HPGL Plotter

A library by David Sjunnesson for the Processing programming environment.
Last update, 01/24/2015.

A library to interface with HPGL plotters such as HP7550a.
It is only tested on OSX and with a HP7550a plotter.

Download

Download HPGL Plotter version 1.0.1 (1) in .zip format.

Installation

Unzip and put the extracted HPGL_Plotter folder into the libraries folder of your Processing sketches. Reference and examples are included in the HPGL_Plotter folder.

Hardware

You need a USB to DB25 converter to interface to a HP7550a. Im using this bought at Amazon.
It has the ch340 chipset inside that needs this drivers from the Chinese manufacturer
On OSX you need to do this sequence originaly created by Alexandre de Pellegrin

  1. Install the CH340 driver
  2. Run this command in Terminal: sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"
  3. Reboot your computer

On the Plotter you need to setup this configuration
  • Baudrate 9600
  • Handshake: Xon/Xoff Direct
  • Data flow: Local Standalone (this seems to reset after power down of plotter on my machine)
  • Bypass: OFF
  • Duplex: Full
  • Parity: 8-bits OFF

To access the submenu for this settings on the HP7550a press:
  1. "Next Display"
  2. "Enter"
  3. "Next Display"
  4. "Serial"

Installation

Unzip and put the extracted HPGL_Plotter folder into the libraries folder of your Processing sketches. Reference and examples are included in the HPGL_Plotter folder.

Keywords. Plotter,HP7550a,drawing

Reference. Have a look at the javadoc reference here. A copy of the reference is included in the .zip as well.

Source. The source code of HPGL Plotter is available at GitHub, and its repository can be browsed here.

Examples

Find a list of examples in the current distribution of HPGL Plotter, or have a look at them by following the links below.

Tested

Platformosx
Processing1.5
DependenciesSerial