HP Pen Plotter

[Rickard5]

Thank you for saving a wonderful old plotter from the scrap heap PM me any time if you need help

[Fibonacci]

Rickard, you comment that the HP needs a special null model cable? Do you know how this is different from a normal null modem cable?

I rescued a 7856B from the garbage at work and am looking to be able to use it as both a pen plotter and a vinyl cutter. I have A null modem cable, but am concerned about whether or not it will work.

As I can't send PMs, can you give me some pointers on converting this?

I got Dr.Stika and have started messing with it. Cool program.

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.

[Rickard5]

Fibonacci

This Guy's site is a great resource for conversion information

you can find the cable pin out for the Serial Cables here

and this guy has the best deal on pre made cables

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

[Fibonacci]

Thanks! Of course HP would use a non-standard cable.

It looks like that has all the info I could possibly need.

Thank you for the help, I appreciate it.

I have built a couple mame machines, but I mostly restore and rebuild older (early 80s-mid 90s) games. I also rebuild pinball machines and am in the process of building one from scratch.

[Jack_O'neill]

Thank you for saving a wonderful old plotter from the scrap heap PM me any time if you need help

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.

Any ideas?

[Rickard5]

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.

Any ideas?

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.

[Jack_O'neill]

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've tried all the drivers on the autocad disk, and every new one i could find on the web. Some of them make the computer think there's a device there, but I just can't get it to talk to 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.

[K6KFH]

Jack O'Neal
Greetings,
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.

Thanks,
Art

[GeorgeAlbert]

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.

The software I use for circuit design has the ability to export my designs in this formats: .EMF Metafile, .DXF, .EPS, and .HGL.

I'm a bit familiar with AutoCAD but haven't used it since a while and don't have it right now. Will any version work well on WinXP with the DXY980 driver you spoke of?

By the way, I need a USB to RS232 cable right? Is it ok if I get one with DB9 but has a DB25 adapter?

I will really appreciate your advice.

Best Regards!
George A.

[Rickard5]

By the way, I need a USB to RS232 cable right? Is it ok if I get one with DB9 but has a DB25 adapter?

I will really appreciate your advice.

Best Regards!
George A.

Hi George
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