Mastodawn

New blog post! About an old, happily computer-less pen plotter and connecting it to a computer. Also, some inconsequential thoughts on generating plotter art.
https://25120.org/post/hpgl_xy/

#plotter #penplotter #plotterverse

This Is Where I Draw The Line – 25120

So I’ve had a pen plotter for quite a while now. It has shown up a few years back in a post on this site, where I used it for its intended purpose—recording X–Y curves. This plotter is quite a beast, it’s big (up to DIN A3) and heavy, and it’s unlike the majority of vintage plotters you’ll see people using online. This HP 7045A is fully analogue, which means it takes an X voltage and a Y voltage and directly controls the axis motors with analogue servo loops. In fact, it’s more correctly referred to as a recorder, rather than a plotter, since its purpose is to record measurement charts.

paulrickards Nov 24

RE: https://mastodon.social/@paulrickards/109291723727249986

Back in 2022, I announced I'd switch to using the #PenPlotter hashtag on Fedi for my art. (I also follow that hashtag which is a great way to have an instantly curated stream.)

If you're a pen plotter artist or enthusiast, I hope you'll join me in tagging your art with #PenPlotter The hope is to recreate the early days of #PlotterTwitter and discover more great plotter art 👋

FYI other tags that I've seen: #PlotterToot #PlotterVerse #PlotterArt #AxiDraw

DeGraeve Nov 22, 2024

working on some SVGs to plot this weekend #plotterart #plotterverse #penplotter

Brian Boucheron Nov 14, 2022

#plottertwitter pen plotter artists and tinkerers, where are we congregating in this new world? (nice to see you here, either way)

#plotterverse #penplotter #plotterart #plottertoot

#plotterverse

4.8%

#penplotter

66.7%

#plotterart

14.3%

#plottertoot

14.3%

Poll ended at Nov 17, 2022 at 11:29am.

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Brian Boucheron Nov 14, 2022

@igb @jakedonham 👋🏻 hey all, @paulrickards has suggested #penplotter, which seems as good as anything. i've also seen #plottertoot, #plotterverse, #plotterart, and plain #plotter. hopefully folks settle into a winner, but it's easy enough to watch multiple hashtags so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

have fun!

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fruchti Nov 6, 2022

@paulrickards I’ve also seen #plotterverse proposed, but that tag doesn’t seem to be as active recently.

fruchti Nov 29, 2020

First plots! Well, first computer-controlled plots!

Shown here: HP 7045A analogue X-Y recorder with signals generated by an STM32F103. X and Y are generated with PWM and an extremely basic 2nd order low pass filter.

#plotter, #plotterverse

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Philipp Dec 12, 2019

Actually, there’s been a few of those recently. #plottertwitter is a thing on Twitter, but I thought it would be a shame not to share my pen plotter experiments with the Fediverse. Is there a Mastodon equivalent that I’m not aware of? #plotterverse? #plottytoot? The first turns up a handful of toots, but there’s hardly a community around it. 😕

I think I’d like to publish on a site I control and have bots post to social media, but until I can be asked to do that, #plottertwitter wins I’m afraid.