Window 7 Home Premium issues....

[The1Railroader]

Hey all! I'll keep asking this, how, or is it even possible to run my plotter, Vinyl Master 380P and my HP Designjet 5500 from my new Windows 7 Home Premium.... Tried everything imaginable.... bought 25pin to USB cables, some stupid controller keeps blocking it! UGH..... The old puter is going fast! Any help out there? I do most of the design work with Corel, then save and export to Flexi 8.6 v1 starter, which I use for plotting.... it came with the plotter. It all works great together as a team, been using it for 6 years now....... my issue is the HP Designjet 5500 and the plotter will not run on the windows 7 home premium... at least when I attach the machines to the computer, they are not handshaking with each other.... from the plotter comes a parallel cable, (25 pin) and that is connected to a 25pin female to usb cable, since the HP has no 25 pin connection, only USB.... some controller keeps popping up, some IEEE-1284 controller opens when I plug in the pin to USB cable, and that's where the problem starts.... I have one hair left to pull out! I have tried to get drivers for HP windows 7 64 bit to run the HP 5500, but the link doesn't work.... and the 5500 works fine from the DELL, I can't get it to run on the new computer... which only has USB plugs....

 

[CS-SignSupply]

If I understand.... you have a Parallel Cable connected to the printer, and then another adapter cable that is supposed to convert the 25pin to USB??

If so, you need to get a Parallel to USB adapter cable and plug direct from USB on the PC to the Parallel on the Printer... eliminate the extra cable.

It almost sounds like you have a USB to Serial adapter plugged into a Centronics Parallel cable. this will not work.

 

[The1Railroader]

You understand correctly, so I tried the parallel to USB by itself, and this IEEE-1284 controller pops up on the printer menu screen when I plug in the cable...when unplugged it goes away... that seems to be where the problem lies... The USB to Parallel cable is a DYNEX brand...

 

[mopar691]

I had master for a while as my mobile unit. When I would go to events and imprint clothing with names and sayings this came with. Was cheap, light and small and really did not care if it got damaged.

Well last year I upgraded my laptop to windows 7 and never got it to communicate after that. I tried everything but gave up. Bought a CE5000-60 and use that as my mobile unit now. I just could not get it to communicate. Plus I wanted something alot faster on location anyway so I scrapped it out maybe prematurely.

 

[The1Railroader]

That's too bad.... I have had this for 7 years, and has made me a ton of $! Not ready to give it up yet, but so sad that I like Windows 7, and it is compatible with zilch! Probably stuck using the old Dell till it gives up the ghost anyway!

 

[OldPaint]

i build my own computers and i have legacy equipment. i cut from corel to a roland with a lpt port. my m/b has an LPT-1. i had windows 7 beta on a hard drive and was running my plotter with it no problems. you just dont have it configured properly.

 

[SightLine]

Not really sure what your consumer level PC with no parallel port has to with Windows 7 compatability with anything. Just saying is all.

Best luck I've had using legacy ports on newer machines is getting an add on card. Never had lots of luck trying to get serial or parallel to work reliably in the long term over USB using converters.

 

[mopar691]

Oh ya getting my desktops to communicate thru a 1284 has never been a issue. I will not put in a tower without the correct configuration in my shop. I should of clarified using a serial connection on a old laptop, And bought a new laptop with no 232 port, could not get any converters to work.

So instead of going back to legacy products just updated the cutter.

 

[round man]

it probably has something to do with the mode of lpt port the adapter is loading,...it may need an ecp or epp type port other than a normal old centronics port to handshake with the older plotter,..the ecp and epp ports support bi directional comunications and the centronics does not,...back when they were cards or built in ports we had to change this mode thru bios,..i have no idea how one would do it with a usb cable adapter

edited to add,...bi-directional communications means that the plotter can talk back to the computer whereas with a centronics port the computer can only send data to the plotter,..it will not recieve any data such as a message that the plotter is online,and ready to plot,or that the data buffer is full,...

 

[SignBurst PCs]

Does your Dell computer have available (unused) PCI, X, or Express ports? If so, you may be able to add in a Parallel port and make communication more simple.

 

[The1Railroader]

Thanx all!

All the great ideas, and so far, still Nada! Nada dang thing will work, but I did get an old Lexmark Z615 to run on it through USB by downloading a Vista Driver!

 

[The1Railroader]

Stopped by to thank all of you for your help! Still can't get the cable to work, but now I think the XY-380p is dying... won't cut now until I restart the computer, then before I open Flexi again, it starts cutting from memory.... very strange indeed.

 

[66duane]

CALL master warehouse and talk to their tech people,, they are sometimes hard to understand but ive done it a couple times and gotten what i needed,,, youll have to look thru them want to sell you a $1800 new one ,,,,,,,,, ive had a 380p and made alot of money of it,,,, and knock on wood its still going even tho noisey,,,,,,,,

 

[round man]

just looked it up here that plotter uses a serial port not a parallel port

 

[The1Railroader]

Well, here's a new one, I have read about everything I can here about the xy 380p... Now what happens is when I hit send, nothing happens! BUT!, ... and there always seems to be one, is that when I shut down, reboot the computer, before I log back on, the plotter starts to cut what I had asked it to cut, before I shut it down? So, folks, what's the story! I reinstalled flexi, nothhing, checked the able, it all seems to be fine, except that it runs, AFTER the shut down and restart! Arrrrrrr!

 

[The1Railroader]

Hey y'all.... here it is, a new problem.... I like this XY380P.... been using it for 7 years now.... When I hit send, to plot a design, it says it's sending, then cutting, says 100%, and then nothing happens, so, I close the send/plot program, close the device manager, close Flexi Starter, then shut down the machine, and restart, after a restart, then it cuts the file! WTH? It obviously is holding the memory, but why the reboot to make it cut?

 

[Techman]

It obviously is holding the memory, but why the reboot to make it cut?

IT is not holding it in memory, It is holding in the printer spooler.

 

[The1Railroader]

So how do I fix that? Windows XP...

 

[Cyw]

You should be able to go to Control Panel/printers
Find your plotter and delete all jobs in the queue.

 

[Techman]

often the default printer has the active spooler that is holding the print job. Click on it and you may see the print job waiting in there.