Hi there,
I couldn’t see a post on plotter recommendations, especially recently, but apologies if this has already been covered - I was just wondering if anyone uses a plotter with Seamly they would recommend?
Many thanks, Olivia
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The simple answer is: Every plotter kann be recommended. A little bit more concrete: A plotter is useful, if it is big enough (I am happy with a 24"-model). It should be not too expensive, especially with respect to consumables. Plotter paper is cheap, ink tanks are not. There is another issue - an inkjet plotter has to be used regularly, because the printhead(s) may run dry. This is really expensive!
I won’t give a recommendation. My own plotter is primarily intended for making photoprints. Printing patterns is a nice byproduct.
Greetz, hp
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I’m still dreaming of making this one: V plotter - HomoFaciens
It uses pens and the paper is hung on the wall, so you don’t need any space for it 
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That’s really then a large ink jet printer, not a plotter. A plotter ( vinyl cutter) uses a pen (or marker) in place of a knife blade. It’s why we have plotter fonts… because you don’t plot fills. Pens markers are cheap. While I have at my shop a dedicated 72" Ioline plotter, we also have several vinyl cutters where we can swap the blade out with a pen… so we can “plot” or “cut”.
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I would look for a vinyl cutter / plotter. They can be used to cut or plot by changing the knife blade to a pen or marker. They’re geared to use roll goods. We have a 28" Lynx cutter / plotter… haven’t hooked it up to Seamly2D yet. 
If all you want to do is plot, you wouldn’t have to be as concerned with the cutting specs - like max knife pressure, etc. In other words a lower end model might suit your needs.
You could try a place like uscutter.com or
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Of course you are right. We used to use penplotters some decades ago; I remember an A0 plotter made by Ferranti (1970s!), a Benson which used ballpoint pens etc. But nowadays all plotters in the CAD business are large inkjet printers. Getting a real penplotter seems to be difficult, same for cutters. And if they are large they tend to be expensive, too.
Sorry for my misunderstanding. The last penplotter in the dept of mechanical engineering of my former university has been disposed before year 2000.
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I had been too fast … indeed, vinyl cutters seem to be cheap, even in Germany. So this is a good idea (not for me, I produce photos). Remains the question of drivers/software.
Sorry again.
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At some point I need to spend a Saturday afternoon at my shop with my laptop and the Lynx cutter / plotter and see how it performs with Seamly2D.
The Ioline plotter I know won’t work with a Windows driver as it’s proprietary to the Optitex system.
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I use an online plotting service.
Buying a plotter only for Seamly is to expensive 
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That’s right. To buy a plotter for my at most five, maybe ten patterns/year would be ridiculous. Plotting services can easily be found, e.g. in the neighbourhood of universities. In my very special case the plotter (= large format inkjet printer) had already been there, long before I discovered seamly2d. So for me it is a really nice side effect, as the only extra I needed had been the cheapest CAD paper.
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Thank you all for your help!
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That’s your opinion… if one owns a shop, maybe the cost of an inexpensive vinyl cutter / plotter is not an issue. For ex: the current job I’m working on would easily cover the cost of a $300 plotter. Besides Oliva asked about plotters, not plotter services.
That being said, nothing wrong with using a service… we actually have a service next door to us, and have used them on occasion, not because of a cheaper cost, but rather time - it’s just quicker for them to plot a pattern.
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I had a look … the plain idea is simple and appealing. BUT (in capital letters): For patterns you will need a large plotting area. The region next to the mechanical parts is not very usable because of bad linearity, so some distance might be better. An educated guess from my engineering experiences tells me that for a really useful V plotter something the size of a door is necessary. I can imagine a driving system clamped on top of a door, plotting on paper fixed on the lower (!!) parts of the door. And there still remains the question of control. Ok, Arduino. Nice.
An alternative solution uses toothed belts, also called synchronous belts. These have the advantage of purely geometrical control (https://www.instructables.com/ARDUINO-POLAR-V-PLOTTER/).
I share the opinion of Douglas. Plotting is the method of choice for the production of many individual patterns. Finally, a cutting plotter will be less expensive than a home-crafted v-plotter. Without the pleasure of building something useful, of course. Moreover, a cutter takes the place of a sewing machine.
Lots of thoughts. Best, hp
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I’ll lend you know what I end up going with!
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I keep looking at the sitting room wall… Toss out the TV, remove the pictures… A nice 6 x 4m expanse… Ideal for the plotter.
But I don’t think the rest of the family will agree 
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You could tell the family… if you set up a plotter it would mean less time taping printed pages together and more time to spend with the family. LOL
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Plotted pictures may replace the TV, although a little bit slow. But it might be too graphic … [SCNR]
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I would like to pick this up.
I used an old HP Designjet 650c A0 plotter for the last 10 years. It worked well, had a workflow with Seamly2d=>Inkscape=>Plotter. The only pain was to cut the pattern pieces out by a scissor. But as you don’t construct new patterns every day this was okay. But no new ink cardridges are produced anymore for this printer for over 10 years and therefore, this good old machine from 1994 must go.
I was thinking about how to continue, and did a test yesterday. I was at a friend who owns a Summa D60 vinyl cutter to test how paper cut works. After some tinkering, it worked perfectly with the Summa “Flex cut” feature, that does in principle perforate the paper, so you can easily pull the pattern pieces out of the paper Afterwards.
That triggered me and I ordered a cheap Vevor Chinesium Vinyl Cutter today. These cheap machines seem to not have this “Flex cut” option, But I think this can be also done beforehand in Inkscape.
Is anyone here that already developed some workflow to get Seamly2D exports cut by this kind of vinyl cutter machine?
Would love to hear some experience to have a better starting point.
I plan to make a YouTube video on this once I have developed a workflow that gives good results (which hppefully will be the case).
P.S. Linux workflows are appreciated, as many here use Linux as system. i plan to use Inkscape and Inkcut for the job, but any other recommendations are welcome!
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It is so sad that the only thing wrong with the machine is that the ink cartridges are no longer available and now it needs to be dumped. Is there no way that the ink jets can be replaced with a cutter like a tracing wheel, that will cut perforations?
As for your new cutter… normally these work with a certain red colour of the lines to tell the machine where to cut. If this is the case, then you can just change the line types to dashed lines in Inkscape and the cutter should only cut the dashes - this works with my little Silhouette Cameo.
Otherwise, I suggest you find your settings on the cutter and stick to them.
Perhaps @Douglas will know something.
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Thanks Grace, I was thinking about that but have literally no time for another project.
So you do already cut your patterns with your Cameo cutter, or do you only use it for drawing with a pen?
I want to establish a workflow where the machine first draws the labels and the inner line with a pen, and then in a second step cuts out on the outer Seam Allowance line. In dashed lines, as it does not work with straight cut.
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