🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <289@sdchema.sdchem.UUCP> sd@sdchem.UUCP (Steve Dempsey) writes:
>We are in the market for a new small plotter.  Our requirements are:
>
>1. 11" x 17" flatbed with sheet feeder, or 11" wide drum.
>2. Self capping pens (minimum of 4).
>3. RS232 interface.
>
>Send me your experiences, both good and bad, and I'll summarize for the net.
>Thanks in advance.

(I know he meant mail, but I am sort of an expert here, so I thought my
reply would be of general interest.)

I used to work for Applicon, and was their main plotter guru there. I had the
opportunity to extensively evaluate a wide variety of plotters, including
those from HP, Calcomp, Huoston Instruments, and so forth. The clear winner
is HP. The HP 7550 does everything you need, has a very simple yet extremely
powerful interface language (HP-GL), is exteremely reliable, has the best
manufacturers support, the best documentation, generated the best looking
plots of the like, and so on.

The price may or may not be as good as the others, but having spent many
hundreds of hours writing software for them all, and having to jury rig
repairs on many of them to get them to work, the extra price for the HP
was far and away worth it.

By the way, the worst line of plotters I encountered was that from Calcomp.
Crude interface languages, poor reliability, miserable documentation, what
support from the manufacturer I could find was either ill-informed or down-
right nasty. I can never recommend the use of Calcomp products to anyone.

Dick Pierce

> In article <289@sdchema.sdchem.UUCP> sd@sdchem.UUCP (Steve Dempsey) writes:
> >We are in the market for a new small plotter.  Our requirements are:
		----- He describes a plotter

> In article <3127@teddy.UUCP>:
> The clear winner is HP. 
	... ... ...
> By the way, the worst line of plotters I encountered was that from Calcomp.

I can second his comments.  Be particularly wary of Calcomp's "HPGL"
emulation package.  It does NOT fully emulate an HP plotter.  For instance,
on our CAD system if we send text to the HP plotter, the zero "0" is plotted
as a circle with a line through it.  On the Calcomp with HPGL emulation the
zero "0" is plotted as a circle followed by the line:  "O/"

Needless to say, this creates unreadable dimensions on a CAD drawing.

Besides this software emulation problem, we have had numerous mechanical 
problems with pen alignment, etc.  We have found it impossible to plot on
mylar with the Calcomp.  The worst problem is related to the pen alignment
bracket.  This appears to be about a $1.50 part that the pen passes through
on its way to the paper.  The inside diameter of the hole that the pen
passes through is approx .157" , the pens are .156" .  There is no easy way
to adjust the location of the alignment bracket within .001" concentricity
with the pen holder.  The result is that oftentimes the pen never even
touches the paper as it gets stuck in the alignment bracket.  

Final evaluation:  Time wasted on Calcomp problems is more expensive than
			extra cost of HP plotter.

pen