Strong building, elegant design, and high-precision output. As soon as upon a time, Hewlett-Packard made test-and-measurement gear that was beloved by working engineers. Positive, drop a kind of infants in your foot and also you have been a damaged toe. However that’s a small value to pay for reliability and a few character constructing. So after I just lately got here throughout an early Nineteen Seventies HP 7041A X-Y recorder whereas clearing out my mother and father’ attic, I knew that I simply needed to see if I may get it up and working once more.
What’s the distinction between an X-Y recorder and a plotter?
X-Y recorders have been designed to chart information from analog devices in actual time, versus plotters, which plot the outputs of digital computer systems. The fundamentals are the identical: There’s a mechanism to lift and decrease a pen, and motors to maneuver the pen throughout the floor of a web page. The massive distinction is {that a} plotter usually makes use of digital instructions to regulate the pen’s movement, whereas the movement of a recorder’s pen is managed by analog voltage inputs.
So all I wanted to do was feed the HP recorder the best voltages, and I may draw something I wished! Just a few obstacles stood in my method.
The recorder interface permits Python code written on a Raspberry Pi [bottom right] to create analog alerts which might be stage shifted up and down to fulfill the completely different ranges required by the plotter’s x- and y- axis. James Provost
The primary impediment was getting the factor residence, as a result of my mother and father’ attic was in Eire and becoming a 13-kilogram, 48-by-36-by-17-centimeter behemoth into my suitcase for my flight again to NYC wasn’t occurring. About US $300 in packing supplies and delivery charges solved that drawback, and I used to be nonetheless just a little forward of the sport financially in comparison with acquiring an analogous classic recorder from eBay, and method forward of shopping for a brand new Bantam Instruments NextDraw plotter with an analogous drawing space. (To be honest to Bantam, its plotters are smooth plug-and-play gadgets that may deal with a a lot wider vary of pens).
The second impediment was that the recorder didn’t work. As soon as I bought it residence, I found that the y-axis could possibly be adjusted manually utilizing a knob on the management panel, however the x-axis was useless. The mechanism for elevating and decreasing the pen made a weak clunking sound and barely twitched.
“Had I simply spent some huge cash to ship residence an HP-model boat anchor?”
I opened up the case, which was fast work with a Phillips screwdriver—no bizarre safety screws, no glue, no fragile plastic, no yellow stickers warning that your guarantee could be voided and also you’d in all probability get boils when you dared to look inside. On the fantastically laid out printed circuit boards inside, I noticed some resistors that have been clearly not a part of the manufacturing unit set up. Have been they modifications or repairs? If the latter, had they been profitable or had I simply spent some huge cash to ship residence an HP-model boat anchor? And I had no concept how the 40-pin interface connector on the again of the recorder was presupposed to be hooked as much as management alerts.
All these issues have been solved when I discovered the recorder’s handbook on eBay. Oh, what a handbook. Not simply working directions, however detailed illustrations for taking the recorder fully aside and placing it again collectively. It listed each element, with photographs of the circuit boards and digital schematics on gatefolds. And it included instructions for modifying the circuitry when you wished to measure completely different voltage ranges than the manufacturing unit settings–extract a resistor right here and there and solder in some new ones. This defined the resistors I’d noticed. In a world the place licenses and software program locks forbid people from merely plugging in a alternative element, the considered a significant firm encouraging its clients to interrupt out a soldering iron is thoughts boggling.
Quickly, the appliance of some instrument oil, silicone grease, and Kimwipes had the x-axis and pen lifter working once more. I connected a variable energy provide to the recorder’s connector and slowly introduced the voltage up as I watched the pen holder transfer in response. This allowed me to find out the recorder’s enter ranges, which turned out to be 0 to 1 volt for the y-axis, and 0 to five V for the x-axis, masking 25 and 38 cm of movement, respectively, with about 0.2 millimeter accuracy.
The following step was to construct an interface. Though microcontrollers usually have digital-to-analog capabilities built-in, there’s usually just one true analog output pin. I wanted two. A way like pulse-width modulation would let me output an analog-ish voltage on a number of pins, however usually with solely 8-bit decision or 256 distinct voltage ranges. I wanted not less than 1,900 ranges to match the recorder’s accuracy.
The Raspberry Pi makes use of an growth “HAT” and two 12-bit digital-to-analog converters commanded through I2C connectors to create 0- to three.3-volt management alerts. These are shifted to 0- to 1-V and 0- to 5-V ranges utilizing a voltage divider and amplifier respectively, in addition to a logic gate used to transform a 3.3-V digital sign that raises and lowers the pen to a 5-V stage.James Provost
So I purchased two $5 Adafruit MCP4725 breakout boards. These are 12-bit digital-to-analog converters—every offering 4,096 distinct ranges—managed over an I2C serial connection, and two boards can share the identical I2C bus. I linked them to a Raspberry Pi Mannequin B+ I fished out of a drawer through a $6.60 SparkFun Qwiic HAT.
The DACs put out a sign within the vary of 0 to three.3 V, so I despatched one board’s output by way of a voltage divider to scale it right down to 0 to 1 V for the y-axis. For the x-axis, I fed the opposite board’s output by way of an LMC6484 amplifier, powered by a 5-V pin from the Pi, to carry it as much as 0 to 4.8 V—not fairly the total vary, however it’ll do till I give you a extra subtle interface. I introduced a sign to lift and decrease the pen out from one of many Pi’s GPIO pins, passing it by way of a 74LS08 AND gate IC used as an inexpensive and cheerful 3.3- to 5-V digital stage shifter.
I then wrote code on the Pi to place the plotter by way of its paces, utilizing parametric equations written in CircuitPython to attract swirling hypotrochoids and different geometric curves. Finally, it must be potential to have the Pi settle for and translate instructions written in a plotter-control language equivalent to HP-GL. Then I’ll be capable to plot vector graphics and textual content from drawing software program like Inkscape. However for now, I’m blissful to simply have my recorder buzzing away beside me, hale and hearty and constructed to final.
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