Installing a BHP

Big Honkin’ Plotter, that is. Or, to be less dramatic and more boring, an HP T-1300 Designjet large format plotter. Yep, that’s what I [almost] singlehandedly assembled and put into operation at the office yesterday, in fulfillment of my loosely-defined IT responsibilities.

It was actually ridiculously easy, despite having 94 discrete steps in the instruction manual from unboxing-to-printing. Some of those steps were along the lines of “remove dessication packet,” or “open printer cover.” I didn’t mind; it was a welcome change from too many do-it-yourself projects where the instructions were badly translated from Serbian, or simplified into one “assemble the unit and enjoy!” instruction, which is OK if it’s referring to, say, a shovel, but not so good for a propane barbecue grill.

Anyway, while I did most of the assemblage by my lonesome, I did enlist some strong backs to help lift the almost-200-pound device to its feet, thereby avoiding any embarrassing job-related injuries. And to top it off, the darned thing actually worked after I got it connected to the network.

Still, it’s one big piece of machinery. How big, you ask? You be the judge.

Items not drawn exactly to scale