Looking for a 24 or 36 wide format inkjet plotter for arch/eng dwgs.  Running auto cad lt 2015 on a macbook (yosemite).  The only output ports I have are USB 2.0, ethernet, and wireless.

I'm not doing a lot of printing - for a print job of several sets of plans I send them to a printer.  This is for onesy twosy prints to use in meetings or developing a project.

There seems to be a number of older obsolete or outdated plotters on eBay / craigslist for pennies on the dollar - but I don't know if I can get a mac to talk to them.  Most are RS232 ports or something, some have ethernet ports as well.   The hp800ps seems to be common for a retired unit it was a $7000 unit new, but readily found for under $1000 on the internet, in fact there are 2 in town on craigslist.  I just don't need a $1000 boat anchor if the mac won't talk to it.

Why not you take your laptop with you when you go to look at the plotter? Then you can try it out.

http://plone.dramatech.org/greenroom/hhgtdt/committees/copy_of_technical-services-committee/hp-800ps-plotter

Ethernet would be the way to go.

why not plot to pdf from your cad first and then print the pdf on whatever printer you choose?

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=59288&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=219

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4851205

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=25302&docId=emr_na-c01664444&docLocale=en_US

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201465

According to this it was marginally supported through 10.8, and some have reported success using the DJ500 driver.  None of these discussions involve Yosemite specifically, though.

The last driver mentioned on the HP website was for 10.5.

It *might* be possible to use an old Mac with a version of OSX that supports it to share the printer and act as a print server.  Pick up an old cheap mac mini and just run it headless if you want to try it.

Otherwise, I'd study the list of supported printers and see if you can score something that is still supported in Yosemite.

Thanks rx,  probably headed that way.  As attractive as the price of a used large format printer is, the potential issues with software and maintenance costs probably are not worth the savings.  The hp t520 is looking like a plan.  Higher resolution, osx compatible.  Seems to get good reviews.

I just picked up a t520 last week. so far so good. I was looking at finding another 755cm to  cannibalize to keep the one I have been nursing along and decide to just get the 520.

another vote for the HP T520, we got the 36". pay attention because the offer a t520 in 24" AND 36".
go wireless or wired, cloud printing avail for android and iphone.