we are use a basic click plc. I also found the P-touch software for brother printers cause the label just needs the work pass and a time and date stamp. I found the language it wants to use but no matter how I put that into a send output I just can't get the printer to respond
There are many pieces to this puzzle:
- the physical wiring pinouts of the PLC serial port and the printer serial port (RS232, RS485, A+, A-, B+, B-, Ground, Tx, Rx, DTR, CTS, CSR, DSR, ...?)
- The serial communication settings' configuration on the PLC (Baud rate, data bits, parity bit, stop bits)
- The serial communication settings' configuration on the printer (Baud rate, data bits, parity bit, stop bits)
- Composing the bits and bytes sent to the printer
- probably more that I am forgetting
In my experience, with mute* devices like printers and PLCs, it is
extremely difficult to get serial communication working correctly, because if any single aspect, of the several listed above, is wrong, then it will simply not work, with no hints as to why from those mutes devices.
That is why I suggested using a non-mute* PC-based environment as an intermediate device to be able to diagnose, understand and control all of those aspects. For example, if you can successfully
send characters at 9600-8N1 from a Python script on the PC to make the printer produce a label, then you
know something about the printer pinouts and the printer configuration. If you can successfully
receive characters at 9600-8N1 to a Python script on the PC, then you
know something about the PLC pinouts and the PLC serial configuration.
If you
don't know those things, then you, as well as anyone on this forum trying to help you, can only
guess at what the problem is.
* a "mute" device means a device with limited human-readable diagnostic information