I have been kicking around the idea of building a pen plotter for a a while. At this point I'm still considering whether or not I have the necessary skills to tackle building one. I guess the first step for me is evaluating what microcontroller would be suitable. I have a PicChip trainer board so I would prefer to use a 16 bit PicChip microcontroller. Only criteria so far is the software for the microcontroller to has supporting library's for multiple fonts set and xy translation of fonts for text plotting. one thing im not interested in is reinventing the wheel. Also, I'm not interested in using the new micro Linux
Conputers like raspberry pie. I have a grip on machine language for the pic but can program C if need be.
Thanks in advance
Micheal

 

Loads of 3d printers use off the shelf arduino boards and motor drivers, you might even be able to modify the driver software to be a plotter very quickly too. There are also laser engravers that use very much the same hardware too. Not looked at what pc software is available to do what you are hoping to achieve but there may well be something readily available that someone has already done, try google.

 

http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/t...recommend-microcontroller.116637/#post-912277

One thread is enough. Keep it over there.