I have been dabbling in homebrew printed circuit boards as long as I can remember. When I got my HP7475(?), I thought I had it. I drew the line at being able to do dip parts and no photo enlargement. That left the plotter out, the direct print would not work for me.
A retirement business (Successful enough to sell) left me with a 24 in Roland Vinyl cutter. I still do a little sign making, but I have to tell you that after a while it is about as exciting as cutting the grass! The smallest lettering I will try is 3/8 inch. The vinyl likes to bunch up around the cutter. Usually that is for motoercycle helments.
The Roland uses the same pen holder as the plotter did. It does a really good job plotting although changing pens would be a manual task.
I am sure you could print 2X, scan it, reduce it, and toner print it successfully. That is on my list of things to do!
The Roland is typical in that it does have some built in Fonts and can be attached to the computer with either a printer (Centronics) interface or a serial(RS232) interface. AFIK, all such hardware supports the HPGL standard that allows the computer to send All-Points-Addressable data as well as lines, circles, etc. I have a commercial sign program, CorelDraw, and a Cad program that cut/plot very well.
However, the HP Laser printer with the available free software exceed my needs at a lower cost and less effort.
de W8CCW...
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "javaguy11111" <javaguy11111@...> wrote:
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> > I think someone else mentioned that HP HPGL/GPGL drivers are still within Windows. Make sure it is actually a serial or parallel interface. Many HP plotters use a DB-25 which looks like it might be a serial connection, but it is a different interface who's name escapes >me at the moment.
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> Perhaps you are thinking of Centronics
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