DIY Vinyl Cutter from a HP Draftmaster RX Pen Plotter

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Technology will come and go, if you can come up with a good idea for the dying technology you may be able to create some cool toys on the cheap. That’s the case with pen plotters, from what I have seen most are being phased out and replaced with large roll inkjet printers. Steve invested some time and effort finding an old large format plotter, converted it into a vinyl cutter, made a cable for it and now has a DIY Vinyl Cutter from a HP Draftmaster RX Pen Plotter that would have cost hundreds of dollars more than what he spent on it. Below is an example of the great job it can perform.

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11 Comments


  2. If any of you out there have wives wanting a Cricut, this might be a cheap alternative. A bit more complicated, but cheaper. And, this looks like it could make something larger than a standard sheet that the Cricut uses.


  3. Haha, me too. I was expecting a cheap way to make your own records.


  4. Wow, I’ve got one of these in the garage! I picked it up at a swap meet for 10 bucks! Now I am torn, though, because I have plenty of pins for it.


  5. At Nginuity: The nice thing is that the Mimaki blade holder I’m using is pretty much exactly the same shape as a HP plotter pen. I just threw the blade holder into the pen carousel and let the plotter do it’s thing (set the pen pressure all the way up and the pen size down to minimum). Nothing to cut or anything like that, pretty much the simplest of hacks.


  6. So, The pen wouldn’t mess up the surface the pen leans on at full pressure? Sorry, I am new to vinyl.


  7. Wow. This is a killer deal. Im tempted now to go buy one of these machines off of ebay because its just a smokin deal. Im impressed at the accuracy you’re getting off of it. When I hear “DIY VINYL CUTTER” I immediately think sine wave type lines. Heh.

    Nice blog, Josh


  8. First off, I love the idea. I have an hp 7585b that I am going to do this to. Do you have a place that you would suggest that I can get the knives? Thanks


  9. I can get a HP Draftmaster 1 for free if I hury, can someone quickly
    tell me if it can be converted to cut vinyl????

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