Access serial port printer over Network

Today, the tendency of manufacturers is to employ USB ports and connections on their devices. There are still many cases where serial port connections are used on peripheral equipment and devices. Let’s take a look at one specific serial device, an RS232 industrial printer.

An industrial printer is built to be able to tolerate a higher degree of physical stress than standard personal or business printers. They need to print in challenging environments where they may be subject to excessive vibrations or being bumped around. Industrial printers integrate advanced technology with rugged exterior design features to create a solution for printing in demanding environments. They are also suitable for instances where 24 hour a day printing is required.

Contents

• Industrial printers usage
• When do you need remote access to RS232 printer?
• The bottom line

Where serial printers are being used?

The chemical and electronics industries employ industrial printers capable of generating high-quality images on specialized paper. These are used for a variety of purposes, including printing small, densely populated labels that need to stay attached and easy to read for years. High volume printing is often a necessary feature of an industrial printer. Industries such as automobile manufacturing and pharmaceuticals use printers that are running constantly throughout the day. Tasks like labeling parts, shipping, and quality control are all essential to high-volume manufacturing facilities. Businesses that cannot afford downtime require tools like an industrial printer.

Accessing a serial printer over a network can help a business reduce costs. The ability to access a remote industrial printer from your desktop can save you both time and money. By connecting your Industrial printer to IP, you can make use of dashboard applications that can be configured to enable management of your remote serial devices. Using a serial printer over IP will enable easier monitoring and maintenance of your equipment.

Point of Sale (POS) printers comprise a widely used subset of industrial printers. They are a common sight in vendor kiosks and shops to print receipts of business transactions. Here again, the ability to share a serial printer over the LAN is often required. Serial to Ethernet Connector can be used to access a POS printer over the LAN. The software will allow you to monitor and control a remote POS printer from the convenience of your desktop. The way it works is pretty simple – it emulates a serial port on a local computer, and via virtual null modem connection this virtual port mirrors the real hardware port on a remote computer.

There are various scenarios in which Serial to Ethernet Connector can be used – let us have a closer look at them.

Remote serial printer usage scenarios

Scenario 1. There is one COM port printer and it needs to be shared among several network users.

Download and install Serial to Ethernet Connector on a computer to which the printer is attached (server) and computers that need to access it remotely (clients). Launch the application on the server and ‘Share’ RS232 printer, now client machines can ‘Connect’ to it over network and use it as if it were attached to their local machines.

Scenario 2. RS232 printer is connected to a serial port on your local computer, and you need to provide control over it to an application on a remote target machine.

Install Serial to Ethernet Connector on both computers. On the target machine the software will emulate a serial port through which the application can communicate to the real serial port on your local computer. The underlay protocol used is Telnet, this allows the app control settings of the remote port.

Scenario 3. You have RS232 industrial printer connected to your PC, and the application that needs to interact with it is not compatible with the OS on your computer.

Install Serial to Ethernet Connector and run a guest OS that supports your application. Now on the host OS you can share the port to which your printer is attached – your host OS turns into a server. Now from the guest OS – it acts as a client here – you can connect to the shared port. Specify the IP address of the server (or network name) and TCP port. All data will be redirected to the application and can be processed by it.

That’s pretty much about it – these are the main scenarios when Serial to Ethernet Connector can be used for sharing a serial printer over network.

Conclusions

In this article, we have seen what constitutes an industrial printer and how to work with a serial printer over an IP Network. We have described some common usage scenarios where the ability to connect an RS232 printer to an IP network is critical to your business’ success. Using Serial to Ethernet Connector resolves this problem and allows remote access to your serial devices. It is a comprehensive and reliable tool that can assist you in designing an industrial network.