Joyspace U826 / Swiftfoto KSF-10R

The Joyspace U826 is a variation of the HiTi P525L, but with two notable changes: Ribbon rewinding and support for different media types (Standard, Transparent, High Density, Metallic, and Sticker)

Rewinding is completely transparent from the software's perspective; with 6x8" media the printer will accept 4x6" prints, but instead of wasting half of the 6x8" ribbon panels, the printer automatically rewinds and uses the other half of the ribbon.

This is slower than submitting a single 6x8" print and having the printer cut it in half, but gives the benefit of minimizing ribbon waste and simpler software flows.

In the process of adding support for the U826, I was able to finally test automatic job combining (ie converting two 4x6" prints into a single 6x8"-cut-in-half print), added 6x5" and 6x6" sizes, and fixed numerous other bugs along the way.

In other printing news, I got my hands on a well-used Kodak 6900, and discovered that it differs significantly from its S2245/S3 sibling -- Most notably within the image processing library and the data tables the printer stores. Reverse engineering is slowly progressing.

UPDATE 2024-10-16: Kanematsu has decided to sell this printer under the 'Swiftfoto' brand as the KSF-10R. As far as I can tell, there are no funcitonal differences, only the name on the box.