Plotter

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On December 20, 2009, someone (who?) donated a beautiful HP DraftMaster I pen plotter (HP P/N 7595A).

There's a Flickr set of somebody else's DraftMaster for reference.

Our plotter:

  • appears to be in good physical condition
  • comes with a pen carousel
  • comes with one pen holder (holding a #2 pencil, nach)
  • has a DB-25 that probably wants to speak HP-GL over RS-232

Carousel setup

plotter carousel pencap retracted plotter carousel pencapped


We need:

  • service manuals
  • pen holders
  • paper
  • software that emits HPGL
  • a paper holder (probably a wire cage) to catch the print as it finishes

Documentation:

HPGL Software:

Pens:

Wikipedia: Plotter, HPGL


Program that seems to work:

IN;
SC0,40,0,40;
SP7;
PU0,0;
PD100,0,100,100,0,100,0,0;
PU50,50;
CI25;

Use It

Settings:

  • Your program needs to use DOS line endings (\r\n)
  • Serial is 9600 8N1 on the PC side, plugged into the COMPUTER/MODEM port via a null modem cable
  • SERIAL:
    • DATAFLOW: REMOTE, STANDALONE
    • PARITY: 1
    • BAUD: 9600
    • HARDWIRE: OFF

Using Inkscape:

  • Load (or create) your vector graphic in Inkscape
  • Prepare the image for printing:
  • Scale the image (Inkscape mm units appear to work correctly)
  • Flip the image horizontally (for some reason, the plotter is printing it backwards)
  • Select 'save as', then 'HP Graphics Language'.
  • Open this file in a text editor, and copy the text
  • Paste the file into your terminal program, configured as above (CoolTerm in OS/X or Minicom in Linux)
  • Enjoy your plot!

Example:

[Plotted Noisebridge Logo] HPGL for NoiseBridge Logo