A B print instruction?

[bce123]

I am tring to setup an industrial printer and have used the AD in the past but need to do it with an AB compactlogix l32e. Does Ab have an instruction like this?
Thanks for the help

 

[Tharon]

You probably want the Ascii Write? I've only ever setup printers that took ascii commands to print (like a Zebra printer) http://www.zebra.com/us/en/products-services/printers/printer-type/industrial.html

 

[bce123]

You probably want the Ascii Write? I've only ever setup printers that took ascii commands to print (like a Zebra printer) http://www.zebra.com/us/en/products-...ndustrial.html

a little small for my app but I will be using ascii dont have rslogix on this pc so I'll have a look tomorow thanks, steve

 

[bernie_carlton]

The AB 'AWT' commands don't have anywhere near the flexibility of the AD 'PRINT' commands. Prepare to do a bit of combining parts of strings to develop the proper output. It's just how it is.

 

[Tharon]

It took me a few days to troubleshoot the string combination required to get the printer to work right. If you know the model printer, and have any trouble, I could probably help.

The biggest hurdle I had to overcome with this:
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=48387&highlight=Zebra+Printer

The / before the ^ made all the difference (otherwise it wouldn't send the ^ character and AB would treat it like a ctrl key instead.

 

[bernie_carlton]

bce123 did not say that this is a zebra printer. That's just the examples that have been presented. Let's not over complicate things and wait for specifics.

 

[Tharon]

I didn't say it was. Which is why I said if he had any problems he could post his printer model to get more help.

The info about the ^ was just an example of annoying undocumented (at least, in what I had read) string issues that occurred when I was trying to build the proper string commands. I even contacted AB Tech Connect at the time trying to trouble shoot why the ^ character wasn't being written by the Ascii Write command (had it hooked up to a PC with Hyperterminal running). This site ended up having the answer for me after two days of looking elsewhere.

 

[bernie_carlton]

That is one of the more challenging aspects of this, hooking up things that no one else anticipated. If the end unit's manufacturers spent more time on possible connections it would make things easier. Otherwise we can just encourage careful reading and implementation.

 

[bce123]

Sorry about the lack of info as I am lacking some myself. The printer is a REA-jet I have a few things to learn about it also. it uses stepper motors to pos. the print head as well to do the printing. this will be a retrofit of an existing print system that uses a windows based program to read a string from a compact logix(not working at this time) and i/o to start the printing among other convoluted things. the pc software is very user un-freindly. and I want to do away with it.