topic Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers in Documentation

Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 16:01:43 GMT

I am having a tough time trying to PLOT from Plotmaker to my HP DesignJet 500.
I can send the document but on the plotter its showing me an error indication.
However I can PRINT to my LaserJet printer from Plotmaker fine.

Any suggestions on what the problem might be or any solutions?

thanks

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

David Larrew — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 23:12:24 GMT

A little more information would help to diagnose your problem. What driver are you using in PM? What errors are you experiencing? Screen-shots also help!

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:20:13 GMT

The driver that I am using at the moment is connected to our server \\server\HP designjet 500 24 by HP.
When I send the drawing the error that I get on the plotter screen is Warning 61:05. Error Processing Job. Flushing Rest Of Job.

I thought I heard somewhere that you have to setup a special DRIVER to plot from PlotMaker, is this true?
If so... where can I access this driver?

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

David Larrew — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 16:51:42 GMT

So you are not using PlotMakers internal Plotter drivers to create the plots? Have you tried using PMs drivers in lieu of your current driver?

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

Djordje — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 17:11:25 GMT

drew wrote:
The driver that I am using at the moment is connected to our server \\server\HP designjet 500 24 by HP.
When I send the drawing the error that I get on the plotter screen is Warning 61:05. Error Processing Job. Flushing Rest Of Job.
I thought I heard somewhere that you have to setup a special DRIVER to plot from PlotMaker, is this true?
If so... where can I access this driver?

And your OS is ... ? Network is ... ?

This can be a memeory problem (not enough in the DesignJet), network problem, driver problem. IMHE HP has much worse drivers than its reputation would make you expect.

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

Karl Ottenstein — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:46:06 GMT

drew wrote:
I am having a tough time trying to PLOT from Plotmaker to my HP DesignJet 500.
I can send the document but on the plotter its showing me an error indication.

Why do you want to plot and not print? We print all sheets to a DJ 500 with no problems - with network access from all (peer to peer) computers.

Well, I take that back. The problem that we have had, and that might be related to your plot use, is that we have the base (cheapest) model 500 - no extra memory or add-on cards. Printing from PM works fine, always. When we try to print PDF's though, nothing happens - not even an error message - unless we set the print setup to 'draft' mode. I assume this is an issue with inadequate memory in the base DJ 500. Possibly this memory thing or lack of HPGL card (?) might be the problem you're having with trying to plot? (A punt.)

HTH,
Karl

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

aahatimo — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 19:04:47 GMT

Karl wrote:
drew wrote:
I am having a tough time trying to PLOT from Plotmaker to my HP DesignJet 500.
I can send the document but on the plotter its showing me an error indication.

Why do you want to plot and not print? Possibly this memory thing or lack of HPGL card (?) might be the problem you're having with trying to plot? (A punt.)
HTH,
Karl

karl is was in your 'why plot when we print fine' camp for the past few years. times change...
we recently upgraded our basic hp 500 printer to a hpgl2 enabled 'plotter'. life is much better. we have a mixed xp pro / osx environment around here and had some luck printing under osx w/ gimp print & the driver from buymelunch.com. now osx plotting is no problem. xp pro plotting is also faster than printing. there are add'l features added by the ; being able to reprint sheets, narrow margins... the upgrade was a bit pricy, the card and maxing out memory ran about $500. we spent far more than that over the past year just trying to get consistant prints from osx. so for $500 we have a 'new' plotter.
drew, what was the error message from your 500 panel?
are you using an internal jet direct card? did this problem just start?
jeffry c has posted quite a bit of printing / plottting info @: http://tr.graphisoftus.com/ and the archiguide site has articles.

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 20:12:31 GMT

I just switched to Mac from PC. My deisgnjet 500 is neither PS nor HPGL2, and I can print (sometimes) but not always. HP tech support tells me that the regular HP Designjet 500 is not Mac supported, and that I shouldn't be able to print at all.
This makes me wonder whether anyone else is using a DesignJet 500 without PS or HPGL2, and whether they've got it working?

Brad

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 20:21:00 GMT

As a follow up: HP techsupport says that perhaps Archicad makes it possible to use a designjet 500 from OSX.

Anyone know for sure? Is it archicad making the "impossibl" possible, or is my mac doinf something HP doesn't know about?

Refering to the original post under this subject: I, too, can print, but not plot from OSX to Designjet 500.

I cannot upgrade to a PS plotter, but HP techsupport said I could try a few things to help plotting:

Third party RIPs, such as XRIP

Buy an HPGL2 card

Anyone have luck with either option?

Thanks
Brad

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

aahatimo — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 20:50:06 GMT

Brad wrote:
As a follow up: HP techsupport says that perhaps Archicad makes it possible to use a designjet 500 from OSX.
Refering to the original post under this subject: I, too, can print, but not plot from OSX to Designjet 500.
I cannot upgrade to a PS plotter, but HP techsupport said I could try a few things to help plotting:
Third party RIPs, such as XRIP
Buy an HPGL2 card
Anyone have luck with either option?
Thanks
Brad

brad check out my earlier post. we are plotting great w/ osx on an hp500 w/ hpgl2 card.
before we had sporadic success 'printing' using a driver from: http://www.buymelunch.com/printing/
it is a jaguar driver, he has not updated it. you will not be able to 'plot' w/o the hpgl2 card.
good luck!
jeffry c may be able to answer your impossible possible question.

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 21:37:42 GMT

Got it, thanks.
BTW, how much did you spend for the card, and where'd you get it from?

Brad

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

aahatimo — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 22:35:40 GMT

Brad wrote:
Got it, thanks.
BTW, how much did you spend for the card, and where'd you get it from?
Brad

the hpgl2 card i purchased from the cad store. (hp part #c7772a#aba) was $415 + shipping. http://www.thecadstore.com/tcs_products_info.asp?id=740
i ran it thru nextag, lowest price today was $411.
the memory i purchased from hp. it was a kingston 128mb chip for the dj 500/800. it was $50, instead of $325 for hp memory. worksw fine!
hth

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 18:07:52 GMT

I got the HPGL2 card, but cannot plot: the plotter options only allow a TCP/IP printer connection, while I am connected via usb.

Anyone plotting from OS X to a DesignJet 500 with HPGL2 card via a USB connection?

If so, what drivers are you using, and did you need to purchase XRIP?

Thanks
Brad

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

aahatimo — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 20:05:19 GMT

Brad wrote:
I got the HPGL2 card, but cannot plot: the plotter options only allow a TCP/IP printer connection, while I am connected via usb.
Anyone plotting from OS X to a DesignJet 500 with HPGL2 card via a USB connection?
If so, what drivers are you using, and did you need to purchase XRIP?
Thanks
Brad

brad,
sorry that did not work for you!
maybe try using your w2k machine as a plot server. then you may be able to use plotflow from your osx machine. you still would need some sort of network setup though...
we tried to hook up don's osx notebook to the dj500 w/ hpgl2 card. guess it is only possible w/ tcp/ip.
what's up w/ hp anyway? do they just not want to deal w/ mac folks?

Re: Plotmaker Settings & Printer Drivers

MSotero — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:01:23 GMT

I use a DJ500PS with the HPGL2 card over a Ethernet network connected together with a Netgear FS108 Switch (purchased at Circuit City). I use several Macs with OS 10.2 (classic to run HP’s horrible PS solution) but at times my in-house consultants work on their Pcs. The network makes it all flow as the PC and Macs are happy on the network. My dsl modem plugs into the switch too.

You may wish to reconsider how you’re connected before spending more time or money on software. You’ll be able to put the noisy plotter in another room too. With the most current Graphisoft software (8.1) and OS 10.2, I’m able to plot with AC, PM and PF.

As a side note, the following steps worked for me to setup everything for plotting on my network. So don’t ask me questions, as I can’t answer them.

Plug everything together:
1) My Network is set to use the DHCP option in the computers.
2) Download and install HP’s most current driver for your plotter.
3) Once updated, I had to get the plotters IP address off its panel.
4) Start PlotFlow. Choose File/Configure. Click Setup and put in the IP address from the plotter panel. Somehow PF generated the “Port” number (or this how I remember it) so write this number down. At this point PF was able to plot. By the way, my port number turned out to be 9100 (so maybe you can try that).

However, to get Plotmaker/AC plotting:
1) Open Plotmaker and set the DJ500 as the plotter. Choose File/Plot Setup and click Setup under TCP/IP.
2) Enter the IP and the Port number you wrote down. At this point I could plot using whatever software of choice.

As a further consideration, I wonder if you could simply buy an Ethernet cable and plug it directly into the plotter and use TCP/IP?