  • A short screen recording of both problems would be ideal: setting the size in the Epilog dialog, then returning to Rhino’s Print dialog, and then trying to move the print window.
  • If you still have Rhino 7 installed, a quick recording of the same steps there would help show the difference.

Once I can reproduce it, I’ll get it logged for the developers.