Not communicating or cannot print from DOS
A. Determine if printer is set for AUTO or for HP-PCL. Perform the
following:
1. Press the ON LINE button to take the printer off line.
2. Press and hold down the MENU button until the display on the
printer displays: SYS=AUTO, or SYS=HP-PCL, or SYS=HP-GL/2, or
SYS=POSTSCRIPT.
3. To print text files or perform a shift-PrintScreen from the
computer keyboard, the display on the printer needs to be set
for SYS=HP-PCL. To change, perform the following:
a. Press the + key until that message is displayed and then
press the ENTER/RESET button.
b. When the printer has finished processing the change, the
printer will be on line and the printer will display: PCL
READY.
c. Print text files or perform a shift-PrintScreen from the
computer keyboard.
Note: If the data being sent does not have a terminating formfeed
character, the form feed light will remain on until the printer
determines that the data is complete by waiting (for a predefined time).
To cause the printer to send the data without waiting, perform the
following:
i. Press the ON LINE button to take the printer off line.
ii. Press the FORM FEED button. The printer will output the current
page.
iii. When the printer completes, press the ON LINE button to set the
printer on-line.
4. If the printer needs to be set for AUTO, it will not autodetect
simple ASCII text files. To use the Auto feature of the printer
under this circumstance, an escape code sequence must be sent to
it to perform the switch.
a. To switch to PCL5, the following escape codes need to be
sent to the printer:
HEX: 1B 25 30 41 1B 45 or ASCII: Esc % 0 A Esc E
Note: Esc represents the escape character. Spaces are shown
for clarity only (i.e., not part of the escape sequence).
i. If printing from DOS, a file containing the escape
sequence may be sent out to the printer first.
Proceed as follows:
i.1. Create a file with the above escape sequences,
call it trailer.hp2 and then at the DOS prompt
type:
COPY TRAILER.HP2 LPT1:/b
i.2. Then print out the documents, or press Shift-
Print Screen to send a screen dump to the
printer.
ii. Note that if a full page is not sent to the printer,
the form feed light will stay on and the last page
will not automatically come out. To remedy this,
output the same escape code sequence file a second
time
(e.g., COPY TRAILER.HP2+document+TRAILER.HP2 LPT1:/b ).
iii. A more effective approach for printing files, is to
create a batch file to perform the operation.
iii.1. For example, create a batch file called
GOPCL.BAT. The contents of the file would
contain the following line:
COPY TRAILER.HP2+%1+TRAILER.HP2 LPT1:/b
iii.2. To use the batch file, copy it and the
file TRAILER.HP2 to your root directory
At the DOS prompt type:
COPY GOPCL.BAT C:\*.*
COPY TRAILER.HP2 C:\*.*
iii.3. Then at the DOS prompt you can print out
any ASCII text file. For example, if you wanted
to print the autoexec.bat file, type the
following at the DOS prompt:
GOPCL AUTOEXEC.BAT
iv. If using a network, the print queues may be modified
to send headers and trailers with each print job.
b. If an HPGL/2 file is being sent to the printer, there are
two options:
i. Set the printer for HPGL/2.
i.1. To do this, perform the following:
i.1.1. Press the ON LINE button on the
printer to take the printer off line.
i.1.2. Press the MENU button for until the
printer displays: SYS=AUTO, SYS=HP-PCL,
SYS=POSTSCRIPT, or SYS=HP-GL/2 .
i.1.3. Press the + key until the printer
displays: SYS=HP-GL/2.
i.1.4. Press the ENTER/RESET key. The
printer will automatically set itself to
ON LINE after the mode switch.
i.2. The printer will accept HPGL/2 data only. If
PCL5 or PostScript data is to be sent to the
printer, then the SYS= mode needs to be set to
either SYS=AUTO or to the specific mode (e.g.,
SYS=PCL5 for PCL5, or SYS=POSTSCRIPT for
PostScript).
ii. Send PCL5 commands to the printer to perform the
HPGL/2 mode switch. Note: The printer needs to be set
for SYS=AUTO.
ii.1. To set for SYS=AUTO, perform the following:
ii.1.1. Press the ON LINE button on the
printer to take the printer off line.
ii.1.2 Press the MENU button for until the
printer displays: SYS=AUTO, SYS=HP-PCL,
SYS=POSTSCRIPT, or SYS=HP-GL/2 .
ii.1.3. Press the + key until the printer
displays: SYS=AUTO.
ii.1.4. Press the ENTER/RESET key. The
printer will automatically set itself to
ON LINE after the mode switch.
ii.2. Send the PCL5 header string to the printer to
perform the mode switch. The following escape
code comprises the header string:
HEX: 1B 45 1B 25 30 42 ASCII: ESC E ESC % 0 B
Note: Esc represents the escape character.
Spaces are shown for clarity only (i.e., not
part of the escape sequence.
ii.3 Send the HPGL/2 file.
ii.4. Send the PCL5 trailer string to the printer to
perform the printer reset/mode switch. The
following escape code comprises the trailer
string:
HEX: 1B 25 30 41 1B 45 ASCII: ESC % 0 A ESC E
Note: Esc represents the escape character.
Spaces are shown for clarity only (i.e., not
part of the escape sequence.
ii.5 If printing from DOS, a file containing the
escape sequences may be sent out to the printer
first. This is accomplished by creating a file
with the above escape sequences, call them
header.hp2 and trailer.hp2 and then at the DOS
prompt type:
COPY HEADER.HP2+file+TRAILER.HP2 LPT1/b
ii.6. A more effective approach for printing files,
is to create a batch file to perform the
operation.
ii.6.1. For example, create a batch file
called GOHPGL.BAT. The contents of
the file would contain the following
line:
COPY HEADER.HP2+%1+TRAILER.HP2 LPT1:/b
ii.6.2. To use the batch file, copy it and
the files: HEADER.HP2 and TRAILER.HP2 to
your root directory.
At the DOS prompt type:
COPY GOHPGL.BAT C:\*.*
COPY HEADER.HP2 C:\*.*
COPY TRAILER.HP2 C:\*.*
ii.6.3. Then at the DOS prompt you can print
out any ASCII text file. For example,
if you wanted to print the
autoexec.bat file, type the following
at the DOS prompt:
GOHPGL AUTOEXEC.BAT
ii.7. If using a network, the print queues may be
modified to send headers and trailers with each
print job.
c. For more information refer to FaxBack documents 4250 and
4256.
B. If the printer will not print at all, then ensure that the cable is
connected to the port that you are using. Ensure that the connection is
tight at both the printer and the computer.
1. If an attempt is being made to use the Shift-Print Screen feature
on the computer keyboard, then a parallel cable must be connected
from the printer to the LPT1 port on the computer.
2. The LPT ports on the back of the computer are female (i.e., no
pins sticking out).
3. The COM ports on a PC are either 9-pin or 25-pin male (i.e., pins
sticking out). Connecting a 9-to-25-pin adapter (available at a
local computer supply store) is acceptable.
4. Before proceeding, first turn off the printer power and press and
hold the ON LINE button while turning on the printer. When the
display shows: COLD RESET, then release the ON LINE button. When
the printer displays: PS READY, perform the following:
a. Press the ON LINE button to take the printer off line and
then press and hold down the MENU button until the display
on the printer displays: SYS=AUTO.
a
and the printer will display: PCL READY.
c. If this printer is a CCL600B (80611B), then perform the
following:
i. Press the ON LINE button to take the printer off line
and then press and hold down the MENU button until
the display on the printer displays: SYS=HP-PCL.
ii. Press the menu button until the printer displays:
PAGE PROTECT. Press the + key until the printer
displays: PAGE PROTECT = OFF. Press the ENTER/RESET
button.
iii. Press the menu button until the printer displays:
BANDING COMP. Press the + key until the printer
displays: BANDING COMP. = ON. Press the ENTER/RESET
button. Press the ON LINE button.
5. If connected to the parallel port, try copying the autoexec.bat
file to the LPT port. IF using LPT1, type the following at the
DOS prompt:
COPY C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT LPT1
If still unsuccessful, check the following:
a. The parallel cable may be defective. Try another parallel
cable. Use a cable 10 ft. or shorter. (CalComp part number
18735-0129).
b. The LPT port on the computer may be defective. Try
outputting from another computer.
c. The port on the printer may be defective. If so, the
printer requires service.
6. If connected to the serial port, the BAUD rate, number of
bits/parity, stop bits, and handshake need to be set up
correctly.
a. If using COM port 1, type the following at the DOS prompt:
MODE COM1:9600,N,8,1,P
If using COM port 2, type the following at the DOS prompt:
MODE COM2:9600,N,8,1,P
b. If using COM port 1, type the following at the DOS prompt:
COPY C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT COM1
If using COM port 2, type the following at the DOS prompt:
COPY C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT COM2
c. If still unsuccessful, check the following:
i. The serial cable may be defective or incorrect. The
printer requires using a null-modem cable, 50 ft. or
less (CalComp part number 17557-0084). A straight-
through cable with a null-modem adapter (available at
a local computer supply store) is acceptable. Try
using another cable.
ii. The COM port on the computer may be defective or
disabled. Try connecting to a different COM port. Try
connecting to a different computer.
7. If still unsuccessful, then the port on the printer may be
defective. If it is defective, the printer requires service.