Have Calcomp 565 plotter - looking for pen mechanism

[Pete Lancashire]

Unless you are willing to make you own, they are very, very rare. Two have
shown up on Ebay in the past 3 maybe 4 years that I'm aware of. I was lucky
I got one that due to its description I was either the only bidder or close
to it. The one that sold recently went for a lot more, $500 or more. My
suggestion decide what your willing to pay and keep your eyes open, If you
in an area that would have been where the plotters would have been used,
start asking around. Someones grandfather took one home or something like
that and it will be in a garage sale for $1.  So put some ad on Craigslist
with pretty much nothing other then some good photos, the owner will not
have a clue what your talking about. Start asking around, etc etc etc.

good luck

-pete

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 7:13 PM, Jack Rubin <j at ckrubin.us> wrote:

> I returned from the recent VCF-West with one more item off my ever-shorter
> "must have" list - I am the new owner of a very nice Calcomp 565 drum
> plotter. Even better, I was able to find the perfect shipping container for
> it at Weird Stuff!
>
> Photos here - http://tinyurl.com/calcomp565 .
>
> The only problem, unfortunately a major one, is that it is completely
> lacking the pen mechanism. This is actually a multi-part assembly that
> threads into the carriage on the front rails of the plotter and lifts the
> pen up and down in response to z-axis commands from the controller. It is a
> solenoid that uses the pen as the core and was thus supplied in many
> configurations depending on the kind of pen used. I'd be happy with any
> bits of any configuration if you might have an idea where to find such
> items.
>
> BTW, I'm well aware (and deeply envious!) of the fine work done by Tom
> Mikulic who recreated the entire mechanism from scratch -
> http://tomislavmikulic.com/proj-565.html .
>
> Thanks for any help you can provide,
> Jack
>
>
>