Ink consumption per sq/m

Hello, We've purchased an HP R1000 Latex printer, and one of the main things when printing is to know what the rate of ink per sq/m is, so we can stay give the customer a fair estimate and remain profitable. We are using Onyx 19 RIP, and although it comes with the option to calculate the ink consumption before printing, it doesn't work on cantone printers such as this one. I was told that I can see the job cost on PrintOS. Ok! I thought I could make some test prints to calculate the ratio of ink per sq/m2. But I can't because in 5 prints with the same image and same print mode, even after a Clean & Check to ensure best accuracy, the values vary too much to even calculate an average consumption. I carried out a test of a 100x100mm of a black square in the most economical print mode and it says it consumed more than another printing I've done with 400x400mm. The machine is really good, but the backoffice functionality is horrible. When we pay the amount HP ask for this machine, we expect a top grade software to match it. HP says it is the way it is, the sales representative says they don't know other way, and other people with the same printer say they had to do it by trial and error! Was anyone able to come to a conclusion of the actual consumption of ink per sq/m? Thank you in advance.

Hi @andrepinto8139, I suggest reading the attached document to calculate the Ink Consumption. As a comment, the image printed is quite small and as per the description, it seems to be just 1 color, which is not entirely recommended to calculate the Ink Consumption. Ink Consumption may vary depending on the Servicing applied, as a result, and depending on the image and when it has been printed, you can have some variation. The attached document explains how to calculate ink efficiency and it indicates that variation. We are continuously working on improving the software to have the best possible accuracy. Find hereafter a summary from the newsletter: Things to know about reported information in Print Beat • The Ink Usage reported in Print Beat for a certain job is the amount of ink used to print it. This includes the “ink on media” and printhead cleaning routines needed to maintain the printheads in good state: o Ink on media: The amount of ink that is going to be used for printing a certain job will depend on the image itself, the number of passes and ink density used for printing (print mode), and whether the job uses white ink or not. o PH cleaning routines: Automatic PH cleaning is triggered when printing a job: these are events with variable ink consumption, depending mainly on the time the printer has been unused. NOTE: Manually triggered calibrations and printhead cleaning events (Check & Clean, alignment, etc.) are not accounted for in the ink usage per job by Print Beat. • Substrate usage: the amount of sqm/sqft reported by Print Beat is a product of length and width of the loaded media “declared” at the loading process, not the printed area. To get the printed area, use the width and length of the image reported on the printer." "How HP calculates ink efficiency To emulate an average production environment, the following test was performed by HP for the ink efficiency model: • Printing 12 sqm, using full-width media for flexible, and combining boards with multi-sheet and hot loading for rigid. • Less than 1h waiting time from previous printing actions. • Use of a standard image in the industry: Consider that any variation from the above conditions can lead to better or worse ink efficiency (ml/sqm). Since the ink reported includes PH cleaning, it is distributed among all the copies. The larger your queue is, the more distributed PH cleaning routines will be. If you still want to print only one job to calculate ink efficiency that is relatively small (less than 2-3 sqm), we suggest performing a Clean & Check before printing to minimize the PH cleaning triggered by printing.