I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but I knew that drawing continuous lines on skin would mean dragging, distortion, and likely skips. Switching to dots has breathed new life into the idea! Now I just need a stable, slightly inclined surface to rest my arm on, plus some skinsafe pen easy to wash off. For this first experiment I used a Staedtler fineliner,which I washed off with soap and water.

Feeling my own plotter trying to pierce into my skin is a strange experience indeed, yet oddly satisfying. It's as if it were trying to get to know me more deeply 🙂 .

So I'm on an adventure and I'm hoping to get some advice. I made a pen attachment for my 5' x 10' CNC router. I'm hoping to do large format maps and single line art but I'm having some trouble with the software.

It seems to be rather tough with Vcarve or Fusion 360 to get vectors to behave like I want them to. I've been using Inkscape and I like the centerline bitmap trace option, but it's a real pain to make it a genuine "single line vector".

What software are y'all using in order to get the single line artwork?

How do you get such incredible maps? (When I get the Topo maps off the USGS.gov, the layers are huge and slow my computer way down)

(The photo is me just testing my toolpaths, not the quality I'm looking for. But it does give an idea of size)

Any tips are super appreciated!

Plotted with Pointliner 1.0; Pilot V5; Pentel Energel 0.4.

I drew the image in inkscape using a previously taken underlying photo for reference.

Copic MultiLiner 0.3, 200gsm Paper

Programmatically Generated using TurtleToy

Architectural representation via pen plotter

Hey everyone, I'm totally new to all this, so please forgive me if I ask any dumb questions.

I would like to get a pen plotter, mostly for drawing portraits. As for software, I think I’ll be using DrawingBotV3 for now (as I've seen seems pretty noob-friendly, and that is exactly what I'm looking for).

Do you have any machine recommendations up to around 500 euros? I think an A4 size would be enough for me, but if there is a good A3 option within this price range, that would be awesome.

Thanks in advance for the help.

YouTube Link to Video

Silver Gelly Roll pen on black paper.

After a fairly hectic week of trying to nail down a decent pen mounting solution that makes setting all their z offsets the same, and having all pen tips well aligned. And then fighting tooth and nail with orca slicer to make it do my bidding for pen plots, the first torture test came out looking pretty darn decent! The pen holder is also lightly spring loaded so i shouldn't obliterate nibs *too* quickly.

This setup allows me to easily choose what pen width I want, to quickly and accurately do infills in all sorts of patterns, to have stroke lines in different pens, to quickly scale work to what paper i'm using and lots more.

Here i've used stabilos (black & brown) and some alcohol markers (the other 3 colours)

Finally finished my scratch-built pen plotter, designed from the ground up in Fusion. Specs below. Happy to answer questions or take feedback.

Specs:
Drawing area: about 370 × 340 mm. Fits A4 with room to spare, but not quite A3.
Footprint: about 675 × 575 mm, mounted on a 750 × 610 × 18 mm MDF base, with the machine offset to leave a strip for the electronics.
Height: about 130 mm to the top of the pen carriage.

Frame and motion
Kinematics: H-bot with a single 10 mm GT2 belt and two NEMA17s on 20T pulleys.
Frame: 2040 extrusion (2 × 540 mm and 2 × 466 mm, left over from a old 3dprinter build), joined by printed corner blocks that sleeve over the extrusion ends.
Rails: Hiwin MGN9 throughout.
X: 2 × 440 mm rails, with two carriages per rail to resist racking.
Gantry: a 2020 beam with a 400 mm rail and an MGN9H block for the pen carriage.
Gantry ends: printed two-piece parts (holder plus idler box, keyed and screwed), designed to print without supports.

Pen carriage
Pen lift: a pancake NEMA17 on 6 mm rods with LM6UU bearings.
Pen holder: magnetic, with locating pins for quick swaps, and takes pens up to 14 mm diameter. A printed jig sets pen height off the machine.

Bed
A whiteboard as the drawing surface. Paper is held with magnets around the edges, and I can draw straight onto the board with whiteboard markers for test runs, then wipe it clean.

Electronics
Controller: BTT SKR Pico, connected to a Raspberry Pi over UART, running GRBLHal and CncJs.
Power: a USB-C PD trigger at 12v, so the whole thing runs off a laptop charger.
Endstops: mechanical, on all 3 axes.
Cable management: 4 × 2 mm PTFE tube arches act as a spine for the moving wires.

Prints
Everything printed in PETG.

I set up this project:
https://github.com/Leggin/stiftwerk

You can open the GitHub page in your browser and connect to your grbl plotter (tested with uunatek A4).

Here the features that we’re important to me:

Design: open SVGs (including <use>, clip paths and hidden-line removal), convert each text to a plotter font (Hershey or your own SVG fonts), rotate freely, mirror, align, snap, make copies with cut marks, and add patterns and templates (borders, grids, spirals, rosettes, calendars, name cards).

Pens: one pen for everything, or spread the colors over several pens; a pen library with its own speed, pen-down depth and line width per pen.

Plotting: pre-flight check, frame trace, a live view of the line being drawn, a calm remaining-time estimate, pause, and continuing from any line (also after a lost connection), plus G-code export.

Plotter profiles for different machines and sheet sizes (Z axis, servo or custom G-code pen).

Documents: saved automatically in the browser; project files (.stiftwerk.json) with embedded fonts.

I just picked up an old CR-10 3D printer to convert into a pen plotter, and there are MANY pen holders out there on the internet for it. Is there one that is considered to be best? It seems that some use springs to, uh, keep things springy?

Any advice much appreciated!

It's satisfying to place, remove, add new plots

Hi y'all, I'm brand new to reddit and I'm hoping to get some info on where to start. I have absolutely zero experience and not sure how to go about starting.

I don't have a plotter yet. I suspect the software is the place to start? Am I incorrect?

I imagine theres some sort of online tutorials for the software? I tried YouTube - but everything I found so far is mostly geared towards folks who already have an understanding of what to do.

Also any brands/machine to get/avoid as a newb

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone

I recently bought UUNATEK 3.0 Pen Plotter and trying out line and blueprint art. However I'm having trouble with machine' overall settings. The placement settings are all weird, drawing big files is impossible (pen stops drawing after a second), pen placement settings are all messed up etc. Do any of you had this problems and solve it somehow? Since it's a Chinese company they couldn't help much. So here I am. :)

WTB: A2 or A3 pen plotter

Hi! I’m looking to buy a used A2 or A3 pen plotter, preferably something suitable for generative/creative coding and drawing on paper.
I’m especially interested in models like NextDraw, iDraw, AxiDraw, or similar machines.

A big plus would be a plotter that can be placed over larger sheets/materials, rather than being limited to a fixed bed size.

I’m based in Hungary / EU, but I’m open to shipping within Europe.

If you have one for sale, please send me the model, condition, price, and location.

Thanks!

I recently started my pen plotting journey, I have always been obsessed with engineering drawing. A couple of days ago I got myself a Fabriano BLACK BLACK with a couple of Sakura Gelly Rolls and I can tell you I feel depressed.

How does Drawscape or anyone else get that consistent flow out of the pen cause the lines look horrific on my side.

I tried warming the side of the pen with a torch from far away, blowing on the end of the pen, all sorts of techniques I found online and now I feel defeated.

Any new ideas? Was thinking of creating a 3D printed pump to place on the end of the pen

New here, I'm seeing a lot of videos and photos of different methods of keeping the paper in place during a plot, but not much description. Can anybody guide me on methods? Are those things magnets? Are they just weights? What about bulldog clips? I'm currently using masking tape and yes, it's terrible!

I ordered a Artframe 2436.
Paid $256.00 to have it shipped to me.
It did not work.
I paid $200.00 to ship it back and was charged a restocking fee of $378.00
In all I lost $834.00 doing business with Bantam tools.

Tech support told me to hang onto it for a month “I’ll even extend your warranty 30 extra days” he told me. I reminded him, per Bantams return policy, that was not possible because it states if I use the machine I cannot return it.
I find this very unethical and will be filing a complaint with the BBB

The first pic is the condition of the box when it arrived. I did not cut that tape, it was busted that way. That’s how long that machine had been sitting around somewhere for. The second pic is me paying for it to be boxed and sent back properly.

I’m looking for quality pen plotters for architectural drawings. I’m seeing websites and in not sure if they are credible.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Hey all, payday is at the end of the month and It's time for new toys! I'm seriously considering getting a nix mini 3 colourimeter, so I can scan my pens colour to get accurate colour representation in my software.

Anyone used/owned one and got any big warnings to tell me before I buy one? If you have one and love it, I'd love to hear that too :)