Hi, I want to plot layout from Protel 99 SE directly on film, with my HP7475A, Windows drivers arre not good because they are clogging pen very quickly (their output is quite chaotic with many penups and downs which produces un-acceptable results). Could anyone tell me where to find such pen plotte driver? Thganks in advance, Bojan
snipped-for-privacy@iinet.net.au wrote:
Usually with film plotting the paper is the culprit. The ink you use may also be the subject of the clotting. Does your plotter flow nicely on bond? If so I would use a faster drying ink on the film. Is the Film Vellum? If it is you are sure to be using the vellum with coating adhered to it. This tends to clog the pen tip. You should use a lower grade velum or mylar. These are closer to bond paper than are the more exspensive films. Pen choice is also important in the defining of your rendering. The pens ups and downs are because the plotter is reading the drawing in a random manner or the program is drawn in that random manner. You have two choices. Reconfigure your plotter or programmed drawing so that all one pen movement is required at a time then the next pen to plot will activate. These should be in the plotter driver and manual you have with the plotter. The second option is reconfigure your programmed drawing to different layers and assign pens to each layer. With some CAD programms this is difficult but essential to master. I have worked with plotting several different CAD software and each one is different but achievable. Refer to your CAD manual or contact your CAD representative. I do not believe that the drivers are the culperate in your mishaps with the plotter. MY best resource for plotters is Riverside Blueprint in California USA for any tips you may have regaurding plotters, pens, ink or paper. Thier customer service is quite good. I would ask for Percilla.
Astonishing how long lasting these are! The one I allowed to retire 1-2 years ago would still work, I suppose.
Well penup/down is not exactly a "driver" (communication) issue, it is up to the CAD software to prepare the output to the plotter without them. I remember I had to do special checks not only on line discontinuities, but also cache a few lines and check the entire group before plotting (20 years ago; this software still lives, although I run it on a PPC emulation of the original 6809 based system, tens of times faster than it used to run on a proud 2 MHz 6809..). So my guess is you cannot influence that without some special hpgl software - which may well exist, I just don't know. What you can try is to manually set the pen speeds before plotting, was something like... well, turns out I have forgotten how is went, began with SV... may be SV1,5; (pen number, speed 1 to 10, I think...). Sorry for the useless posting. I wrote it that far and I'll post it anyway, someone else might also have fun being reminded of the hp7475, although it won't be much help to the OP .... Ah, and I remembered about the speed. It was SVx; x being 1 to 10, I think. No pen number. Just "select velocity".... :-)
Dimiter
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snipped-for-privacy@i> Hi,
I agree with the above. I used to be heavily involved in drivers in the 1980s pen plotter / CAD market, HP, Calcomp, etc.
Windoze has no *vector* drivers as such; it is up to the application program to generate the vector data and squirt it out of a COM port or whatever.
Hi all, Thank you very much for your help, I will try Prescilla.. (does anybody have email address? I live in Australia..) Yes, I agree that the problems I have are not really a windows driver it may be the way Protel generates the drawing, but I am not sure... Loooong time ago I was close to a group of guys who made the plotter driver for Ultiboard - it was actually a DOS application which was reading the intermediate plot produced by the Ultiboard and output the result to a plotter, They did it in such a way that the output was sorted out like this: pads were plotted first with drill guides, then tracks (beginning from centre line and the spiralling outwards. This method of plotting NEVER clogged the pen and was used to directly produce the film.. or layout on copper, using flat bed plotter and resist ink. I still have this program but I would really like to (finally) migrate completely into windows domain :-) (because Protel is so much better than ultiboard. Otherwise I would not bother..) I was made aware some time ago that there were third party applications that did exactly what I have described above, but they were quite expensive and I never had a chance to evaluate any of them... Anyway, thank you again :-)
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