Calcomp TechJet 720C

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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"?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[David Maudlin]

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

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.