1734-232ASC Without using devicenet

[Borneo 0]

I am using an AENTR and an 1734-232ASC to send serial commands to a Sato printer. This is through RS5000 Version 19. The manual is geared towards using devicenet, but I am using Ethernet. I am first trying to send a string to Hyperterminal to see what appears, before tying into the printer. Any suggestions, or examples? I can now get it to talk to the hyperterminal. The Sato CL412e is still not responding to the character strings. Edited 6 Jun 2011 by Borneo

[paulengr 44]

Not familiar with that particular printer. Most of these things are very much like an Epson/Star Micronics printer. Here are some suggestions. Note that I believe your problem is item #1. 1. Make sure that your cable is wired properly. A printer is NORMALLY wired as a DCE. A PC (or PLC) is wired as a DTE almost always. So if you have it wired so that the PLC and PC will communicate normally (two DTE devices) and then try to use the printer it won't work. A more valid test would be to connect the PC directly to the printer. The difference is in the way that the transmit/receive wires are connected. If you get this wrong, the printer will be unresponsive. You can try swapping the pins (2 and 3) yourself, or simply buy a "RS-232 Mini Tester" from B&B Electronics (www.bb-elec.com). Cost is $59. Value is priceless for what it does. Connect it to each device in turn and verify what the transmit and receive lights indicate and wire appropriately. Any light (green or red) means that the corresponding pin is a transmitter. No light means it's a receiver. All RS-232C signals (except grounds) come in pairs, and googling for RS-232C will quickly locate a diagram of this. Wire transmitters to receivers. Receivers don't talk to other receivers and transmitters don't talk to other transmitters. Using this simple logic tells you how to connect up ALL signal pins correctly. 2. Make sure all the dip switches are set right. If you have the wrong baud/parity/start/stop bit settings, it will simply ignore the bad data in most cases. 3. Similarly, check the "flow control" switch. How you set this and how you wire your cabling is important. If you use hardware flow control, the problem will be identical to item #1. In practice I find that this is also the reason that most off-the-shelf "null modem adapters", "gender changers", etc., are nothing but trouble. I've found it's more reliable to build your own cable if you are doing anything more than a straight through cable. RS-232C has been a standard since 1969 but for some reason the further we get from that date, the poorer the knowledge based seems to be getting and even the cable builders don't seem to understand anything anymore. 4. Similarly, there are a number of other dip switches that may prevent you from getting any output at all based on things like paper misalignment. For instance DSW3-5 if set will prevent the printer from doing anything until an external signal causes it to trigger. You may want to disable/turn off as much of this stuff as possible until you get the basic control stuff working. 5. I'm unfamliar with Sato (it looks like Star Micronics or Epson). In the case of Star, Epson, and Zebra, depending on what mode you are in, you have to send a CR/LF at the end of a line to get the printer to react. Some printers require a "end of page" or similar signal before they do anything. Read the entire manual (all manuals), and try any examples first before going on to set everything up.

[tchabra 1]

Hi Borneo, Paul I am trying to do the same at the moment, ie use AENTR and an 1734-232ASC to send serial commands to hyperterminal. It seems like I am doing something wrong as it's not working, & the sample program on Rockwell website is for version 12.. Any working example, or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Ken Roach 194]

Exactly which example program are you using (filename or hyperlink) ? Generally RA example programs *do* work, and they're written for the lowest version of firmware that supports their basic functionality (so that they can be forward-migrated). Ideally, post your *.ACD file (or at least the part that has to do with the 232ASC) and some description of what you want it to do. Is it a simplex application where it only sends out print strings, or do you need to implement two-way serial communication ? I've used the 232ACD pretty extensively a few years ago, and even used it's DeviceNet-only incarnation from WRC Akron. It's a pretty straightforward little device.