An inexpensive basic X/Y plotter available through EBay, AliExpress, etc.

Review: I picked up one of these for ~$100 shipped so figured it would at least give me something new to learn on and mess around with over the holidays. I’ve got a 28" old school HPGL roll fed plotter as well but I’m limited to simple markers and pens on roll fed media with that… 24" wide white bond gets tiring after a while.

VigoWriter Manual

GCodes:

• Pen Down - M3
  • Can set how far down the pen moves on Pen Down.
  • After set once it will persist. Takes range of 0 -> 800. This covers about 1CM of Z movement on the VG-X4.
    Pen Down Half Extended : M3 S400
    Pen Down Fully Extended : M3 S800
  • M4 also works, technically that is Spindle Counterclockwise but doesn’t apply in this case.
• Pen Up - M5
• Pause - G4
  1s Pause : G4 P1
  0.5s Pause : G4 P0.5

https://github.com/abey79/vpype

vpype is the Swiss-Army-knife command-line tool for plotter vector graphics. Here is what it can do:

• layout existing vector files with precise control on position, scale and page format;
• optimize existing SVG files for faster and cleaner plots;
• create HPGL output for vintage plotters;
• create generative artwork from scratch through built-in commands or plug-ins;
• create, modify and process multi-layer vector files for multi-colour plots;
• and much more…

vpype is highly extensible through plug-ins that can greatly extend its capabilities. For example, plug-ins already exists for plotting pixel art, half-toning with hatches, and much more. See below for a list of existing plug-ins.