The default values that are embedded in Inkscape extension, are reasonable, but you can try lowering the speed of the travel and of the pen up/down movement, to get better result. Speed of X/Y travel and of Z-axis (pen up/down), matters a lot with this plotter. There are a few tricks that I learned by using this plotter, in order to get best plots out of it. Please take a look at it here if you’re interested. I also made a shared Google Drive where I uploaded my GCode and original SVG files. You can see the first plots recordings here:Įven though the plotter did a great job, the pen didn’t spread the ink evenly In order to do a simple initial test, I used Uni-ball vision pen (available on Amazon at ). I also got one of the files from my Rad Polygons SVG Pack: So I went over there and grabbed a few, for example this file of a Stanford bunny. One of the websites I run, has hundreds of vector files (SVG) ready for plotting. Z-axis height after printing in mm – how high to pick up the pen after the print is done.Z-axis print height in mm – the total height of the pen up/down travel.Z-axis feedrate – how fast to pick up the pen or to lower it.Values of ~500-1000 would slow down the plotter, values of 2000-3000 would make it go as fast as it can. XY axes feedrate in mm/min – speed of moving the pen in x/y directions.Pen Down Height – how low to put the pen down above the paper (in millimeters).Pen Up Height – how high to pick up the pen above the paper (in millimeters).Here are the settings that I used to do some sample plots:Īs I understand, the values are as follows: With the extension installed, I opened Inkscape, created a simple shape and used “Save As” menu option to save as “Sovol SO-2 GCode”. Here are the files I had to move into extensions folder: I took the extension and placed it into Inkscape extensions folder. This extension is included on the micro SD card that came with the plotter and should work on any platform, using Inkscape version 1 and above. Sovol provided Inkscape extension that lets you easily save a vector file (SVG file) to GCode that the plotter will understand. This GCode is then sent by using Universal GCode Sender application to the plotter. In order to send the files to the plotter, the vector output from Inkscape has to be converted to GCode that the plotter understands.
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If you are using Mac OS or Windows, just download and install those programs as you would install any other software, For installing Inkscape, I used Snap installer:, and for installing UGS (Universal GCode sender), I downloaded it from here. I will be using a Raspberry Pi mini computer to work with the plotter, so I installed those two programs on it.
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In order to operate the plotter, I had to install the following software on the computer that I will be using with the plotter: In order to test the plotting function, I had to connect the plotter to a computer and explore the software to send commands / files to it. Next, I decided to first test the plotter function so I attached the pen holding mechanism. When the wires are connected and all bolts are tightened, the main assembly is done. One of my children helped me screw these parts together:Īfter tightening these two bolts on the side, I took off the nuts that were on top of the four bolts in the picture below, put the two axes on top of each other, and put the nuts back, tightening them by hand all the way:įinally, to complete the assembly, the wires all need to be connected to the motors and to one of the limit switches on the X axis. To assemble the machine after it’s taken out of the box, the two axes (X-axis and Y-axis) need to be joined together using four nuts, and a metal piece need to be joined to one of the sides with two bolts.
In this blog post, I will review Sovol SO2 Plotter provided to me by the manufacturer. Time to time, I get to try another plotter and evaluate it. I run, and have been very active in the plotter community in the recent years.
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