topic Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C in Installation & update

Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:30:26 GMT

I need some advise on how to get my new iMac OSX 10.4.7 w/ ACad v10 to push my antique plotter. I'm an Apple newbie.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:35:19 GMT

John wrote:
I need some advise on how to get my new iMac OSX 10.4.7 w/ ACad v10 to push my antique plotter. I'm an Apple newbie.

The Techjet Designer 720c driver is still supported in AC 10. I'm guessing your plotter has an old Parallel interface but it should work with a standard USB to parallel cable.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:56:53 GMT

Phillip,

Thank you. I had been using my plotter successfully with ACad 10 on my old PC, but that computer was stolen! I need to figure out how to work it with the Mac.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:30:27 GMT

John wrote:
Phillip,

Thank you. I had been using my plotter successfully with ACad 10 on my old PC, but that computer was stolen! I need to figure out how to work it with the Mac.

I have an old HP designjet with a parallel port and that works perfectly with AC using the USB to Parallel cable. The mac just sees it as a USB port.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:15:19 GMT

I think I'm getting closer. In the plot dialog, it says, "Cannot Connect to TC/IP plotter". Any suggestions?

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:48:08 GMT

John wrote:
I think I'm getting closer. In the plot dialog, it says, "Cannot Connect to TC/IP plotter"...

In plot setup there is a pull down menu that defaults to TCP/IP. Here you should be able to select USB as a connection.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:55:05 GMT

Yes, there are 4 choices: modem port, printer port, apple talk and TCP/IP. Unfortuneately it will only let me pick the TCP/IP. I'm still stuck, and I very much appreciate your assistance.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:13:23 GMT

John wrote:
Yes, there are 4 choices: modem port, printer port, apple talk and TCP/IP. Unfortuneately it will only let me pick the TCP/IP. I'm still stuck, and I very much appreciate your assistance.

See if this helps!

With my HP plotter I get the same problem as you. I can only select TCP/IP as an output from AC. I hadn't realised this because I always choose to save my plot files to a folder instead of directly to the plotter. This gives me a form of drawing issue record every time a file is plotted.

The resulting file (in my case an HPGL plt file) can not only be sent to the plotter at any convenient time but it can also be opened by AC for viewing in the future (very useful as evidence of issue)

In order to plot the files I use Plot flow, which is included in the AC package (there is a specific OSX version of it) When Plotflow is opened choose File>configure. Here you can select the USB port as well as the other options. I don't know why it works here and not in AC because I assume it uses the same resources to drive it!

Now if you click on Setup the system should detect your plotter and you can select it and click OK.

Now use the menu to open your saved plt file and start the plot queue.

I've just done it here so i hope it works on your machine.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:52:46 GMT

Thank you Phillip, still trying. (where do I find plot flow?)

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:56:23 GMT

John wrote:
..where do I find plot flow?

ArchiCAD 10 standard installation includes the folder containing standard and OSX version

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:18:15 GMT

I found plot flow, and it did seem to recognize my plotter on a printer port. I don't know how to use plot flow. I made a plot file, and saved a layout there, but plot flow doesn't find it. There must be a different "save as" button, "plot file"?

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:29:33 GMT

John wrote:
I found plot flow, and it did seem to recognize my plotter on a printer port. I don't know how to use plot flow. I made a plot file, and saved a layout there, but plot flow doesn't find it. There must be a different "save as" button, "plot file"?

It's not a save as command. Use the plot command as usual but change setting from plotter to file - see attached screenshot. Save the file to a location on your drive then with Plotflow running go to the file menu and select Open. Navigate to the file you saved and open it in Plotflow.

If you've configured plotflow to recognise your plotter as per my last post then all you have to do is set the plot queue running. Oh and by the way there is a setting in Plotflow for delaying the plotter start. This allows plotflow to read the plotfile before starting plotting and may have some bearing on your particular plotter if for example it carries very little RAM.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:38:23 GMT

I got plot flow to make my plotter react, but it plotted one long, like 2 meters long, line along one side of the sheet. I'm new to this whole plot flow thing, and I can't find much information about sing it.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:50:33 GMT

Halle-f'n-luiah! Thanks mate, it worked!

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

David Maudlin — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 13:40:07 GMT

John:

To add to Philip's good instructions:

You can add a spool folder to simplify plotting. In ArchiCAD, go to File > Plot Setup..., under Spool Folder click "Select..." and designate a folder for your plt files. Now, from the Plot Layout dialog box, you would select "Spool Folder" rather than "File" when plotting. In PlotFlow, go to File > Configure... check "Get files automatically from:" then click on the "Select..." button to designate the same spool folder you designated in ArchiCAD. Now when you plot from ArchiCAD, your plt files will be sent to this folder, where PlotFlow will automatically pick them up for plotting.

HTH

David

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:54:02 GMT

Folks, it's me again, with more plotting woes. I assembled a drawing with four elevations, two plans, a site plan, and a schedule. It's too big for my plotter in terms of memory, (2.6 mb) so only parts of it plot. Is there a way to compress this plot file?

A different problem: the plotter will plot several drawings, then stop. The message in the printer plotter goes something like " opening connection", then "printer not responding." All I can do is turn everything off and back on, and try again. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. Is there anything else I should do?

Thanks.

Re: Calcomp TechJet 720C

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:54:54 GMT

As far as I know it is not possible to compress the PLT file in any useful way that would still be readable by the printer.

On my plotter (which only has 1Mb of memory!) I often have to plot one view at a time then reload the same sheet and plot the rest of the drawing. If the memory is exceeded and the drawing plots incorrectly then an error light flashes. The only solution is to restart the plotter and start again.