This plotter by HP runs about $1300. Plotters are cool, but they aren’t for everyone.
If you’re like most folks, you don’t print that much online. I’ve been saving up to get a laser printer because inkjet printers are simply not practical unless you print daily. Without regular use, the inks dry up, the nozzles get clogged, and then your printer won’t print because it says you’re low in Cyan when you’re just trying to print a black and white print.
I was introduced into using a plotter printer at a former place of employment where I was the webmaster, but working in a printshop. These are common for large print jobs at a FedEx Kinko’s or other large-scale printing operation. Plotters achieve great detail and do so on large scale paper. Lots of pluses when it comes to plotters. The downsides are many, however. Most people would never have a plotter in their home because they take up way too much room. You have to have a spool of special paper that feeds into the printer. The spool is often over $100 and it’s rarely something you can just pick up at an office supply store. The inks are expensive – and huge prints use a lot of ink. Then you have to have a place to hang your print to fully dry and straighten out.
Enter the AxiDraw by Evil Mad Scientist Labratories. This intelligent adaptation of the plotter concept is within the realm of a mid-range laser printer – just $450. You could store it in one of those rubbermaid containers for winter clothes and shove it under your bed when you’re not using it – but you can use any flat surface. No spools of paper. Does this replace the not-so-humble plotter? Eh – maybe – for some folks, for some applications – definitely. If you ever need small, super detailed printed work, but don’t need it large scale, the plotter is decent, but you waste a lot of paper that way and you have to trim away the extra paper… but the AxiDraw does something that conventional plotters cannot do – it can use YOUR media. You can put a piece of chalk (not kidding) in it’s little gripper, or a dry erase marker, a paint pen, a paint brush, a calligraphy pen – you name it (within reason) and it will draw using your media – not proprietary, expensive ink cartridges.
There are obviously a lot of different applications for this… crafters and teachers would certainly love to have their hands on this gizmo. Currently, the AxiDraw will work with Mac, Windows and Linux, and works via plugins to Inkscape, while connecting via USB to your computer. Inkscape is free software. Yay! Obviously (or perhaps not so obviously), if you have a drawing with multiple colors, you’ll have to change media for each color and each color would have to be on its own layer and exported out as a different Inkscape document in order to work. You can follow Evil Mad Scientist on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Tumblr.