Anyone who owns one of the small four-colour plotters built around the Alps printer/plotter mechanism knows the problem: the original pens dried out decades ago, and replacements are hard to find. In a video published on 26 September 2026, Jeff Birt of the Hey Birt! YouTube channel shows how to build new, refillable pens for the Alps mechanism from inexpensive parts that are easy to get hold of.
What the video shows
The build is laid out step by step across the video’s chapters:
- The body is cut from clear 5 mm outer / 3 mm inner diameter acrylic tubing.
- A vent is made by drilling through a small M2 screw that closes the back of the pen, so ink can flow.
- The writing tip comes from a cut-down refill from an ordinary multi-colour pen set, glued into the tube as a “sabot” with E-6000 adhesive.
- The finished pen is fitted to a small Alps mechanism, then refilled with a 29-gauge syringe, and the video ends with a print test.
Birt has published the supporting files on GitHub in the Alps_Pen_DIY repository: 3D-printable cutting jigs for the body tube and the refill (as STL and Fusion 360 files) and an assembly drawing. The full parts list is in the video description.
Why it matters
The Alps mechanism turns up in several 8-bit-era plotters, such as the Commodore 1520 and the Atari 1020, and dead pens are the most common reason these machines sit unused. A pen you can build from off-the-shelf tubing and refills, and top up with a syringe, is a practical way to keep them drawing.
Evilpigeon.dk has not built these pens itself. The video demonstrates that the approach works; how evenly the ink flows and how long a fill lasts over months of use is something only longer-term use will show.
Source: “DIY Alps plotter pens – Easy to build new pens for your old Alps plotter” by Hey Birt! (Jeff Birt), published 26 September 2026 on YouTube.
