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mattshlian
6th Aug 2004, 02:42 pm
hi everyone,
new to the forum, ive been using autocad for about 3 years now.
i am employed as a paper engineer and we use cad to design pop up cards, ads etc. recently i aquired a graphtec fc4200-50 flatbed plotter cutter. im in a hard spot now for a few reasons, and hope some of you may have answers.
first, the cad i use (stop laughing) is r13 on a windows xp machine. it is what i was trained in and seems to be only one that functions with our plotters at work. i do have 2000i but only use it to trace images, then i backsave to r13 and go from there.
my computer has only usb connectors (no parallel or serial ports)
im having a difficult time getting autocad to recognize this virtual port (via a usb connector to a parallel connector). i feel like im in back to the future. can anyone suggest an idea of how to figure this out?
thanks,
matt
f700es
6th Aug 2004, 03:31 pm
Hello Matt, my question is why only r13? I remember having a hell of a time with r13 on an NT machine. We had to plot to a file and in that plot file specify where our network printer was but you have the plotter connect directly correct? Got me. Do you have the latest version of r13? IIRC r13 was not originally designed for 32-bit systems (win95 and up) and it needed several patches to get it up to speed. I believe that the last version was r13c4. Might want to checl to see if you have the latest version and perhaps check with the AutoDesk newsgroup in the r13 section to see if nayone has a similar situation. Good luck and hang around.
mattshlian
6th Aug 2004, 06:11 pm
im sure i have the latest version of r13 (c4 patch).
i think im going to find a free computer and network mine to it and then using its parallel port, connect to the plotter. this feels like the long way around, but i think it would work. curse you new technology!
thanks, matt
f700es
6th Aug 2004, 07:19 pm
im sure i have the latest version of r13 (c4 patch).
i think im going to find a free computer and network mine to it and then using its parallel port, connect to the plotter. this feels like the long way around, but i think it would work. curse you new technology!
thanks, matt

Why not use a Jet-Direct box to network the printer to. Or I have seen router boxes with printer connections before to. Might be worth a shot.
mattshlian
12th Aug 2004, 09:28 pm
got it to work last night. i used a net use command and tricked the computer into thinking it was in a network and sharing a plotter. autocad has so many damn settings it was a matter of tweaking. im finally plotting and cutting. thanks for all the advice. come see what i'll be making,
www.mattshlian.com

peace,
matt
CADTutor
12th Aug 2004, 10:18 pm
Great website Matt and great work - good luck with your current project. 8)
fuccaro
13th Aug 2004, 06:11 am
Great 3D… paper works!
Myself I am an Origami admirer. This is not Origami but is nice.