A0 plotters - good place to buy?
 

Am gonna have to bite the bullet and buy an A0 plotter for my CAD work. Given that these are just a big printer I am gobsmacked at the cost.

Two questions for those of you who are in the know:
1) Which is a good reputable make. HP? Epson
2) Best place to buy from offering good discounts
3) Worth buying second hand?

Long shot this one cos there can't be many peeps on here even know what one is let alone use one, but you lot have never failed me before so here goes!

Are you sure you need to go A0? We use Xerox wide format 510's here which I would imagine are high volume and I suspect mega-expensive, but we don't do much A0 plotting - most clients prefer A1 simply for handling the size of the plot..
In smaller outfits I've used HP plotters before and found them to be pretty good

Cheers
Martin

eBay???

Only ever used HP bubble jets and seemed pretty good so long as you remember to change cartridges before a big run (overnight) of plots.

Firstly if you can buy a good secondhand HP 750C+ these are superb if a bit old. I have 4 on the go, they were bought back in 1996 onwards and churn out drawings day in day out. they get a service once a year (around 400 quid) and they keep on going.
Have replaced some of these with OCE printers and another couple of later HP's and none have been as reliable or cheap to run.
I think the old 750C+ was a tad over engineered as no one was buying the replacements, and HP were offering a good trade in to get them out of companies and crush them i think.
Infact i may be able to find out if we are selling a dusty 750 thats come back from site cheap

Would be very interested in talking to you if you have!

Could probably cope with A1 having reviewed size of recent plots.

HP 750 rings a bell, remember using them at various places, good quality output as I recall as well

Ok leave it with me i will know by tue / wed.
I have a A1 (takes the 2' rolls) and feeder and legs which may be more suitable.
They are all working but i would suggest a service. i use jetware in manchester, they will sub it out i guess to a more local co if they cant come out themselves.
hope that helps, they are not exactly the quickest printers but quality is good and ink is cheap

Not many people want A0 plots these days.

In fact most customers want your drawing electronically; it a hard job fobbing them off with pdf's or summat!

There could be issues with drivers though, if you use an old plotter. Last place I worked never did plot AutoCAD 2005 properly, line thicknesses were all over the place. IT guys blamed it on the ageing plotter.

We've got an HP1050c that gets some serious use but has been almost 100% reliable. Plots in colour as well (i think i did a bike pic for you on it John?). We hardly ever plot at A0 but we sometimes do get drawings in from consultants (typically M&E) who will insist on using A0 drawing sheets.