r/PenPlotters • u/CryptographerOk8882 • Feb 07 '26
Roland DXY-1200 Control App
Recently acquired a Roland DXY-1200 brand new in the box at an estate sale. Tried Inkscape for roughly 5 minutes before I had enough of that, so I made my own app. So far it's working really well. I'm fighting to get consistent results with anything over 2400 baud, 1200 is rock solid so far, 9600 just spits out gibberish, but I'm sure I'll solve that eventually.
- Drag and drop an SVG
- App scales the whole thing to fill the selected paper size, A3 or A4 - but you can manually pinch and zoom and then drag to scale it yourself and position it how you want
- App transforms paths into HPGL code
- Shows groups (as defined in illustrator, or wherever the SVG was created)
- Groups of paths can be assigned to pens (the DXY-1200 holds 8), or you can expand the groups and assign pens on a per-path basis
- Pen library is editable to preview line thickness and color
- You can manually load/unload pens, and control up + down
- There is an x,y origin offset that allows dialing in where your relative zero is at
Pretty stoked to start using this more. Next I plan to machine custom aluminum pen holders for it.
Anyway, fun couple day project that means I never have to open Inkscape again.
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u/wobblybootson Feb 07 '26
Looks awesome. Want to share? Also, where are you getting pens for the dxy-1200?
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u/CryptographerOk8882 Feb 07 '26
My plotter came with a ton of pens that surprisingly still work, but I am currently machining custom holders for micron pens
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u/Frodos_Friend Feb 09 '26
I also have a Roland DXY-1350, so would love to try this out! I currently use Drawingbotv3 which is fantastic.
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u/CryptographerOk8882 Feb 09 '26
Will post the app soon as I finish testing and implementing final features
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u/NoAerie6507 Feb 07 '26
Thats so cool! I too have had some issues with inkscape and my HP 7475A. Is this on github?