Vinyl Cutter Drivers

schizoman

I'm just beginning my search, but I'm wondering what it's going to take to run a vinyl cutter for vinyl signs under Ubuntu? Are there any machines out there with linux software available?

brucewestfall

Sorry about an answer that is several months late, but something is better than none.

Quite a while ago, I used the info found at
http://www.3x6.nl/inkscape_hpgl/Linu...extension.html

It took some tweaking, but it works.

With the newest version of Inkscape(0.46), the old print command is no
more, so what I have to do is paste what needs cut into a new file, size
the page to fit the thing I want to cut, then save the file as
'newplot.ps'

I then run the command
./graphtec.sh < newplot.ps

...which sends the postscript file to the script 'graphtec.sh'
I also have the plotter settings as rotated.

Here is the altered file I am currently using:
(I put this file and the the hpgl distiller in my home directory in a folder called 'hpgl'. Make sure 'graphtec.sh' is set to be executable.)

HTML Code:

#!/bin/sh
#
# PRINT TO CUTTER
# ---------------
#
# A small shell utility that can be used as a front-end
#       to pstoedit and hpgl-distiller to allow your *nix
#       applications to print directly to the vinly cutter
#       so long as they generate valid Postscript or EPS output
#
# Written by Paul L Daniels
#
# http://pldaniels.com
# http://pldaniels.com/hpgl-distiller
#
# HOW TO USE THIS SCRIPT
# ----------------------
#
# (eg, Inkscape).
# Most *nix programs let you print to a program via a pipe
#       (like Inkscape used to do pre-0.46), what you do is tell the software
#       to print to this script, it's that simple.  The script
#       will then dump the Postscript data to /tmp, process it
#       filter it and then finally send the distilled HPGL to the
#       cutter/plotter.
#
#

# Which device has the cutter/plotter attached
#
CUTTER=/dev/ttyS0
stty 9600 cs8 -parenb -parodd crtscts -ixon -ixoff -F /dev/ttyS0

TMPDIR=/tmp
INF=$TMPDIR/cutter.$$.eps
OUTF=$TMPDIR/cutter.$$.tmp
HPGL=$TMPDIR/cutter.$$.hpgl
REMOVE_INF=0

# If we have a parameter for this script,
#       then it will be the filename of the file
#       we want to have converted (ie, we're not
#       reading from STDIN
#
if [ $# -eq 1 ]; then
       # Input data comes from a file.
#
       INF=$1
       else

       # Input is coming via a pipe to STDIN
#
       cat > $INF
       REMOVE_INF=1
fi

# Convert the Postscript/SVG/DXF/PDF to full HPGL/2
# This scale works for Roland and Graphtec plotters - the 2 I have
pstoedit -xscale 1.115 -yscale 1.115 -f plot-hpgl $INF $OUTF


# Strip out the innapropriate HPGL commands so as
#       not to confuse our plotter/cutter
#
hpgl-distiller -i $OUTF -o $HPGL

# Send the data to the cutter.
#
#     the next 2 commands strip out the commands PA0,0; and PG0;
#     which send the plotter back to the origin
sed -i 's/PA0,0;//' $HPGL
sed -i 's/PG0;//' $HPGL
cat $HPGL > $CUTTER

#translation of what needs sent to the terminal

# stty 9600 cs8 -parenb -parodd crtscts -ixon -ixoff -F /dev/ttyS0
# cat /home/bruce/Desktop/cutter.28665.hpgl > /dev/ttyS0
#    remove the # on the last 4 commands to
#    Clean up the temporary files generated - I like to keep them for a
while.
#    located at /tmp

#rm $OUTF $HPGL
#if [ $REMOVE_INF -eq 1 ]; then
#       rm $INF
#       fi

# END OF SCRIPT

February 6th, 2007	#1
schizoman Spilled the Beans Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Southwest Florida Beans: 13 Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex	Vinyl Cutter Drivers I'm just beginning my search, but I'm wondering what it's going to take to run a vinyl cutter for vinyl signs under Ubuntu? Are there any machines out there with linux software available? __________________ Still eating dogs for Unicef....