Printing from a Micro800 PLC

[Drew Ethridge]

My company built a small test machine using a Micro800 PLC and CCW software. We chose the Micro800 because the machine is very simple.

We are now considering adding features and we are not sure CCW can do what we need. In particular the first feature we would like to add is printing a pass/fail label. From reading the user manual it appears that the software is capable of sending data to a printer.

Does anyone have any experience connecting a printer to a Micro800? I have been looking for tutorials or examples but have not had much luck.

 

[DaDaDadeo]

What type of Micro 800 and what type of printer? The Micro 810 has no serial nor Ethernet. The 830 has no Ethernet. The 820 and 850 has both. There are two main features used for printing: Serial or Telnet (using Ethernet TCP Socket). There are some decent sample code imports from Rockwell for both. Regardless of which type, here are some good rules for basic :

LOGIC

• Use a single instruction for the communication output. A program should never need more than one instruction for each print output.
• Send ascii characters or strings to a buffer (array of strings) and then send each buffer line to the output instruction. This allows for any slow or lost communications while maintaining the integrity of the data stored in the buffer.

SERIAL

• For serial communications, do not bother with return data from the printer. Usually, only two lines are necessary using the send (TxD from the PLC to the RxD of the printer) and common (GND).
• If Telnet is used and serial communication is required (perhaps if a serial port is not available or already used) , install an inexpensive device server such as the Antaira ST-501 to convert the signal.

TELNET

• Always include a communication timeout and error handling so that the sockets are closed automatically and instruction errors are cleared. The Rockwell sample code may not have this.
• If more data or longer loglines are required, most mid level office printers will have the Telnet Port 9100 communication protocol. For fancier printing features, make sure the printer has PCL6 capabilities to change the fonts and colors. PCL characters can be added before and after text strings to do this.

 

[drbitboy]

There is a thread on this forum for getting a PLC (Logix, IIRC) to communicate with a particular printer (I think it has a Z in the name) for this type of task. The printer can be pre-configured to print a particular format for a page or label, with a few parts of what is printed coming from the PLC (e.g. the PLC sends a number which is the equivalent of a bar code). You might be able to use that as a starting point.

[Update: I think it's this thread, about a Zebra printer. Near the end of the thread I think the sample code finally gets a permanent home.]

Obviously as @DaDaDadeo mentions, you need to specify a printer and PLC that can "talk" to each other; I suspect the 820 or 850 and an E/IP-capable printer would be a good choice.