ITEM: R8205L

How to set up Serial Printronics 4280

Question:

Env:
        AIX 3.2.5

Desc:
        Customer is trying to print to a Printonix P4280 printer,
        via serial port, and is getting flow control problems. When     
        trying to attach printer as an lp device, printing was quite
        impossible.

        Customer then by suggestion started using tty as the device,
        instead of lp. With this change, Printing was possible. What
        customer is using is a backend of /bin/cat. 

Response:

Printronics manual gives the following description:

RTS - Control Signal from Printer
Printronics printer setup.

RS232 serial menu protocol options:
  XON/XOFF - 
  ACK/NAK -
  ETX/ACK -
  DTR, RC, or RTS - 

RS232 signal options for the following signals.
Data term ready, Request to send, Reverse Channel.
Options:
  Online and buffer not full.
  Offline or buffer full,
  False 
  True

Customer had all three signals set to Online and buffer not full.
This will cause the queue to go down at AIX 3.2.5 when the
buffer is full because RTS from the printer will drop CTS on
the AIX system.

Suggested the following options:
DTR - Online and buffer not full
RTS - TRUE
RC  - FALSE

9600, 8, 1, None.

128-Port Pinouts for the Printronics should be as follows:
                          
128-Port RAN                 Printronics 4208
  8-Pin RJ45                       DB-25
  Signal    Pin                Pin   Signal
   GND       3   \<ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>    1     Chassis Ground
   RxD       5   \<ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ    2     TxD    XON/XOFF from Printer
   TxD       4   ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>    3     RxD    Data to Printer
   CTS       7   \<ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ    4     RTS    TRUE
   RTS       2   ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>    5     CTS    
   SGnd      6   \<ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>    7     Signal Ground
   DSR       1   \<ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ-   20     DTR - Set Online and buffer not full
   User alternate RJ45 pinouts to treat DSR 1 as DCD for flow control.


XON/XOFF - OFF
Sticky XON - OFF
DTR Flow  - ON

Added /dev/lp0 - as other serial printer.
lptest 5 5 > /dev/lp0 - printed just fine.
cat /etc/hosts > /dev/lp0 - printed just fine also.
lptest 80 100 > /dev/lp0  - printed this just fine.
mkvirprt - Suggested trying to choose p9012 for the 4280.  I
           think this will give a little more flexibility than
           just standard ascii.  Apparently they are not compatable
           so eventually we readded as Other ASCII.
lpr -Plp0 /etc/hosts - a few things it didn't like.  This added
    some extra characters at the beginning of the file. So we will
    add as an ASCII printer - lp0test.
lpr -Plp0test - header page ok, no garbage, top ok, back ok.
lptest 50 500 | lpr -Plp0test - printed with no problems.

NEXT: Working, closed



Support Line: How to set up Serial Printronics 4280 ITEM: R8205L

Dated: March 1995 Category: N/A

This HTML file was generated 99/06/24~13:30:37

Comments or suggestions?
Contact us