Quality, Speed and Reliability of Hiti P525
Having been in the photo booth rental business for five years now, I’ve used the Hiti P525 for about 14 months now. What I hope to help you with is not what others have already written about it, but what happens when there are issues and you need to fix them live at an event. Hard stuff.
Photo Booth Rental Jacksonville Hiti Printer Review
My set up is this: I use an iPad, an older one probably 6 years old by now with Lumabooth. For the laptop I used an older PC running Windows 10. Lumabooth Assist is also installed and runs on the PC. Finally, I have my own network generator, TP Link, and they iPad and PC are both linked to it. The laptop (PC) is hardwired to the Hiti.
The speed of printing is about 8 seconds once the Hiti recevies the command. My set up is older so I don’t count the time it takes for the command to hit the Hiti. No complaints on that. Weighing in about 34 lbs, its not as heavy as other, but I purchased a special case with wheels for it. I also purchased some 4″ wide straps to lower and raise the Hiti P525 in and out of the case as it’s a tight fit.
One complaint is that it does not cut the image down the center to give me two prints, I still have to do that manually and that sucks.
Okay, so what about when things go wrong with the Hiti P525?
I was doing a school event. I hate working with kids of any age, but they come with the territory. These kids were okay, not like a bar mitzvah. I will never do one of those again. Anyway, right at the end of my time, the printer needed new paper and ribbon. I loaded it in but I got an error message saying mismatched ribbon. I apologized to the last person wanting their print, and loaded up and went home and forgot about it. My next event was at a trade show and I was still getting the same error. 80200 is the number that came up. Luckily, the client was drinking a bit and she didn’t care.
I called Hiti support our in California and received good support from the one person who can help. I can’t imagine how they can only have one person, but he was good. We were able to rule out that it was their printer. Beyond that, he was also engaged enough to send me some 6×4 images to test further. I did but I was still getting the ribbon mismatch on some settings. If I forgot to tell you, I had changed nothing in between for this error to pop up. I was frustrated.
After letting it sit for a while and using my back up Canon Selphy for a gig this past weekend, I decided it was time to try and trouble shoot again. I had already reinstalled the printer driver and the Lumabooth Assistant on the PC. Finally, I changed the printer settings on the PC to 6×4 2 up vertically and that gave me a print out that is acceptable. I’m not sure how much faster or slower it will consume the media. I hope not any faster.
Okay, so this wasn’t a great review of the P525 more like a rant against what went wrong, but if you’re having the same issues, keep at it, call customer support and get it solved. Best of luck.
About Big Fun Foto Booth
The year is 2015, Big Fun Foto Booth hits the Jacksonville photo booth wedding and special events scene and nothing has been the same since. Still not sure? This might help. With a rental that is both amazing and for a discounted price, Big Fun lives up to their name with attendants that laugh and get it. Technology that is second to none. Lighting that makes every face look their best. Prices that make you feel like you’ve been respected, not ripped off. Call us for details.
Recent Comments