Adapters,Pens and Plotters… a long story

A comprehensive overview by Ifigeneia Dakouri (October 2024)

In this post Im trying to document all the pens, plotters and adapters that Marcel Schwittlick has in his studio in Berlin while Im doing my internship. I decide to organise them by adapter. This means that I will name the adapter, all the types it supports, the pens and the plotters that are compatible with it. Often the adapter has the name of the plotter it was made for.

Adapter Hewlett Packard

This type of adapter is the most common and comes in many different shapes and colours. Most plotters in the studio will accept this type of adapter. The next photos show many different versions of the same adapter, the feature that makes them the same is the distance of the circle from the tip of the pen.

The confusing thing about this type of adapter is that there are so many of them. Some of them may look different, but they just take different pens or mechanical pencils. To make this clearer, I will show you all the different types of the same adapter that we have in the studio and explain the differences between them.

1. Adapter Hewlett Packard original

This is the original Hewlett Packard adapter. We have a section of them in the studio because they are easy to refill and reuse. Some come pre-filled from the construction company and some come clean and empty. Although the refilling process is simple, the amount of adapters, paints, etc. is quite a task. There are different sections depending on the paint, whether it has been used or not, whether it is pre-filled or not and more.

Ink for refilling

Refilled adapters section

Compatible plotters: HP 7470A, HP 7475A, HP 7550A, HP Draft Master, Roland CAMM1, Roland DXY

2. Adapter Hewlett Packard for Ballpoint pen

Plotter revolver/Pen caroussel with 8 pens

Classic BIC pen in plotter adapter

The plotter adapters in these photos have been modified to hold the pens. The front part of the adaptor has been cut so that it is larger, hidden and exactly the same size as the nose of the pen. Although the nose of the pen fits perfectly into the adapter after this cut, the thin plastic part of the pen is still free to move in any direction. For this reason, there is another custom-made part of this adapter that is used to hold the plastic part of the pen in place. This part can easily be printed in a 3D printer.
Compatible plotters: HP 7470A, HP 7475A, HP 7550A, HP Draft Master, Roland CAMM1, Roland DXY

3. Adapter Hewlett Packard for Pencil

This adapter Hewlett Packard is for the mechanical pencil and is suitable for the MUTOH plotter as it is the only one that is able to press the mechanical pencil while plotting.

4. Adapter Hewlett Packard for Staedtlers Mars Matic

Another common painting tool is rapitographs. Is a bit confusing to understand the parts of a rapitograph and the connections somebody need to do to use it on a plotter so I will put two pictures with the parts of a rapitograph and the name of them.

Although the number of the rapitograph’s parts are the same, the shape off them change, so different nibs recieve diffrent plotter adaptors. The nib we use the most in the studio is the following one and is called Mars Matic.

Mars Matic from Staedtler

The Mars Matic nib is compatable with the adapter of the following two pictires. You can see the yellow Mars Matic nib on the first picture. Those adapters are again Hewlett Packard and in this specific picture they are filled with white ink from Rotring.

Compatible plotters: HP 7470A, HP 7475A, HP 7550A, HP Draft Master, Roland CAMM1, Roland DXY

5. Adapter Hewlett Packard special nib

This metalic adapter is made for one of the 3 types of nibs. To use that kind of nib you need of course the nib, the body and the adapter. As we previously saw for the classic nibs we use bosies-adapter.

On the following three pictures you can see the differences of the nibs. So different nibs have different bodies and different adapters. I couldn’t find the names for those nibs yet.

Compatible plotters: HP 7470A, HP 7475A, HP 7550A, HP Draft Master, Roland CAMM1, Roland DXY

6. Adapter Hewlett Packard for all, one time used, one way pen, disposable

Except of the adapter with the basic form there are some other adapter for very secific use on the studio.

Adapter for GSI Digi Plot

This adapter is only for GSI Digi plot and it can recieve specic pens and rapitographs.

A ballpoint pen can be inserted into this adapter. To use a pen with GSI Digi Plot you also need an extra adapter(2) so that it fits into the main adapter(1).

Adapter(1) and Adapter(2) for ballpoint pen

Adapter(2) for ballpoint pen

Adapter(2) for ballpoint pen

In a GSI Digi Plot it can also be inserted a rapitograph that it fits by chanse inside.

Adapter for GSI Digi plot and compatable rapitograph

Adapter for Calcomp

For this plotter I found two diffrent adapter in the studio. Lets name the first one Calcomp adapter A and the second one Calcomp adapter B. Althought some adapter are for very specific pens or nibs others can recieve diffrent things. The Calcomp adapter A is compatable with both rapitographs and markers.

Calcomp adapter A

Adapter for Calcomp with rapitograph

Rapitographs without adapter

Markers without adapter

Calcomp adapter B

Adapter for Calcomp with rapitograph

Adapters for Tektronix

The Tektronix 4662 and Tektronix 4663 plotters accept a rapitograph directly without an adapter.

Adapters for Graphtec

The adapters for the Graphtec plotter are quinic and do not fit other plotters. This adapter is only on this article so that there is a full view of the plotters in the studio, although the photos are not mine and there is no 3d model of the plotter.

Plotters in the studio

HP 7470A

HP 7475A

HP 7550A

HP DraftMaster

Mutoh XP-500

Roland Camm1

Roland DXY

Tektronix 4662

Tektronix 4663

DIY Plotter

A comprehensive overview by Ifigeneia Dakouri (October 2024)