barcode printing through plc

[yadnyeshk]

Hi Friends,
I want to connect bar code printer to PLC via HMI (USB)& print bar code.What is reqd to do this as far as PLC Program is concerned.
please suggest
Regards,
Yadnyesh

 

[mk42]

depends on your PLC and HMI, I'd imagine. Many HMI's that I've used wouldn't support printing just a tag.

 

[gclshortt]

http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=80263

This is not the easiest task for the PLC or HMI directly. See the above link.

Regards,

 

[mk42]

From a PLC, sending data out a serial port to a printer isn't too bad. There are usually send/recv commands for that purpose. The trick is formatting everything how the printer wants; some printers are more complicated than others. I don't know any PLCs where you can control the USB port directly, usually its for programming only, or for the windows half of pcbased system.

From an HMI, it's often not just a simple included function. I've seen serial communication done where they wrote a vbscript that opened the serial port like a file and wrote to it directly. You might be able to do the same to the USB port?