4 ms·

Great work! Does anyone have any plotter recommendations?

gregmac 5y ago
In the commercial space, I think "wide format printers" have totally replaced plotters at this point. They're basically big ink jet printers, though usually a bit more sophisticated (often 6 or more inks, including variants like "matte black" and "photo black" and "gray"). The quality is very impressive, you can literally print posters or frameable photos on it if you have the right paper. "XY plotters" are still around but seem to be very niche (emulating hand writing) or DIY/hobby stuff. I remember being in an engineering office of some sort as a kid, fascinated by watching the multi-pen plotter [1] drawing some kind of technical drawing. It had a pen carousel to change colors, and a little robot gripper to hold it. Finding information on these (from the 2 minutes of searching I did) seems quite hard, so it seems like they probably went out of fashion before the internet was a thing. [1] https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/XY+plotter https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/XY+plotter
- joshu 5y ago
  there is a big plotter enthusiast community. i was able to find full documentation for my late 80's plotter online easily enough. plotters are still made today, they're just called "vinyl cutters" and don't have the pen changers anymore. perhaps let the people who actually know the answer to the given question do the writing?
enlightens 5y ago
https://www.axidraw.com/ https://www.axidraw.com/
- paulgb 5y ago
  +1 for AxiDraw if you’re not into restoring a vintage machine. I’ve been impressed with the build quality of mine (it’s going on four years with no issues). I’m also a fan of the Saxi driver software. Paired with a Raspberry Pi, it gives you a web-based interface to an AxiDraw so that you don’t have to physically connect your computer to the plotter. https://github.com/nornagon/saxi https://github.com/nornagon/saxi
myself248 5y ago
Hang around the industrial auction sites like Bidspotter. I just scored a 1980s-era Draftmaster II for $60 and it came with a pile of pens.
joshu 5y ago
on older plotters: there were many manufacturers. the ones that seem to be higher quality were HP and Roland. alps made a tiny one that was repackaged for commodore, atari, etc. and there were a plethora of other manufacturers (graphtec, houston instruments, and so on) check ebay for "pen plotter" but beware that many are quite large and shipping will be expensive. i currently have a HP DXL 7575a (a large roller plotter) and a Roland DXY-1150 (small flatbed). the roland was shipped but the hp i had to pick up locally. roland still has the manual on the site for the 1150, but it required a wacky power supply that took some effort to find. for HP stuff make sure it has RS232 and not HP-IB interfaces or whatever wacky stuff. also, different plotters used different languages. Roland's RDGL and HP's HPGL were easy enough to implement directly from the documentation... many of them don't work because various belts have died. my HP fired right up. one ongoing concern is that pens are no longer made so you have to fight over scraps on ebay. modern plotters: get an axidraw. it is nice and lets you use standard pens.
tekstar 5y ago
I snagged an HP7475a off a local buy and sell site recently for $60. Came with a serial-to-plotter cable (which I only realized after splicing that cable, working out the wiring, and finding it was already the cable I needed :( ) Then I bought a cheap 3d printer and made a few of these, which fit the "fat" sharpies: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1261805 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1261805 I need to adjust that print for "ultra fine" sharpies in order to do prints like what this website is producing though.
efortis 5y ago
I bought an Ioline Smart Trac 24 in. x 16 ft. in ~1998 and still works perfectly. Here's a video of my plotter with a Sharpie: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IbZ4IPUEkU28_KBybtFoRN2Zns9WJxhr?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IbZ4IPUEkU28_KBybtFo... The best pens are the cheap ballpoint ones, unless you already have rapidographers. I don't like using Sharpies because they fade out in the middle of the drawing and you have to plot at low speed. For example, I ballpoint outlined the staircase piece (linked above) and then I manually filled it in with a Sharpie.
- joshu 5y ago
  sixteen FEET? unfortunately sharpies aren’t very good. i use paint pens but they require significant pressure to open the valve behind the nib. i am currently working on making my own markers...
  - efortis 5y ago
    Yes, 16+ feet with a simple mechanism. It works like old typewriters. You align the corners of the paper and then clamp it. Compare that, at the time, to the top of line of a Gerber (or 3M) plotter that was the only one able to handle 12+ ft. It used an array of sensors that at runtime adjusted the clamping-wheels pressure to keep the paper/vinyl roll aligned. It was around $15-18K, while my Ioline was ~$1,300. ==== Could you tell me more about your markers?
    - joshu 5y ago
      So I have a 5' x 5' router table that I've modified to hold pens. I was using paint pens that require the nibs to be indented to get more paint to flow. They run out every 2-4 feet of line. It doesn't make great lines. Here is the machine re-loading a pen: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAD-tR1FU8J/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CAD-tR1FU8J/ The "pens" i've made are a piece of delrin, with a 1/4" hole drilled down the middle and a piece of 1/4" F1 felt stuffed in there. Here's the pen, sorta working https://www.instagram.com/p/COE-5dSpPAm/ https://www.instagram.com/p/COE-5dSpPAm/ and here is a longer drawing. you can see that it does still go from "too much" to "too little" as the line draws. https://www.instagram.com/p/CO4xW6QJLf2/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CO4xW6QJLf2/ There are many, many other drawings in that profile. The thin line ones were made on an HP DraftPro DXL.

In the commercial space, I think "wide format printers" have totally replaced plotters at this point. They're basically big ink jet printers, though usually a bit more sophisticated (often 6 or more inks, including variants like "matte black" and "photo black" and "gray"). The quality is very impressive, you can literally print posters or frameable photos on it if you have the right paper. "XY plotters" are still around but seem to be very niche (emulating hand writing) or DIY/hobby stuff. I remember being in an engineering office of some sort as a kid, fascinated by watching the multi-pen plotter [1] drawing some kind of technical drawing. It had a pen carousel to change colors, and a little robot gripper to hold it. Finding information on these (from the 2 minutes of searching I did) seems quite hard, so it seems like they probably went out of fashion before the internet was a thing. [1] https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/XY+plotter https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/XY+plotter

joshu 5y ago
there is a big plotter enthusiast community. i was able to find full documentation for my late 80's plotter online easily enough. plotters are still made today, they're just called "vinyl cutters" and don't have the pen changers anymore. perhaps let the people who actually know the answer to the given question do the writing?

enlightens 5y ago

https://www.axidraw.com/ https://www.axidraw.com/

paulgb 5y ago
+1 for AxiDraw if you’re not into restoring a vintage machine. I’ve been impressed with the build quality of mine (it’s going on four years with no issues). I’m also a fan of the Saxi driver software. Paired with a Raspberry Pi, it gives you a web-based interface to an AxiDraw so that you don’t have to physically connect your computer to the plotter. https://github.com/nornagon/saxi https://github.com/nornagon/saxi

myself248 5y ago

Hang around the industrial auction sites like Bidspotter. I just scored a 1980s-era Draftmaster II for $60 and it came with a pile of pens.

joshu 5y ago

on older plotters: there were many manufacturers. the ones that seem to be higher quality were HP and Roland. alps made a tiny one that was repackaged for commodore, atari, etc. and there were a plethora of other manufacturers (graphtec, houston instruments, and so on) check ebay for "pen plotter" but beware that many are quite large and shipping will be expensive. i currently have a HP DXL 7575a (a large roller plotter) and a Roland DXY-1150 (small flatbed). the roland was shipped but the hp i had to pick up locally. roland still has the manual on the site for the 1150, but it required a wacky power supply that took some effort to find. for HP stuff make sure it has RS232 and not HP-IB interfaces or whatever wacky stuff. also, different plotters used different languages. Roland's RDGL and HP's HPGL were easy enough to implement directly from the documentation... many of them don't work because various belts have died. my HP fired right up. one ongoing concern is that pens are no longer made so you have to fight over scraps on ebay. modern plotters: get an axidraw. it is nice and lets you use standard pens.

tekstar 5y ago

I snagged an HP7475a off a local buy and sell site recently for $60. Came with a serial-to-plotter cable (which I only realized after splicing that cable, working out the wiring, and finding it was already the cable I needed :( ) Then I bought a cheap 3d printer and made a few of these, which fit the "fat" sharpies: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1261805 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1261805 I need to adjust that print for "ultra fine" sharpies in order to do prints like what this website is producing though.

efortis 5y ago

I bought an Ioline Smart Trac 24 in. x 16 ft. in ~1998 and still works perfectly. Here's a video of my plotter with a Sharpie: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IbZ4IPUEkU28_KBybtFoRN2Zns9WJxhr?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IbZ4IPUEkU28_KBybtFo... The best pens are the cheap ballpoint ones, unless you already have rapidographers. I don't like using Sharpies because they fade out in the middle of the drawing and you have to plot at low speed. For example, I ballpoint outlined the staircase piece (linked above) and then I manually filled it in with a Sharpie.

joshu 5y ago
sixteen FEET? unfortunately sharpies aren’t very good. i use paint pens but they require significant pressure to open the valve behind the nib. i am currently working on making my own markers...
- efortis 5y ago
  Yes, 16+ feet with a simple mechanism. It works like old typewriters. You align the corners of the paper and then clamp it. Compare that, at the time, to the top of line of a Gerber (or 3M) plotter that was the only one able to handle 12+ ft. It used an array of sensors that at runtime adjusted the clamping-wheels pressure to keep the paper/vinyl roll aligned. It was around $15-18K, while my Ioline was ~$1,300. ==== Could you tell me more about your markers?
  - joshu 5y ago
    So I have a 5' x 5' router table that I've modified to hold pens. I was using paint pens that require the nibs to be indented to get more paint to flow. They run out every 2-4 feet of line. It doesn't make great lines. Here is the machine re-loading a pen: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAD-tR1FU8J/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CAD-tR1FU8J/ The "pens" i've made are a piece of delrin, with a 1/4" hole drilled down the middle and a piece of 1/4" F1 felt stuffed in there. Here's the pen, sorta working https://www.instagram.com/p/COE-5dSpPAm/ https://www.instagram.com/p/COE-5dSpPAm/ and here is a longer drawing. you can see that it does still go from "too much" to "too little" as the line draws. https://www.instagram.com/p/CO4xW6QJLf2/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CO4xW6QJLf2/ There are many, many other drawings in that profile. The thin line ones were made on an HP DraftPro DXL.