Cannot print exact scale

[Fusion24A]

I work with Fusion 360 on a new iMac. 

Today I've made a drawing ment to print out on a 1:1 scale to use as an overlay on the real item.

But when printing (either as PDF or else) I cannot get it to print at the exact scale. I can change the percentage of printing but when at 100% it's not exact 1:1 it's a few mm off ( on a total of 180mm) so I've adjusted to 101% and 102% but both just not fit exactly. I would have to print at 101,5% to be exact. But this is not possible. Why isn't the output printed correctly? And more important what else can I do?

Best regards Rob

[andrew.de.leon]

Hi @Fusion24A,

Ok, interesting 🤔

I've attached the PDF I created below. It's an A4 sheet size. If you could print it at 100% then take photo with your steel rule showing results, that would be great. Hopefully that will give us some clues as to where different configurations may be impacting results.

Cheers, Andrew

[Fusion24A]

Thanks @andrew.de.leon 

I've printed the sheet and now it turns out 2,5 mm too small also. I've added some other pictures from the 20 mm markings.

screencast printing: https://autode.sk/

almost 17,75 mm

20 mm is also too small

The size of the 20 mm marks

[Fusion24A]

@andrew.de.leon  So it looks like there's something in the translation to the printer?

[andrew.de.leon]

Hi @Fusion24A,

Wow, ok, I wasn’t expecting that. If not perfect like my print, I was expecting the same oversized print.

So today, after sending you my PDF I sent the same file to a couple of our developers in San Francisco and Pune, India to do similar print testing using their home printers rather than the printers we usually test with in the office. At this stage, we’ve only got 1 additional result (Stew, our Drawing team’s Development Manager) and it too is near perfect. His 180mm dimension measures 180.25mm (just over the 180mm) while the 245mm is perfect. And as a result of today’s testing, we’ve also re-tested printing from multiple system combinations; from Mac OS and Windows using Chrome, Safari, Adobe Reader and Preview to Epson and HP desktop A4 and Letter sized printers. Regardless of the combination, the results from my re-testing and Stew’s are consistent.

So your assessment may be correct, but we will continue to test this on a few more combinations over the next day or two and I’ll get back to you.

In the meantime, are you able to send me some details of your printer? Also, and this is a long shot, are you able to recalibrate your printhead? I know +/- 2.5-3mm is a big tolerance but we won’t know unless we try.

Speak soon.

Cheers, Andrew

[andrew.de.leon]

Hi @jhackney1972,

I’m not sure if you’ve been following along with @Fusion24A and I, but I’m wondering if you could do a quick print test for USA day share your results.

I’ve create a part similar to the part Rob’s 180x245mm plate, created an A4 drawing with the drawing view at 1:1 scale, added some annotations and output it to PDF. When I print this, I get a perfect result; 180mm measures 180mm and 245mm measures 245mm against my steel rule. But today Rob tried printing my PDF (which I’ve attached below) and he’s not getting the same results; its now undersize. So if you could print this using whatever system combination you have at 100% (1:1) and let me know what your results are, maybe a photo and a quick description of your system, that would give us another clue.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers, Andrew

[Fusion24A]

Hello @andrew.de.leon I really appreciate all the effort you all put in for solving this situation. Impressive, big thumbs up! 👍🏻

It's indeed strange that the inconsistecy seems to be more in the printer than in the file... I'll print out another drwing in ASME setting, let's see if there's any difference.

My printer is a HP LaserJet 400 color (M451dw). I've searched in the menu's to see if there's a calibration or scaling setting in the deeper menu's but I've not (yet) been able to find it. 

Best regards

Rob

[Fusion24A]

@andrew.de.leon  Just to be complete, In my efforts the standard output of the drawing was every time a bit too small (off by a couple of mm) , I had to increase the percentage to 101% to get closer to 1:1, 102% was too big. Ideally I would like to be able to print 101,5 % but that's not possible 😉

Regards

Rob

[jhackney1972]

@andrew.de.leon 

I printed your test PDF and took a photo.  For the resolution of my printer, I would say it prints at a scale of 1:1.  I have attached the photo and the printer settings I used.

[Fusion24A]

@jhackney1972  Thanks very much for your efforts in this also. Im faced with the certainty now that the proven fact is that my printing/printer acts strange. Good to see that Fusion360 itself gives accurate output. From there on it's an hardware issue so it seems...   I'll contact HP to see if there's a solution to this for me.  If there are any tips or thought to consider I'll be glad to receive them ofcourse. 😉

Best regards!

Rob

[Fusion24A]

@andrew.de.leon 

@jhackney1972 

@davebYYPCU 

I've just finished a long conversation with a HP product specialist. He mentioned that the programs used to open a PDF also can cause some minor deviations, he advised to open and print via Foxit PDF Reader or Acrobat Reader. We tried both and also loaded new driver software to the printer.

Also one have to take in account that when a drawing is (too) close or overlapping to the print limits it can also change the output a little bit. So several causes can influence a final print.

We printed several times from different programs to see what changed. We managed to come a bit closer to the desired sizes of 180 and 245mm  but still not exactly spot on as you have been able to do with your prints. When anyone wants to reliably print to scale every time a plotter is advised. That device is dedicated to exactly produce what is drawn as is a CNC mill or lathe.

For me here's where the bus stops. I've tried many things and came close to the finish thanks to the support of you all and the support of HP.  I'll do it for now with the best prints that came out now, also because this is not for my job, it's more my interest and desire to get things spot on...😉

Thanks everyone!

Rob

[andrew.de.leon]

Hi @jhackney1972,

Thanks so much for assisting @Fusion24A, the community and us here at Autodesk with this. It’s greatly appreciated.

Let me know if anything comes up in the future.

Cheers, Andrew

[andrew.de.leon]

Hi @Fusion24A,

Thanks for the update on your discussion with HP. In our testing of PDF output we have seen slight differences in drawing output when viewed using different products (as mentioned by HP) but for us, these have been caused by font support; whether or not the required fonts have been installed or not. We’ve also heard about the scaling issues, but til now we’ve never been able to reproduce the reported issues. Thanks to you and @jhackney1972 we’ve now shed some light on this and at least confirmed Fusion 360 Drawings is producing a true 1:1 PDF output.

I’ve also just thought of something that may help your current situation. You mentioned needing to scale your print at 101.5% but the printer rounds up\down. What about scaling your drawing view instead? It’s a long shot but it could help. Double-click on the drawing view and the Drawing View dialog will appear. The dialog includes a Scale property in-which you can enter any value (1.0 = 1:1). Maybe enter 1.015 and print as you have been and see what you get. Let me know if that gets you closer.

And for what its worth, I’m using an Epson ET-3600 printer (its a few years old now). As you seen, I’ve been able to print A4 at 1:1. If larger sheets sizes are required, I too would recommend a plotter.

Thanks again and don’t hesitate to reach out in the future.

Cheers, Andrew

[Fusion24A · Accepted solution]

@andrew.de.leon   That's a nice tip in addition I'll try that one out too!

For now I'll put this post under "accept solution".

[Fusion24A]

@andrew.de.leon @jhackney1972 @davebYYPCU 

I've tried the scaling option as mentioned by Andrew and this has indeed influence on the printing output. Ive tried two different scales: 1:0.99 and 1:0.995. See the pictures for the output results. It works!  Be sure to work with a point 0.995 instead of a comma when entering the scaling option, else it won't work.

And the other one:

And how I used the output that was close enough, the 4 fastening holes where out of place due to little changes I made during working with the plate, but the rest was good to work with. Work in progress!

[rkward]

How is this it this issue still exists after several years of knowing about it?  Seems like many of the basic things users are looking for don't get any attention.  Printing or plotting 1:1 is very important to many of us.  It's very hard to believe that Autodesk wants us to switch over to Fusion360 when we have to keep other products like AutoCAD or Inventor to perform what Fusion360 cannot.

[Anonymous]

The hobbyist version does not allow export of any of these formats so the export to dxf/pdf option is a no go there. I have matched my printer prefs to A4 (NOT scale to fit) and for example a 4" square that measures proper in Fusion still prints at 3.89-ish inches. Has anybody been able to print a proper 1:1 scale image from Fusion to a Laser Jet printer ?

[ClintBrown3D]

Today we shipped improved printing options, you now have control over the scale of your prints, and we have options for offsets etc.

Please give it a try once you have updated to the latest version. We'd love your feedback.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/november-2022-major-product-update/#Drawings

[rkward]

Reply was accidentally sent to the wrong person and has been deleted.

[rkward]

I was quite happy to see this post and update roll in and very anxious to try. I've been using 1.02:1 as a scale factor for some time now to get what I want. However, after just testing the new update it is still incorrect and off now more than it was before. I do like the print options dialog before printing rather than trying to hunt for settings where they have been. The old factor in order to get 1:1 I used 1.02:1, as-is it was 98% of expected size. The new settings make it even smaller (~70%) and requiring around 1.43:1. I stopped experimenting at that point to get exactly the right value and verified I did not use "fit to page" rather than 1:1, and I had not. At least this issue has gotten some attention and can hopefully be dialed in now by changing the internal scale factor. I'm not sure how the scale factors were determined or how preliminary testing did not cause the problem to show up.

[rkward]

Has anyone else tried this yet?  Surprised this has not had a follow up in 3 weeks.