HS15-Plus Plotter not responding to cut jobs - Help!

[pindesign]

Hi all!

We recently got a second-hand HS-15 Plotter to do contour cutting. I can't seem to get it to receive anything from the computer.

When I hit 'plot' the job lines up in the queue of the production manager, says 'cutting' then the progress indicator stops at 0 or 57 % and nothing happens on the plotter. (pen or cut)

We are using Flexisign 7.6, and I am pretty sure I installed the device correctly (this step is straight forward anyhow).
I used the com port settings in the manual.
I have used a multimeter to test the cable we got with it. Checks out OK. The cable only has three pins on the rs232 connector (the manual says it should have 5, but my gerber tech assures me it only needs three)

Plotter internal diagnostics work fine (although I have not run the internal rs232 test - does anyone know which pins to loopback for this?)

Does anyone have any ideas as to why the plotter is not recieving / processing the job?

Many thanks,

Gareth

 

[pindesign]

Ok, so I have it working... Did a couple of things, will post them once I work out what it was that solved it.

 

[grafxxx]

this somtimes happens to me when sending a job the production manager will tell me cutter not responding. i close the prod mgr and restart it.

 

[pindesign]

The first thing I did was to set up the hs-15 to use COM1: (and set the com port settings in the dialogue that appears in production manager) Before I had it set to COM1 (without the colon at the end - which doesn't bring up the prod. man dialogue to make the settings)

I'm not sure why this worked, I assume that without using the prod. man dialogue to set com port settings, it would just take the settings from the operating system (which were set correctly) - but anyhow it got the plotter going so that was a start.

Then I was having intermittent failures - "failure to open port" - I resolved this by going into my operating system com port settings / advanced tab and lowering the FIFO buffer to the lowest setting - but not turning it off.

Now the system works well unless I have to cancel a plot job while it is running or being sent. If this happens then I have to restart production manager to reset the communication with the plotter.

Bit of a pain in the *ss, but it works.