15x Cintiq

Friday before last I was given an old Cintiq 15x (PL-550) The catch of course being that it had none of the cables, power supply, or stylus. I am however good at scrounging.

The Easter Egg Hunt

Power supply was easy. Match up voltages and pins. Done.
Funky USB-to-minidin cable. A little more tricky but eventually I found a webpage of the pin-outs and we have lots of old S-Video and USB cables.
Pen. This was the real challenge. Wacom discontinued production of all compatible pens years ago. Ebay sellers know this and are selling the pens they have for $100+ (Note: You can buy the tablet WITH pen for around $350 off ebay)

I eventually found a compatibility page at www.wacom-asia.com/aptky/607/p… plus some web pages that said any UP model wacom pen (the pen that came with the early Wacom Digitizer and Digitizer II) would work. Also Axiotron Modbook pens and other pens aimed at that class of tablet PC. That brought the pen cost down to a much more manageable $25. The pen arrived yesterday and I did my first sketches.

First Impressions

The hardware: Everything about this device really feels dated. Calibrating the LCD was nearly pointless. The color is muddy and completely washes out if you adjust the brightness/contrast very far. The pen is only 512 levels of pressure (vs modern wacoms which are 2048) Resolution is 1024x768 which is alright. The 15" diagonal work area is actually pretty nice for the way I draw but the 2" in every direction border makes it a bit unwieldy. As does the weight (over 10lbs) ... and the cables (DVI, USB, and power) make a thick coil of snakes. There's apparently a 13" HD version coming out next week that solves most of these issues for a mere $1K. My birthday is like 3 weeks off if there happen to be any wealthy benefactors nearby...

Anyhow: On to using it! OMG I really enjoy it! Despite the unwieldy weight and being jabbed with the stand and it being about 95F on the surface and the low brightness and muddy color. None of that can take away from being able to turn the thing at an off angle and draw a smooth curve. I only had time for some quick work last night but it was approximately 3-4x faster than drawing with a tablet for me and my line work felt much more smooth and natural.

Next Steps

I'm going to remove it from its stand and make some framing pieces so that I can mount it in my animation desk in place of a standard disk. That should solve the awkwardness and weight issues and let me maximize my drawing.