); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Errors-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] RETRY I really appreciate the Detailed reply, Thanks. Your web page has an error though that prevents downloading the roland drivers. the link to them is file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/neonjohn/My%20Documents/My%20Webs/Neon_John/Neon/Misc/Roland_RWD- 028.zip
since I'm not on your local machine I have no access to files on your C: drive, atleast referenced this way. Could the link be updated or could you just email the drivers. Thanks, I'll let you know how it goes. Eric On 10/20/07, Neon John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:57:27 -0700, "Eric Fort" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > >There seems to be a wealth of knowlege here about keeping older HP > hardware > >running. Would anyone in this group have experience using a 7475A > plotter > >under XP or Linux to plot test data or drawings. I'd like to get mine > >running again. > > No problem. I use an E-size HP engineering plotter to make neon patterns > and to plot > schematics. I have it working quite well under XP. > > These old plotters are HPGL or HPGL-1 - same thing. They are NOT > compatible with > HPGL-2. An additional complication that arises with some software > packages is that > there are two common implementations of HPGL. The HP standard one has the > origin at > the corner of the paper and all movement instructions are positive > intergers. The > other one has the origin in the center of the page and movement > instructions involve > positive and negative intergers. They are not compatible. If you get a > plot but > it's only about a quarter of the drawing then the driver is outputting a > center-zero > file to a corner-zero plotter. > > Microsoft dropped HPGL support, what little there was, from XP. No > problem. Sign > vinyl cutters almost all use HPGL and are still in > production. Unfortunately many > use center-page-origin HPGL. Fortunately Roland does not. Therefore > Roland drivers > will work with HP plotters. > > Unfortunately, Roland apparently has taken down their windows plotter > drivers. > Fortunately I haven't :-) You can get the drivers from my site here: > > http://www.neon-john.com/Neon/Misc/misc_home.htm > > Bottom of the page. ( a google click or two would be appreciated :-) > You'll have to > experiment a bit to find out which Roland plotter most closely > approximates your > plotter. > > This is a universal solution that will let just about any program send > vector images > to the plotter via windows printing. Just for kicks sometime, print a > text file from > WordPad and watch what happens. The plotter carefully draws each and > every letter. > > If, for some reason, this doesn't work, there is another method that I use > with > CorelDraw and any other package that can export the drawing in HPGL > format. > > Simply choose "export", select "HPGL" and select a place to store the > file. Then use > Hyperterm or any other terminal package capable of sending out an ASCII > file and copy > the HPGL file to the COM port that the plotter is connected to. This will > be generic > HPGL and won't have any plotter setup info in it. OTOH, usually none is > needed. > > My HP plotter and/or Hyperterm (can't remember which is the culprit) does > NOT use > Xon/Xoff handshaking. Therefore hardware handshaking MUST be enabled and > wired in > the interface. Additionally, several pins must be jumpered together to > make things > work. When you get that far, drop me a note and I'll go dig out my > adapter and give > you the wiring. This handshaking requirement applies to the XP drivers > too. > > A few notes about using a pen plotter with Windows and Corel in > particular. Set ALL > lines to "hairline". Use the ^A key to "select all" and then set the line > width to > "hairline". The reason is that Corel and/or the driver is so dumb that > instead of > making a wide line by making several long strokes with the pen offset a > little each > time, it scribbles it in like a first grader coloring. That is, if the > line is to be > 24 points wide, the pin is driven to scribble back and forth on 24 point > strokes. It > draws effectively about an inch a minute like that, if it doesn't wear a > hole in the > paper. > > Set your actual line widths by using various width pens. Set, say, a 4 > point wide > line to pen 1, an 8 point line to pen 2, etc. > > Also, convert all the colors to black. For some reason the translation > from color to > pen number doesn't work too well. If you need the output to be in color > then move > each color in the drawing to a different layer and then assign the > appropriate pen to > each layer. > > Sometimes text comes out looking better if you "convert to curves" before > plotting. > > Rots o Ruck finding pens. They're available but hard to find and very > expensive. I'm > fortunate to have acquired several Rapidograph drafting pen to HP pen > adapters so > that I can use india ink to draw with. India ink on mylar is still THE > kick-ass way > to make PCB masks if you don't have a photo-plotter handy. I bought out > the entire > remaining stock so there are no more anywhere in the country according to > the > factory. > > When I don't feel like messing with liquid ink, I use felt tip pens. I've > hacked up > an HP pen to accept a shortened ordinary writing felt tip. I've also > tried roller > ball and gel pens. Both work but the plotting speed has to be kept down > to 1" per > second. > > BTW, I found this painful-to-retrieve programming manual for your plotter > while > googling around. > > > http://www.luberth.com/help/HP_7475_Graphics_Plotter_interfacing_and_programming_manual/ > > BTW2, Several years ago I experimented with photo-plotting by making up a > pen adapter > that held an optical fiber instead of a pen. I tapped the pen up/down > solenoid to > turn the light source on and off. Plotting in a dark room directly to > film worked > fairly well. Now that green laser modules are available so cheaply, I'm > going to > revisit the concept, only this time with the module mounted directly in a > pen body. > > So as not to waste so much film on my fixed-width plotter, I'd set up an > E-size page > in Corel. I draw a box in the center of the page the size of the film. to > be used. I > plot this to a carrier sheet of mylar in the plotter using a pencil > mounted in a pen > body. This lets me erase the lines later and reuse the mylar. > > In Corel, I then turn on the layer with the PCB artwork, tape the film to > the square > on the paper and plot only the artwork layer. Works great. I use this > same > technique when plotting to mylar so as not to waste a large sheet on small > artwork. > Adhering the film to the mylar with 3M spray adhesive greatly improves the > dimensional accuracy. > John > -- > John De Armond > See my website for my current email address > http://www.neon-john.com > http://www.johndearmond.com <-- best little blog on the net! > Tellico Plains, Occupied TN > Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be a convenience store, not a > government agency. > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
