Roland Plotter Pens
Karriem Drewery
When your vinyl cutter needs to be a plotter, you need a plotter pen. Use a plotter pen in place of the blade and draw the design out before you cut it. We stock plotter pens in a variety of colors for many vinyl cutters including Vinyl Express, Roland, and Graphtec vinyl cutters & plotters.
I thought most of the pens were sealed units. How does someone actually go about refilling them? We actually deep-sixed a Mutoh pen/pencil plotter because we could no longer get pens from the manufacturer and Mars-Staedtler discontinued making and selling similar type pens that would work in the plotter.
I'd keep ONE at least to have as a guide to the model pens it uses, You Probaly got lucky and they are the Taller style pens that give you more room for modding. I'll try to work up a brief how to on converting Koh-I-Noor Rapediograph pens for use with the HP Plotter pens . Remember epay is your friend I picked up a full set of Rapediograph pens for $20 and about 150 Felt tip pens for another $20 so now for a $40 upfront investment I can use $2.75 Bottles of ink that last twice as long as the $35 Cartriges in my Design Jet 600
I would appreciate any advice you might have. I remember using plotters back in highschool and being fascinated with them. In the last few years, I have wished that I had one for doing arcade projects, and now I am really excited to get one.
You might check out this thread about using Roland Drivers too. Hp never offered a driver for win2k, xp, or Vista for HPGL Plotters but I use the Roland DXY990 Drive flawlessly!!! it's availsbe from Roland as a free download also the Roland Driver smooths out the plotting which is better for Cutting vinyl straight from Acad I always cut straight from Acad so I always get correct sizeing for Paint Masks! and one last thing get some teflon Knife protection strips from like signwearhouse.com you'll savwe blades and not ruin the machine for paper plotting What kind of arcae projects do you do? I'm jonesing to do another MAME Cabinet
How about helping me save an Ioline LP-4000? It still works very well, or I should say, it does it's test plot very well. It was working when it was taken out of service many years ago. Has been sitting in my back closet for some time. I dragged it out about a year ago and it powered right up and again, did a beautiful test plot. I can't get Autocad07 to recognize it. I've used every old plotter driver I can find. Some of them makes Acad think there's some sort of plotter there, but it just won't plot. It may be the cable, I made one from plans I found on the internet, but I'm not sure the plans were correct.
DANG IT That ain't no Plotter, it's a cutter for cutting RUBYLITH ! I guess you could plot on paper with it, but that's kinda like Planting a Flower with a Sledge Hammer Seriously the IOlines are the Cadillac oof cutters so you got you s nice mochine there, I'd try the same HPGL1 Drivers and see if they work.
This one has never been used for anything but paper and vellum drawings, and it's plotted literally thousands of them. The company I worked for at the time bought it new in 1986 or 87, and it ran all day every day until I replaced it with a Designjet 600 in 1998 or 99 (I think, can't remember). I've even got two 8 slot pen carriages for it!
I did run across a product called Winline that according to their website supports a variety of devices. Anybody reading this have any experience with them? Not a bad price for the software if it does all they say it does.
I've been spending several weeks sucessfully getting a WinXp/ACAD2000/HP plotter system going. In my search for drivers I found a Winline CD that I bought for use with a Calcomp plotter and I no longer have need for it as I bought an HP plotter instead. It does have a driver for the IOLine LP4000. All their drivers work on Win 95, 98, Me,NT4, 2000, XP and they say higher but I don't know about Vista. It supports many other plotters as well. I also ended up with the CPGL Rom cartridge for CalComp (Ver. 4.02) that Winline works with in all the versions of Windows listed above. I have no use for that either. If you or anyone else is interested in either of these make me an offer.
Hi Rickard, I'm a young Electrical & Electronic Engineer looking forward buying an old HP pen plotter, in fact it's a 7440A any better suggestion? I'd like it to draw electronic circuits directly to copper clads instead of printing them on transfer sheets and ironing them.
Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you. But I'm a huge fan of using the 7470A Plotter if you can get one, they go for less anyway because they are a 2 pen plotter.The 7440 will work, Just bigger cost more to ship The modding potential is much higher. and I've done what you describe etching Model parts. the Key thing is you'll have to make your own Sharpie pens to use as a resist! and you'll have to get an HP Null Modem serial cable. these are kinda special serial cables and for $6 you can get one 9 to 25 pin! and they DXY driver works with any version of autocadd or autosketch ! GOOD Luck you might be able to plot directly from you auto router, I know you can out of SPICE
Unlike modern printers, Pen Plotters (Aka Drafting Robots) are awesome to watch (especially with the cover off). Unfortunately, they hit their peak of popularity in the 1980's and are becoming less common every year. I have always had a problem with standard plotter pens, they are expensive, they dry out quickly, and they are getting harder and harder to find. This hack is one solution! While the idea of adapting standard ink pens to plotters is not new, this Instructable may be the fastest and cheapest way to change your favorite brand of pen into a plotter pen. It was quick and easy and best of all, I made it at TechShop! ( )
You will need an adapter for each type of pen you choose to use. For this Instructable I chose the pilot v5 ballpoint Gel pen and a Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen. The Sharpie would not fit in my model of plotter. I chose the V5 and Pitt pens because my plotter has a through hole in the head, and those pens pass through the hole. If you have a later plotter without the hole, you can use virtually any pen of roughly the same diameter as the original plotter pens. In my experiments, the best results came from the Pilot V5 Precise Gel Pen. These pens also come in colors, which gives us more output options.
I took my chosen pens to my local Home-_____ store and found the parts area containing fiber washers. They had quite a few, so I tried various sizes until I found one larger than, but close to, the diameter of my pen top. For both pens the choice was the 7/16.
The pens cap does a great job of holding the pen, so it is perfect for a holder! Remove the cap,and wrap a piece of tape around it so you have something to write on. Measure up 1-1/2 inches from the opening for the V5. Carefully score and cut the top as shown. Keep the remainder! On some pens you may be able to use the leftover portion as a pen cap! This keeps it from drying out when not in use. Unfortunately the V5's left over parts weren't usable.
So where does the washer go? If you already have a dried up plotter pen, you can use it as a reference! Align the tips and mark the location of the HP pens support ring. In my two-pen plotter I also needed to check the clearance to assure the cap would fit. This is not required in most plotters. Luckily, It did, so I moved onto the next step.
On some pens the washer fits snugly, on the V5 the cap is a little small. We want the washer as close as possible to centered, so we have to create a temporary ledge for it to set on. Here is a trick to make it easier. We can use tape to support and shim the washer! This works amazingly well with aluminum tape, but for this Instructable I will use blue painters tape (Because that's what they have a TechShop! :)) Carefully wrap tape around the cap until the washer cannot slip over it. Now we can use our dried up pen for a reference a second time. With the pen in cap, align the points. Mark the tape where the lower part of the fiber washer should sit. Do this several times around the circumference and connect the lines.
Following the lines, carefully slit the tape. Try not to cut all the way down to the pen top. You often need a little tape to prevent the thin part from moving.
Now Turn the cap over so it is tip-up. Peel off the thin section you just cut. Note! You want to tear the tape away from the side next to the tip, not the opening! I didn't, and had to put more tape on to hold it. Why? Because the pen cap is tapered, so the washer needs to slide in from the smaller end. Now, tear a little tape off, check to see if the washer fits. repeat the process until the washer just slips over the tape. Score and remove the tape above the washer. It should look like the first picture. See the ledge? Check it again with the dried up HP pen to assure everything is where it should be.
For this cap I used metal reinforced epoxy. I have used cheap two- part epoxy in the past, but I was out of the cheap stuff so I used something a little 'better'. I didn't see a significant difference. Time will tell of one type is better than the other. Mix the epoxy according to the instructions and spread it around the top of the washer. I put on more than I needed and wiped away the excess with a Q-Tip and a paper towel. The goal is to get a smooth fillet where the washer and cap meet. Be sure not to leave too much, it will interfere with the pickup mechanism on the plotter. Let it set for at least 8 hours. Turn the top over, remove the tape, and repeat the process. If you can't get all the tape out, leaving the little bit under the epoxy is fine. Now let holder sit for 24 hours to fully harden.
Some plotters try to stow the pen between plots. This may cause the pen to hit the cover and could possibly damage the machine. It wasn't an issue on my plotter. If it will be on yours you can take the cover off for the test, or cut a slot in the cover for the pen to pass through. Do which ever you are most comfortable with.
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