For plotter - which category to discuss please (Plasma cutters ?)

Hi all, nice to find the community !

I am trying to see if i can run a RedSail RS720C vinyl plotter-cutter in LinuxCNC.
I am supposed to post the doubts and results in PlasmaCutters category right ?

Hoping to spend some nice times here !

I know I've seen posts on the forum referring to questions about setting up a drag knife cutter before. (You may need to search further back in time than the site's default of 1 year.) As to the success of those individuals final results I can not say.

I'm sure at the lowest level Linuxcnc could control that machine. But you could run into issues trying to interface with existing hardware depending on what it is.

hi all

Yes, its a drag-Knife cutter.
It has both USB and RS232 connector.
I will try to find out the motherboard, chip and motor details too.
Will be updating the progress here..

Hi, I have come to the understanding that a lot of fine-tuning is required to get the first test plotting done.


(1)for the drag-knife Plotter operation, are there feedback data (inputs) that are sent to the computer from the plotter?
(2)Is a dedicated IO port needed for connection or would USB work ? ?(trying from laptop).

In my first try plotter didn't respond. I am yet to identify the hardware details (there is no information available online or in Manual for RedSail 720C)

Minor updates :

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Successfully installed the OS Wheezy 2
Stretch versions had problems while installing (ending at the CPU Microcode error, Installer not loading etc)
The installer returned error when partition was attempted to format as ext4. I could continue with ext3.

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Thankyou for the reply andypugh..

To be frank I dont know if the plotter has a controller inside. Probably it has one.
In Windows environment, the machine is controlled via USB or the 10-PIN RS232 port by an application called Flexi. I suppose it is sending some vector file to the plotter.

Minor update :
The plotter identifies as 'QinHeng Electronics HL-340 USB serial adapter', when connected to the system (through lsusb listing)

Is there any recommended application available for LINUX CNC which can control a plotter ? (Can be any other GNU/Linux platform too)

trying to see if I can get Gcodetools to work with it, will update details here.