Geek-Lab Assembled XY Plotter - Drawing Robotics - Painting/Writing Robot Kit - High-Precision - Corexy/Hbot Structure - Open Source for Maker/Geek

As with everyone else's review, Rene was immediately available (realize there is a time difference since he is in, I believe, Asia) to help me install the necessary software. Between Team VIewer and e-mail Rene got my plotter up and running and every question I had was answered the same day.I have psoriatic arthritis and the carpal bones in my wrist have been eaten away. That makes writing difficult for me. I just finished addressing and writing the inside of my Holiday cards as I watched the pen on the plotter do all the work for me. It is as if I had a disembodied genie working for me.There is a learning curve, however, and I would like to point out a few of the things I have learned so far.1. You need to install the latest version of Inkscape for this plotter to work. Rene did this for me remotely.2. If you are using this for writing or engraving, you need to use single stroke fonts so you do not get the empty outline of the letters (unless that is what you want, of course).3. Rene directed me to FontCreator to make these fonts, but I am still trying to figure this out. However, when I contacted Rene I immediately was sent two single stroke fonts.4. I discovered that in Inkscape version 0.92.3, which is a free program that Rene installed for me, there is a dropdown under Extensions where if you click on Render and then on that menu of Hershey Fonts, you will find many single stroke fonts of all kinds that you can use.5. On the Hershey Font menu, you can only type in a line at a time and then in Inkscape you can resize all the lines, justify them, and distribute them evenly. It just requires exploring all the powerful things that Inkscape has built into it.6. Once you have your text on your page as you like, then you can use another dropdown under Extensions that Rene installed at the same time. This one is iDraw which sends the information to the plotter. Then watch the magic begin as the plotter writes what you had on your screen.I cannot praise Rene enough for his expertise and patience with me. Now I am eager to explore other things that plotter can do such as illustrations and perhaps importing phrases from other programs. You can purchase single stroke fonts on the Internet but with so many in the Hershy Font already in Inkscape, I do not know if it is worth it. Of course, if one had a single stroke font, one could use that with the text tool to write longer strings of text or even an entire page. I will have to explore this further and learn how to use FontCreator to try to achieve my goal. I am also looking at a program called Calligraphr where it says I can write letters in boxes and then scan them for free to create my own font in my own handwriting. I just hope they are single stroke fonts.All-in-all, I am delighted with this plotter and the support is beyond anything I could have expected. Thank you Rene.

Look like it a used part and it missing some items to assemble.

The media could not be loaded. I found this product after researching some marketing options for handwritten style letters for my business, and I am SO GLAD I did. This machine allows me to work on other aspects of my business while it writes out my direct mail pieces. You do have to be around to put the next page and hit go, but it is so much less time-consuming than doing it myself, and miles cheaper than hiring it out. I had not used Inkscape before, or any kind of machine like this, so I needed help. I have to agree with the other reviewers that Rene, whose direct email is provided to you in the manual (which is just online, downloadable) has been amazing. She has answered every question I have had (she is in China I believe -most of my emails from her came around 11 pm EST, just to set expectation). As a bonus, my family thinks I am cool now because I have a machine working for me.

Good device, works as advertised, very simple to use and setup, unless you want to use Inkscape 1.0, which you will find is near impossible.Please update the idraw.py extension so we can use all the new cool stuff in Inkscape 1.0 .

I took a chance on this because the Axidraw is really cool, but it's way out of my price range, and this one works beautifully.It's almost assembled when you get it, but you will have to screw on the protective acrylic cover over the board and attach the pen holder. Be careful when you're doing that not to drop anything because the screws are small and you don't get any extras.There are instructions in the software folder you download, but I also found it helpful to watch some inkscape tutorials on youtube because I've never used it.I slowed the speed down to minimize vibration, and put the plotter on a couple foam rubber coasters (they do give you little sticky feet to put on the machine, but I just did it this way)Anyway, it's cool! I'm glad I bought it.

i received my box but without any instruction book or CD inside it 💔 the good thing was the machine is already assembled .