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HP Pen Plotter


Doug_P

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Thankyou very much for the info Rickard. I see you're familiar with etching stuff, so I'd like to ask you for more advice if possible. I can afford one of both 7475A and 7440A you said, but I'm concerned about precision and resolution, which you know are very important for components to fit, specially for thin routes.

 

By the way, do you think I should make any mechanical adjustment for the paper tray so the copper clads wont get stuck with the moving pen or something else? Regarding these issues, I thought and found two XY plotters, an HP 7225A and a Houston Instrument DMP-29, but I don't neither how precise they are nor if they'll work with a Roland driver, do you know? Thanks anyway!

 

Best regards,

George A.

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George

The 7440 and the 7475 don't have paper trays and shouldn't need any adjustments depending on the thickness of the PCB, I know I can load .025 pretty easy:) and stay away from the Houston Instruments, They are JUNK there, main value is to scavenge the Contoller and Servos for a CNC project :)

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Hi Rickard, thanks for preventing me on the H.I., I also had an eye on a Roland DXY-1150, but I'll take your word on the HP's, besides, they're fair in price for starting this plot adventure far from buying those small lab plotters that mill and drill your copper clads into pcb's at once which are near $20,000!

 

Thanks a lot once more & see you around!

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Hi Rickard, thanks for preventing me on the H.I., I also had an eye on a Roland DXY-1150, but I'll take your word on the HP's, besides, they're fair in price for starting this plot adventure far from buying those small lab plotters that mill and drill your copper clads into pcb's at once which are near $20,000!

 

Thanks a lot once more & see you around!

George Depending on how Adventurous There are lots of Self Design and Self Build CNC information out there, I picked up a 3 axis Stepper motor Controller for my Mill for like $200, and useing Steppers out of old 5.25 Floppies I was able to cobble up everything for $250-$300. You might look at http://www.cnczone.com/ there are some interesting Wood CNC Mill/Drills Out There, Where my Mistake was, Was using Delrin Instead of Machining Alu, But I've seen Wood Frame Ones that worked Real well. I mean for PCBs you son't need the kind of Accurcy I was hoping for for the junk I do :) Now that being Said the roland is a Great plotter :)

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Ohh George:

I ment to ask does Mexico Have 110 60~ electricity like the US? Just Curious, as deals pop up every now and again for CNC Drill conversions.

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  • 1 month later...

2. HP Felt tip pens suck! It is worth the time and investment to buy some Rapidograph pens off epay to convert to plotter pens I can tell you how.

 

I have been hunting around trying to find this info on my own and failing miserably. Any chance you are still willing to tell us how to do this? I built a felt tip pen from an old marker, but it still fairly sporadic. It would be great to have some decent pens.

 

Also, it looks like the roland XD-CH2 blade holder is about the same dimensions as the standard HP pens. Anyone happen to know if they are directly compatible?

 

Thanks!

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.....Also, it looks like the roland XD-CH2 blade holder is about the same dimensions as the standard HP pens. Anyone happen to know if they are directly compatible?

 

Thanks!

Yes and NO, the Blade holder is a bit taller and my require some cuting of the plotter Case / Covers for clearance

I'll post some pics as soon as I can about the conversion to make Repidograph Pens from old HP plotter pens

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Yes and NO, the Blade holder is a bit taller and my require some cuting of the plotter Case / Covers for clearance

I'll post some pics as soon as I can about the conversion to make Repidograph Pens from old HP plotter pens

 

Thanks!

 

As far as the blade holder is concerned, it will work, but require some fiddling?

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Thanks!

 

As far as the blade holder is concerned, it will work, but require some fiddling?

Ohh Yes the Blade Holders will fit the Pen Holders Fine, you may just have to fiddle with the plotter's case

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  • 4 weeks later...
I've tried to locate a driver from HP and there isn't one available. I'm running Windows XP pro. I was wondering if anyone has tried to run one of these older plotters on a newer computer.

 

 

***you'll find it here

 

www.plotterdriver.it

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  • 5 months later...
I use the same Roland Plotter Driver on all my HP Pen Plotters and they work Flawlessly

I'm using the Roland DXY980 plotter Driver in win 2k, XP and Vista

I have a Draftmaster Pen Plotter at the shop

a 7475A and a 7470 here in my Home Studio

and I have a 7550 out in my home shop I use to plot templates and such

All of them work flawlessly with this driver! I'm also using Autocad 2002

I think the 7586B is an HPGLII Plotter so the stock windows HPGLII driver will work ! but some things to remember

 

Hi Rickard5, I know this is an old post but I was wondering - could ask you a couple questions regarding pen plotters? I am interested in using an HP7475A pen plotter with Autocad 2006 & Windows XP. Would you happen to know if the Roland driver you mention will work with this software? Also, do you know what model of pen the 7475A uses - and do you have any additional info on how to make a refillable pen for this plotter? Many thanks!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 months later...

I am new user of this forum, and wonder if someone has experiens how I get my old plotter to work with Autocad 2006. I have the driver for the plotter.

Looking forward to get help.

Best regards

Hans

from the coold scandinawien.:)

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I tried to get my penplotter Graphtec GP9101 to work with Autocad2006.

 

Not the best news – but I after many hours of fiddling - I wasn't able to get my HP7475A pen plotter to work with Autocad 2006 - running on Windows XP.

I tried just about every driver out there (including the Roland diver) along with using the requisite HP Null Modem Cable.

The plotter would start-up, shake the pens and then start its run but it would then stop in the middle of the plot - even with the simplest of drawings (like a circle inside a square) and no text.

I hope you have better luck!

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And you are surprised because?

 

When was this plotter manufactured? Wasn't that somewhere around 1984 or 1985? Seems I recall using one at an engineering office I worked at. 6 pen carousel right?

 

Lets see, 1984 that predates MS Windows by about 6 years. That means we're talking the good old MS DOS days. Versions 2.11, 3.0 and 3.1 all came out in 1984.

 

I think you got your money's worth out of the plotter. Time to upgrade don't you think? We now have laser and inkjet plotters.

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And you are surprised because?

 

When was this plotter manufactured? Wasn't that somewhere around 1984 or 1985? Seems I recall using one at an engineering office I worked at. 6 pen carousel right?

 

Lets see, 1984 that predates MS Windows by about 6 years. That means we're talking the good old MS DOS days. Versions 2.11, 3.0 and 3.1 all came out in 1984.

 

I think you got your money's worth out of the plotter. Time to upgrade don't you think? We now have laser and inkjet plotters.

 

 

Not so much surprised as disappointed. This was an experiment based on reading that other owners have gotten them to work.

We use an HP Designjet for our large format plotting.

The pen plotter was more an idea of creating technical pen on mylar presentation drawings - the quality of this type of plot can't be matched by an inkjet or laser printer.

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Time to dust off the old drafting board then along with your set of Koh-i-noor technical pens.

 

The technology was meant to be obsolete within five years. Be grateful you got it to last as long as you did. Companies like Microsoft, HP and AutoDesk don't expect versions of their products to last or to be used as long as such things as cars, TVs and washing machines. Even the timelines for "support" have been shortened.

 

What did that plotter cost new anyway?

 

We have a HP DesignJet 500 we bought new in 2002 for $2590 that we keep hoping will last another three years. HP will sell us parts but the prices are through the roof. Replace two major parts and we might as well buy a brand new plotter!

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Hi. I have heard that it will be ok with autocad 2000. Why should I buy a new??? The plotter is ok. It is the software the problem are.

I try further.

Hans

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