Sega SP-400 Plotter Printer videos

[honestbob]

Hi All

I won a Sega SP-400 Plotter Printer in a YouTube auction last week. I was very excited. I've wanted one of these since I was a kid and I missed out on the last one auctioned on TradeMe about three years back.

It arrived yesterday, and I was able to get the self-test running last night and this morning I typed in a demo program that drew a nice coloured pie chart.

They are based on a standard ALPS mini-plotter mechanism that was used in a lot of home plotters in the early 80s like the Commodore 1520 and the Atari 1020.

This thing is neat, and funnily enough almost seems contemporary if you've watched a 3D printer in action - it almost has that sort of feel to it. It has 4 pens and it works by moving the paper up and down while the pens move left and right to draw on the roll of paper.

If I get some spare time, I'll add some plotter demos to the Sega SC-3000 Multicart.

Anyway - enjoy


YouTube Initial unboxing / printer self test demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sck-A3dy6g0


YouTube Pie Chart demo (typed in from the SP-400 user manual)

https://youtu.be/hB3gYiBw214


Cheers

[Gibsaw]

Oh, I remember drooling over these. Great it still works.

[honestbob]

Oh, I remember drooling over these. Great it still works.

Yes, fingers crossed

I've been searching online and it appears that the ALPS mechanism has a couple of very tiny stepper gears that tend to crack and split, especially as the plotter ages, and they are very hard to fix / replace. So I don't know how long the fun will last. But all good so far.

[TheM]

I was interested in getting the Commodore version but never did due to problems with gears and pens.

I read somewhere (lost the original link) that these are good fresh replacement pens:
http://www.lass-shop.de/epages/63686166 ... 0017.01%22

If ordering from website still doesn't work they were happy to ship anywhere just needed to contact them to arrange purchase.

NOS sets can be bought from Best Electronics for a lot less, but they are old:
http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/laser_printers.htm

At some point they were also selling replacement gears (for Atari 1020) but they were not listed, had to contact them and ask.

These guys also sell replacement pens:
http://www.sd2iec.co.uk/catalog/i27.html

and also claim to have metal gear replacements (not listed anywhere for purchase, though):
http://www.sd2iec.co.uk/id3.html

[honestbob]

...At some point they were also selling replacement gears (for Atari 1020) but they were not listed, had to contact them and ask.
These guys also sell replacement pens ... and also claim to have metal gear replacements (not listed anywhere for purchase, though):

Thanks heaps for posting those. I tried to run another SP-400 plotter demo on the weekend, and it looks like I have the gear problem now too. The vertical feed is failing as you see in this video

https://youtu.be/4FBvH6BuDK8?rel=0

I've sent a message to the sd2iec site and I may try best electronics too.

Cheers