Plotter recommendation wanted

Hi all,

Looks like I will be upgrading to Land Development 4 and associated software
(Civil and Survey) in the near future, seeing as Autodesk has decided to
make 2000 obsolete. I am also looking at a new plotter to replace my old
but functional HP 650C. HP says that the 800 series plotters are the
"replacement" for the 600 and 700 series plotters, but I am not too thrilled
with spending over four thousand on a new HP 800.

I have heard that there are some unique problems with plotting to the 500
series of plotters, maybe unfounded rumors. If no problems, does anyone run
a 500 or 500 ps with ACAD 2000 (or ACAD 2004) and have any issues? I'm also
looking at "low-end" in the 120 series, although I think that's a bit too
low-end for me.

Would like some recommendations on the ideal bang for the buck in a small
engineering office - we have three workstations on a network, I would like
to run USB cabling, and two of the systems will be running Win XP Pro, one
still has Win 2K.

Thanks for any advice. I'm also going to post a question on archivability
of inks.

 

Is there some reason you want to lose the 650C? If you are experiencing
problems with it, often times the problem is reparable. We had somebody
service our HP 430 DesignJet, and it has been working fine since for two
years. My thought is that if you have one that does well, there may be no
need to replace it unless it is too slow. But then how much faster can you
produce with a new one? Speed is the only thing that would make me R&R a
plotter.
What reasons are you entertaining?

 

Speed. On a fairly good sized plot (1KB) it takes the better part of
fifteen minutes to get to the point where it will start plotting, and
another ten to plot. My settings may be off a bit, but if I have a large
number of plots, or I'm in a crunch, I don't need to be waiting all day.

Quite honestly, I don't have the time to spend a day or an evening farting
around with the settings, either. I had quite a bit of difficulty setting
up the 650c with Autocad 2000i, and I was hoping a new one would be a bit
more "plug and play".

 

Then I agree with you. However, I can't see what in the world is taking so
long! At Phoenix Gold, I was using an HP 600 DesignJet and it didn't take
that long to get a plot started. Did you check with HP to see if it was
normal to take so long?

 

I have an older DesignJet 330E (so old and low-end it doesn't have an auto
cutter) and it's slow, but not that slow!!! Even really "complicated"
drawings process in under 5 minutes and print in ~5 minutes. I'd guess
you've got a settings problem (is your driver good?) Has it always been
this slow? What settings are you using ("best" mode on my plotter is
terribly slow and looks no better than "normal", though "fast" does look
like crap). Also, you might check plotter memory and try processing the
file in the computer versus in the plotter.

Hope you figure it out!

Michael
(Keep in mind, I'm using R14 daily and ADT3.3 occassionally - so some of
this info may not apply)

 

The long time bane of the CAD draftsman - PLOTTER CONFIGURATION!
Sorry, but buying a new plotter is only rolling the dice regarding
success in this area. It might work wonderfully out of the box... then
again it might not. Or it might work well now, and then inexpiably
cease to function properly 6 months from now.

I suggest that you fix the problem with your current plotter
configuration (or the network, or the operating system, or the cable
picking up noise from the fluorescent lamp you put in 2 months ago, or
an infinite number of other possibilities) It is preferable to do this
on a plotter you already know, rather than a plotter you are new to.

Joe

 

In alt.cad.autocad , some wrote :

Some dies though, my DJ600 plots went from taking 6 or 7 minutes to plot
under R14 to 20-25 minute under r2k :-((((
Plot files grew from 250k to 1.3Meg !!!! and I had to track down more ram
just for it to be able to continue to function at all. If next acad
'upgrade' makes it worse I will just email the files to a repro shop ...
Ron

 

Whooooo hooooo!!! I knew I was right to stick with R14!!!!
Seriously, I hope that 2004 doesn't have this "feature" because I'm going to
be making the jump into ADT2004 in the next few weeks and hope my
productivity doesn't suffer.


Michael (LS)

 

In alt.cad.autocad , TomD wrote :

I'm talking 2000i, and solid fills make little difference here, seems
more like the XP &/or A2Ki drivers for the plotter treat plot files more
like 'bitmaps' than 'vector' drawings. as file is _very_ similar for any
plots on same size paper. Even plotting a blank title block for a
little hand drawing is almost the same file size !
Ron

 

Check with HP? You gotta be kidding. They literally hung up the phone on
me when I told them I had a 650C. If you don't have the latest and
greatest, forget it.

FWIW, I am using 2000i, on an AMD 1 GHz machine, parallel port, and the
plotter has the full 68 MB of memory installed. I used the plotter
configuration from HP, and it works. One thing I have noticed - if I don't
plot a border on my drawing, but just the contents, it starts within 30
seconds. If I plot the border it takes up to ten minutes to start plotting.

Jon E

 

Just a border? Or is this a title block complete with TrueType fonts,
attributed blocks, etc.?
___

plotting.

 

Are there true type fonts in the titleblock? They can (IME) really slow
things down. Also, is there anything else in the titleblock that could be
causing the problem (i.e. xref's or images)?

Michael (LS)

 

Jon:
Please read this site:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=2868932&linkID
=2475323

Good luck

 

It's been my experience that the new plot drivers (as well as API) are junk.
Try some older drivers - that is, drivers for older devices.
Any of the DesignJets will take simpler HPGL2 output than their own drivers.
The simplest color -that will carry all your HP2 features - is the HP 7600C
electrostatic driver. It is the simplest HP2 color implimentation - if 2000i
& up still list it.
If you use the newer configurations, set them to "Process in Computer," this
will allow the device to start printing raster data immediately and avoid
topping-out the plotter's internal registers.

 

Thanks, good advice, and thanks to all who have responded. The border is
full of Truetype fonts. It may be the driver, not optimized for such. When
I plot 11x17 to my Epson 1280, it comes out immediately. Not so with the
650C.

Jon E

 

Yep I have the same issue. I have a DesignJet330E and a DeskJet1220C. The
plotter is slower with Truetype fonts than the printer is (though not
terribly slow, just slower). The biggest slowdown I've noticed with TTF's
is in regens & Osnaps. I only use TTF's in my titleblock and when working
in paperspace I just turn off my titleblock layer until I'm reading to print
(having the TTFs turned off does eliminate the lag I experience).

HTH,


Michael (LS)

 

A standard problem with Autocad, HP plotters, and truetype fonts.
Solution? Set textqlty variable lower. I found that settings for inkjet
plotters can easily be reduced from the default of 50 to 8 with no
visible deterioration of quality (my eyes may not be as good as yours)
and the start plot time is reduced by 70% or better. The loading of the
truetype fonts through the parallel port is what takes so long. Look at
the plot file size by opening the print spool for the file when you send
it to the plotter. The file size can shrink to as little as 10% depending
on the number and complexity of fonts used.