Neemo

Hi Guys,

I am having some trouble at the moment, basically i have a star tsp100 (143 model) receipt printer which is connected via usb to the computer, the problem is i am tryin to open the cash drawer through the escape codes using vb and access 2000 but both of them i am having no look, i have previously used an epson tm88iv printer connected to the pc via a parralel port which worked fine everytime i clicked the button in my porgramme it run the code with the escape code and opened the drawer but how can i do it with the star printer and how can i do it using usb. with the epson it was a parrallel port to so open it i used lpt1 but what do i need to use for the usb and will i need to use the mscomm port because the pc recognises the usb port as a com port?? please help guys its pulling me hair this thing.

Thanks

Regards

Neemo

mkaras

Neemo:

You will have to check if indeed the Star TSP100 printer appears as a COM port. Do this by opening the Device Manager and looking in the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section. If you see a COM port appear when the printer is plugged in and then go away again after the printer is removed then you can be sure that the printer uses a virtual COM port to support its communications.

If indeed a COM port is used the Device Manager will give you the port number to use and then within your VB program you will use the MSComm control to support communicating to the printer.

Roger_Wgnr

To add into this discussion as I work with Receipt printers on my job it is possible that the TSP100 printer is an OPOS printer in which case you will need to interface with the OPOS drivers. We have developed interface OPOS drivers taht we use to link to several OPOS printers but you should be able to call the drivers proivided with the printer through code.

mkaras

I took a look in this printer's manuals and it appears that the vendor has indeed made a generic API type interface available. It may be an OPOS layer if I recall correctly. From the manual it seems that they may also have a virtual comm port for lower level access as well but I did not look in Programmers guide to see just how that worked. Both of these manuals, hardware and programmers, can be seen at the Star Micronics web site and they also permit one to download this 15or 20 MByte ZIP file with a whole bunch of stuff in it including some DLLs and I also saw a sample VB6 project that shows how to operate the cash drawer interface via one of the DLLs.