Old Pen Plotter Converted To Vinyl Cutter

April 26, 2006 by 61 Comments

vinyle cutting plotter

Vinyl cutters can be very expensive, so [vinyl hacker] decided to share with us the alternate route some people have taken. Here is what you need to get started: An old HP pen plotter with a serial connection. A compatible serial cable. A blade holder (Roland blade holders don’t fit). Some Roland vinyl blades. Cutting software like SignGo of DAHEDIsign. Vinyl (found in sign shop dumpsters). The main resource for these plotter/cutters seems to be luberth.com. It’s hard to navigate, but all of the info you need should be there. Now you can cut stickers, stencils, small signs for very little money.

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New Pens For Old Plotters

March 23, 2024 by 17 Comments

Finding consumables is an ever-present problem facing anyone working with old computer hardware. Many of these devices ceased manufacture decades ago and what old stock remains is invariably degraded by time. [Retrohax] has encountered it with the pens for an Atari plotter, a machine that uses an ALPS mechanism that appears in more than one 1980s machine. The original pens had dried out beyond the ability to refill, so he takes us through the process of finding replacements.

Sadly there are no equivalent modern pens ripe for modification, so whatever replacement he used would have to involve a little lateral thinking. He thought salvation was at hand in the form of multicolor ballpoint refills of the type where the ink is in an easily cuttable plastic tube. [Retrohax] and was able to make a 3D-printed holder for a cut-down ballpoint refill. Sadly the pressure required for a good line from a ballpoint was much higher than the original pens, so he was back to square one. Then he happened upon gel pens and tried the same trick with a gel pen refill. This gave instant success and should provide a valid technique for more than just this ALPS mechanism.

If you haven’t got a classic plotter to hand, never fear. You can have a go at making your own.

Traffic Updates On The Seven Seas: Open Source Chart Plotter Using A Raspberry Pi

November 4, 2019 by 7 Comments

As the Raspberry Pi in its various forms continues to flow into the wild by the thousands, it’s interesting to see its user base expand outside beyond the hacker communities. One group of people who’ve also started taking a liking to it is sailing enthusiasts. [James Conger] is one such sailor, and he built his own AIS enabled chart plotter for a fraction of the price of comparable commercial units.

AIS transponders in the Mediterranean. VesselFinder

Automatic Identification System (AIS) is a GPS tracking system that uses transponders to transmit a ship’s position data to other ships or receiver stations in an area. This is used for collision avoidance and by authorities (and hobbyists) to keep an eye on shipping traffic, and allow for stricken vessels to be found easily. [James]’ DIY chart plotter overlays the received AIS data over marine charts on a nice big display. A Raspberry Pi 3B+, AIS Receiver Hat, USB GPS dongle and a makes up the core of the system. The entire setup cost about $350. The Pi runs OpenCPN, an open source chart plotter and navigation software package that [John] says is rivals most commercial software. As most Pi users will know the SD card is often a weak link, so it’s probably worth having a backup SD card with all the software already installed just in case it fails during a voyage.

We’ve seen AIS receiver stations built using the RTL-SDR, as well as a number of projects around the AIS equivalent in aviation, ADS-B. Check out [John]’s video after the break. Continue reading “Traffic Updates On The Seven Seas: Open Source Chart Plotter Using A Raspberry Pi” →

Brachiograph: A Simple And Cheap Pen-Plotter

October 30, 2019 by 7 Comments

The BrachiGraph project consists out of two parts, the hardware design for a servo-driven drawing arm (pen plotter) and software utilities (written in Python) that allow the drawing arm’s servos to be controlled in order to convert a bitmap image into a collection of lines that can be used to draw an image resembling the original, in a variety of styles. All of the software and designs needed to make your own version can be found on the Github page for the project.

docs/images/readme_combined_image.png

Considering an estimated €14 worth of materials for the project, the produced results are nothing short of amazing, even if the principles behind the project go back to the Ancient Greek , of course. The basic hardware is that of a pantograph, which provides the basic clues for how the servos on the plotter arm are being driven.

The main achievement here is definitely that of minimalism, with three dirt-cheap SG-90 microservos along with some bits of wood, a clothes-peg or equivalent, and of course a pen providing a functional plotter that anyone can assemble on a slow Sunday afternoon from random bits lying around the workshop.

 

Pen-Plotter Firmware Written Completely In Ada

June 9, 2016 by 43 Comments

[Fabian Chouteau] built a plotter out of CD-ROM parts. Yawn, you say? Besides being a beautiful physical build, this one has a twist. He wrote the software and firmware for the entire project himself, in Ada.

Ada is currently number two on our list of oddball programming languages that should be useful for embedded programming. It’s vaguely Pascal-y, but with some modern object-oriented twists. It was developed for safety-critical, real-time embedded systems (by the US Department of Defense), and is used in things like airplanes, rockets, and the French TGV trains. If that sounds like overkill for your projects, [Fabian]’s project shows that it’s still very tractable.

In his GitHub, he re-implements the GRBL G-code generator and then writes a GUI front-end for it. In his writeup, he mentions that the firmware and its simulator for the front-end use exactly the same code which is quite a nice trick, and guarantees no (firmware) surprises when moving from the modelled device to the real thing.

We looked quickly around for Ada resources and came up with: GNAT, the GNU Ada compiler, and its derivatives: GNAT for ARM (STM32-flavor), ARM-Ada (LPC21xx flavor), AVR-Ada, and MSP430-Ada.

Any of you out there use Ada in embedded work? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Restoring A Vintage Computer And Its Plotter

September 22, 2025 by 23 Comments

Repairing vintage computers is bread-and-butter for many of us around here. The machines themselves tend to be fairly fixable, assuming spare parts are available and there hasn’t been too much physical damage. Peripherals can be another matter, though. Since they interface with the real world they can have more esoteric problems that aren’t always solvable. [joekutz] was handed just such a device in the form of a CE-150 docking station for a Sharp PC1500 Pocket Computer, which has a plotter built in. Here’s his “tip” for getting plotters like these working again.

The first step here is to disassemble the original, dried out pens to scavenge a few of the parts. The outer case needs to be kept so that it can be put back into the plotter, and a small O-ring is saved as well. To replace the dried-out tips [joekutz] discards the original tips and replaces them with tips from a common ink pen, using shrink wrap tubing to help fit the pen’s tip into the original plotter cylinder. He also takes the ink from the pen to fill the plotter’s cartridge, completing the surgery on the multi-colored plotter and bringing it back to life.

Of course this build goes well beyond the plotter, including bringing the PC1500 back to life as well. There are a few other videos about this project covering that original restoration as well as demonstrating some of the quirks of how this computer is meant to be programmed. But we mostly focused on the plotter here since that is a little bit out of the ordinary, and we’re also sure that refilling ink cartridges of any sort gets under the skin of everyone at HP.

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The Incrediplotter: Voice Controlled Plotter From Repurposed Printer

September 8, 2025 by 3 Comments

There’s something uniquely satisfying about a pen plotter. Though less speedy or precise than a modern printer, watching a pen glide across the page, mimicking human drawing, is mesmerizing. This project, submitted by [Jacob C], showcases the Incrediplotter, a brilliant repurposing of a 3D printer built by him and his brother.

Starting with a broken 3D printer, [Jacob C] and his brother repurposed its parts to create a voice-controlled pen plotter. They 3D-printed custom components to adapt the printer’s framework for plotting. An STM32 Blue Pill running Klipper controls two TMC2208 motor drivers for the x- and y-axes, while a small standalone servo manages the pen’s height.

The unique twist lies in the software: you can speak to the plotter, and it generates a drawing based on your prompt without needing to select an image. The process involves sending the user’s voice prompt to Google Gemini, which generates an image. The software then converts this image into an SVG compatible with the plotter. Finally, the SVG is translated into G-Code and sent to the plotter to start drawing.

Thanks to [Jacob C] for sharing this impressive project. It’s a fantastic example of repurposing a broken machine, and the voice-to-image feature adds a creative twist, enabling anyone to create unique artwork. Be sure to check out our other featured plotter hacks for more inspiration.

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