I have been fascinated by pen plotting art and contemplated buying a pen plotter for quite some time. However, I know nothing about programming language and have been overwhelmed by the idea of trying to learn. But today I found your video and I’m inspired to try! Thank you so much for breaking it down so simply and eloquently!
A pen plotter (as a DIY project) is on my to-do list. Funnily enough it never even registered that they are so widely used, such as in seismographs and, well DUH!, lie detectors... So, obviouly now you've pointed it out. Completely escaped my noticed even though I've developed a bit of an obsession with drawing machines and pen plotters lately; I've obviously seen them in action, mainly in movies. I guess seeing them from now on just won't be the same. Anyway; fascinating subject.
This is a very good video explaining uses and software. Another use is hand written wedding invitations. You can use software to randomize the font giving a more handwritten look. Addressing 250 wedding invitations is grueling by hand but is much easier using a pen plotter
Well... I'm sold. I draw digitally (I'm a comic artist working for DC comics), and have done for a number years (clip studio paint mostly), and I've always wanted to find a way to sell original copies of the work without it just being a print... This just randomly popped up in my feed, and as my work is very "technical pen" looking even in digital... this is pretty much exactly what I have been looking for. As I also use a lot of line based architecture 3d models, i think this is going to be ideal. Brilliant way to round off the year... thanks for sharing.
Nice video! I ordered my Axidraw a few weeks ago, excited to get it soon. Would be happy to send you something to print once i get it working with my generative art.
Sadly, Stabilo Point 88 pens aren't permanent or lightfast -- they don't claim to be, anyway. Staedtler 308 coloured pigment liners do claim to be permanent, but they're more expensive and they seem to be very difficult to get hold of at the moment.
Ah, thanks for the update. I should stick some in the window and see how they do. Can't change this video, but I'll have something in the video all about pens.
Nice video. Learned a lot. Two questions: Can you draw with a stylus on a tablet? And can you move the "pen" real time randomly? Like if you wanted to use it like a scratch pad? Or like remote control drawing on the tablet using a phone or computer to control the stylus real time?
1. You can draw with a stylus on a tablet, there's very little downwards pressure so it's fine to use. 2. You can move the "pen" in real time, but you'd need to code that in python. AxiDraw has a very simple python library so it'd be only a few lines of code to tell it to move around randomly, you basically use a "moveto(x,y)" line in the code. "Real time" is a function of how fast the machine can move though, it goes at a fairly steady pace, so if you told it to move to a bunch of "moveto(x,y)" locations in a couple of seconds, it'd still take time to complete those steps, so real time with a bit of lag, if that makes sense.
Thank you for such an amazing video!! It would be really amazing to actually see how basic code is used to make lines and geometric shapes... im in love with the art and try to learn and thinking of buying my own penplotter but im not so knowledgeable with coding...
Yes, absolutely. I've seen people place the plotter directly onto wood and it works. Also sometimes you can raise the plotter off to the side (with a couple of books, lol) and get it to plot on different reasonably flat surfaces.
maybe nobody has actually tried with graphite? I imagine you could 3d print a tube to fit a thin graphite stick inside of it and then just put a weight on top of the graphite so that it keeps even pressure throughout the plot. I actually want to use graphite to do some sketching for a project idea. I also think its possible to use one of those tech pencils that doesnt require sharpening.
Paper handlers for auto-feeding are kinda pricy, although I have seen some people do it with lego! You can tell the plotter how many plots you want done, and what delay to use between them, so that part is sorted. Some people us a cheap printer set to print a blank page every X minutes to feed the paper one. What you need then is something to hold the paper in place, then remove the paper. But I expect those two parts easier than the first.
Great Video! Did you tried auto advanced mechanical pencils? Actually i was thinking about getting a Pen Plotter years ago and use the auto advanced mechanical pencils for my art.
I have a couple of times, although they were surprisingly hard to find. Auto rotating yes, but advancing was trickier. It depends on the plot you're doing, I normally make plots with lots of long lines, and the pencils only advance when they're lifted off the paper. Certainly worth investigating more though.
Pencils take more downwards force than the pen plotter can provide, so they tend to just leave a very faint line. There's all sorts of other problems with the lead wearing down to. So you end up having to work out how to apply downward force _and_ keep the top sharp. There are ways of solving either of those problem, but doing both is tricky.
My cnc pen plotter is going on the wrong side. When it draws the picture, it is not in this direction, but it is moving to the left side. how to fix it? Is it a software problem?
I've got a pen plotter on order. Been a graphic designer for a while and want to get into illustration. Have downloaded Inkscape. Seems that it doesn't work with MacOS13 at all. Any ideas how a non programmer can use a pen plotter from Adobe Illustrator? thx
Oh, this is the second time I've heard someone say InkScape doesn't work with OSX13. I'm still on 12.x and saying that way for a while (hopefully). Sorry I don't have an easy answer for you that isn't programmer-y. Hopefully it gets updated in the next couple of weeks, that often happens. Otherwise we'll have to start looking around for solutions. (This is also one reason why I don't use InkScape)
great introduction, thanks! I‘m coming over from the 3D-printer bubble and want to get into pen plotting. Do you have experience with DIY plotter builds? Really interested in building my own :)
I'm terrible at DIY, so I always use the pre-made ones 😁 If you head over to drawingbots.net/ and look in the discord there's lots of people there who build their own machines. It's getting easier all the time, and the kits are great. I think it's a fantastic and pretty satisfying project to build your own and get it to draw. I think the iDraw comes in kit form and loads of people use those.
So I have a condition called dysgraphia, essentially I can’t write by hand. I’ve considered getting a pen plotter just to be able to do some basic things. What model would you recommend?
Well, I always use an AxiDraw so can only really recommend that, a small A4 model should do it. Although I'd check to see if you could pick on up second hand. And alternative which may be better is the "Cricut Explore 3" with the pen adapter, there should be a load of videos on TH-cam. They're probably skewed towards the craft end of things, but the software comes with fonts for writing _I think_!
After a lot of thinking I Made an attachment for my cnc. Tried a simple design and it worked perfectly. But now I have a complicated SVG and I can not convert it to gcode. Inkscape freezes. Have you gotten any tips on how to do this ? Thanks!
I've used LightBurn to convert SVGs to GCODE before: lightburnsoftware.com/ although that may not help you in this case, there's some alternatives here: all3dp.com/2/svg-to-gcode-convert-files/
Yeah, pretty much. The machines are super precise. The "Special Edition" versions are a little sturdier which allows you to run them faster without loosing precision, but either model run at "normal" speeds are good.
Pencils take a surprising amount of downwards pressure to get a good line out of, so they'll be disappointingly faint, and if you get ones soft enough to leave a mark, then as @mitchelleggers5918 says they'll wear down before your plot is finished. Auto-feeding mechanical pencils are harder to find than you'd expect. Basically there's a gulf of disappointment between what you'd want and expect and what actually happens. ALTHOUGH, you will find artists that have managed it, there's always exceptions.
Yup pretty much exactly that, most of them you can even send GCODE too and they'll work. I've seen some people put pens into their cnc machine to turn it into a pen plotter too.
Yup, it still doesn't work that great, half of the problem is needing more pressure to press the pencil down (but still allow the servo to lift it up). The other problem is the type of plot you do doesn't always allow the pencil to lift up long enough for the mechanical pencil to do it's thing.
Yeah, I think making your own is probably the way to go for a lot of people. I just can't even screw two things together so it'd be months of frustration for me.
If you search for "xy plotter" it should pull up a bunch of kits and plotters, the "LY Drawbot" is a super cheap one too, which I've seen a couple of people go with.
First! How-tos and tutorials coming soon™️
Came for a history video, stayed for the art. Very helpful and informative!
I have been fascinated by pen plotting art and contemplated buying a pen plotter for quite some time. However, I know nothing about programming language and have been overwhelmed by the idea of trying to learn. But today I found your video and I’m inspired to try! Thank you so much for breaking it down so simply and eloquently!
Go for it! They're great fun to play with.
It's finally begun! THE TUTORIALS!
Going to take a few months to roll them all out, but yeah here we go!
A pen plotter (as a DIY project) is on my to-do list. Funnily enough it never even registered that they are so widely used, such as in seismographs and, well DUH!, lie detectors... So, obviouly now you've pointed it out. Completely escaped my noticed even though I've developed a bit of an obsession with drawing machines and pen plotters lately; I've obviously seen them in action, mainly in movies. I guess seeing them from now on just won't be the same. Anyway; fascinating subject.
This is a very good video explaining uses and software. Another use is hand written wedding invitations. You can use software to randomize the font giving a more handwritten look. Addressing 250 wedding invitations is grueling by hand but is much easier using a pen plotter
Well... I'm sold. I draw digitally (I'm a comic artist working for DC comics), and have done for a number years (clip studio paint mostly), and I've always wanted to find a way to sell original copies of the work without it just being a print...
This just randomly popped up in my feed, and as my work is very "technical pen" looking even in digital... this is pretty much exactly what I have been looking for.
As I also use a lot of line based architecture 3d models, i think this is going to be ideal. Brilliant way to round off the year... thanks for sharing.
it's the question we've been wanting answered for years!
I was surprised there wasn't already a video, so I figured I'd stick one up to help people typing it into google 😁
Really insightful and digestible video!
This is a really well-done video! I love the visual description of MoveTo and LineTo.
Nice work, Dan!
Hey thanks! Going to be doing another video soon which is pretty much just those two things, lol!
Thanks for your information. Exactly what I was looking for!
What an amazing video! I love the detail, thank you!
Glad you liked it!
Your video was an eyeopener.
Thanks for all the information and links.
Lots of info to be studied.
a wonderful discussion of the history of the plotters!!
Thank you. I want to go into a deep dive at some point, but I think I'd need to interview some people far more knowledgeable than me about it.
Great overview. Quite helpfull even after over a year of plotting
Thanks, that's very kind. Gotta do "What is an SVG?", "What is a pen?", and "What is paper?" next 😆
I'm looking forward to the How-tos and the tutorials.
Dan. Love the content of your channel. Keep it coming 👍🏼
Nice video! I ordered my Axidraw a few weeks ago, excited to get it soon. Would be happy to send you something to print once i get it working with my generative art.
That would be amazing, you're going to have so much fun with it.
Great video. Thank you.
Great video! Thanks!
Wow! Thank for sharing!
Sadly, Stabilo Point 88 pens aren't permanent or lightfast -- they don't claim to be, anyway. Staedtler 308 coloured pigment liners do claim to be permanent, but they're more expensive and they seem to be very difficult to get hold of at the moment.
Ah, thanks for the update. I should stick some in the window and see how they do. Can't change this video, but I'll have something in the video all about pens.
Nice video. Learned a lot. Two questions: Can you draw with a stylus on a tablet? And can you move the "pen" real time randomly? Like if you wanted to use it like a scratch pad? Or like remote control drawing on the tablet using a phone or computer to control the stylus real time?
1. You can draw with a stylus on a tablet, there's very little downwards pressure so it's fine to use.
2. You can move the "pen" in real time, but you'd need to code that in python. AxiDraw has a very simple python library so it'd be only a few lines of code to tell it to move around randomly, you basically use a "moveto(x,y)" line in the code. "Real time" is a function of how fast the machine can move though, it goes at a fairly steady pace, so if you told it to move to a bunch of "moveto(x,y)" locations in a couple of seconds, it'd still take time to complete those steps, so real time with a bit of lag, if that makes sense.
Thank you for your reply! @@revdancatt
Thank you for such an amazing video!! It would be really amazing to actually see how basic code is used to make lines and geometric shapes... im in love with the art and try to learn and thinking of buying my own penplotter but im not so knowledgeable with coding...
Ah, I'm going to be making some videos about that soon, hopefully they'll help. Thankfully it's not that complicated!
This video is very informative. Thanks for the details. Do you think it would be possible to pen plot on wooden surfaces ?
Yes, absolutely. I've seen people place the plotter directly onto wood and it works. Also sometimes you can raise the plotter off to the side (with a couple of books, lol) and get it to plot on different reasonably flat surfaces.
@@revdancatt thank you so much h for taking the time to respond and also sharing tips as well. Truly appreciate it
great video thanks for the info!
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent thanks !!
Thank you.
maybe nobody has actually tried with graphite? I imagine you could 3d print a tube to fit a thin graphite stick inside of it and then just put a weight on top of the graphite so that it keeps even pressure throughout the plot. I actually want to use graphite to do some sketching for a project idea. I also think its possible to use one of those tech pencils that doesnt require sharpening.
I have this same machine and Im trying to design an auto feed tray. Any thoughts on what could work?
Paper handlers for auto-feeding are kinda pricy, although I have seen some people do it with lego!
You can tell the plotter how many plots you want done, and what delay to use between them, so that part is sorted.
Some people us a cheap printer set to print a blank page every X minutes to feed the paper one. What you need then is something to hold the paper in place, then remove the paper. But I expect those two parts easier than the first.
Great Video! Did you tried auto advanced mechanical pencils? Actually i was thinking about getting a Pen Plotter years ago and use the auto advanced mechanical pencils for my art.
I have a couple of times, although they were surprisingly hard to find. Auto rotating yes, but advancing was trickier. It depends on the plot you're doing, I normally make plots with lots of long lines, and the pencils only advance when they're lifted off the paper. Certainly worth investigating more though.
Hello Dan, great intro video, thank you.
Why are pencils a nono?
Pencils take more downwards force than the pen plotter can provide, so they tend to just leave a very faint line. There's all sorts of other problems with the lead wearing down to.
So you end up having to work out how to apply downward force _and_ keep the top sharp. There are ways of solving either of those problem, but doing both is tricky.
My cnc pen plotter is going on the wrong side. When it draws the picture, it is not in this direction, but it is moving to the left side. how to fix it? Is it a software problem?
I've got a pen plotter on order. Been a graphic designer for a while and want to get into illustration. Have downloaded Inkscape. Seems that it doesn't work with MacOS13 at all. Any ideas how a non programmer can use a pen plotter from Adobe Illustrator? thx
Oh, this is the second time I've heard someone say InkScape doesn't work with OSX13. I'm still on 12.x and saying that way for a while (hopefully). Sorry I don't have an easy answer for you that isn't programmer-y. Hopefully it gets updated in the next couple of weeks, that often happens. Otherwise we'll have to start looking around for solutions.
(This is also one reason why I don't use InkScape)
great introduction, thanks! I‘m coming over from the 3D-printer bubble and want to get into pen plotting. Do you have experience with DIY plotter builds? Really interested in building my own :)
I'm terrible at DIY, so I always use the pre-made ones 😁
If you head over to drawingbots.net/ and look in the discord there's lots of people there who build their own machines. It's getting easier all the time, and the kits are great. I think it's a fantastic and pretty satisfying project to build your own and get it to draw.
I think the iDraw comes in kit form and loads of people use those.
So I have a condition called dysgraphia, essentially I can’t write by hand. I’ve considered getting a pen plotter just to be able to do some basic things. What model would you recommend?
Well, I always use an AxiDraw so can only really recommend that, a small A4 model should do it. Although I'd check to see if you could pick on up second hand.
And alternative which may be better is the "Cricut Explore 3" with the pen adapter, there should be a load of videos on TH-cam. They're probably skewed towards the craft end of things, but the software comes with fonts for writing _I think_!
After a lot of thinking I Made an attachment for my cnc. Tried a simple design and it worked perfectly. But now I have a complicated SVG and I can not convert it to gcode. Inkscape freezes. Have you gotten any tips on how to do this ?
Thanks!
I've used LightBurn to convert SVGs to GCODE before: lightburnsoftware.com/ although that may not help you in this case, there's some alternatives here: all3dp.com/2/svg-to-gcode-convert-files/
@@revdancatt I think I just have a file that is too complex. Do you have any tips on how to avoid this ? Thx.
You could try the linemerge/linesimplify options on vpype: github.com/abey79/vpype that could help.
@@revdancatt I wanted to let you know I found an online svg2gcode tool that works. Thanks!
Oooh, that sounds good. Okay, I'm going to have to check that out, thanks for the heads up!
Hello , what version of GRBL did you use , my servo motor does not work !!
This is a EBB Driver Board that control the AxiDraw, no GRBL here: shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/188
WAHOO!
Best comment, lol!
Is the axidraw A3 as precise as the a1 version?
Yeah, pretty much. The machines are super precise. The "Special Edition" versions are a little sturdier which allows you to run them faster without loosing precision, but either model run at "normal" speeds are good.
@@revdancatt Thanks for your answer, do you know if it is possible to use a SVG file for the pen plotter?
AMAZING TUTORIAL! Thank you so much, can we draw anything?
Yes you can. If it's something you could draw yourself with a pen, then you can draw it with the plotter.
Is it poss to scan writing or pics and plot
Where can we get it? At a good price? Thank you
You said it so many time. Now I want to know why not pencils.
Probably bc the pencils will wear down with use while the pen is refilled with ink.
Pencils take a surprising amount of downwards pressure to get a good line out of, so they'll be disappointingly faint, and if you get ones soft enough to leave a mark, then as @mitchelleggers5918 says they'll wear down before your plot is finished. Auto-feeding mechanical pencils are harder to find than you'd expect.
Basically there's a gulf of disappointment between what you'd want and expect and what actually happens. ALTHOUGH, you will find artists that have managed it, there's always exceptions.
So its like cnc but on paper
Yup pretty much exactly that, most of them you can even send GCODE too and they'll work. I've seen some people put pens into their cnc machine to turn it into a pen plotter too.
Have you tried mechanical pencils ?
Yup, it still doesn't work that great, half of the problem is needing more pressure to press the pencil down (but still allow the servo to lift it up). The other problem is the type of plot you do doesn't always allow the pencil to lift up long enough for the mechanical pencil to do it's thing.
$550 for the : 8½ × 11” / A4 Plot Area / $900 for the 11 × 17” / A3.... Make your own yourself ! ;)
Yeah, I think making your own is probably the way to go for a lot of people. I just can't even screw two things together so it'd be months of frustration for me.
Anyone knows some machine that is cheaper? The prices they have for these machines are insane,easily few hundreds of euros.....
If you search for "xy plotter" it should pull up a bunch of kits and plotters, the "LY Drawbot" is a super cheap one too, which I've seen a couple of people go with.
I apreciate a lot!
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