SATO M-84Pro Series Quick Manual page 12

M-84PRO Quick Guide
7. Manually turn the Rewind Spindle to wrap the
ribbon onto the core one to two turns to secure it.
8.
9. If the labels or tags are already loaded, close the
Print Head Assembly by pushing downwards on
the black tab until it latches closed.
10. Run a test print to ensure that the labels and
ribbons were loaded correctly.
CAUTION: If your labels are less than the full width of the print head, the outside
edge will eventually wear out a small portion of the print head,
resulting in an area that will not print. Special care must be taken if
you plan to use multiple widths of labels, since the damaged portion
of the print head caused from edge wear on a more narrow label may
affect the printing on a wider label. We suggest you plan your print
formats carefully to avoid using the area of possible damage on the
print head when using a wider label. The small area of damage will
have no effect on printing with the undamaged part of the print head.
Damage from a label edge is physical damage and is unavoidable. It
is not covered by warranty. It is possible to delay such damage by
always ensuring that the ribbon used is wider than the label stock.
This will help to protect the print head from label edge damage.
Pg 9 M-84PRO Quick Guide
7. If you've checked all of the above and the printer still isn't printing, you may want
to try a Buffer Hex Dump to determine what (if anything) the printer is receiving
from your computer.
The Parallel port is now listening for incoming data. Send your print job. The printer
will now print (only once) a Hexadecimal (Hex) Dump of everything it received from
the host computer. Each 2-digit hexadecimal character represents a character the
printer received. It may be tedious, but now you can analyze and troubleshoot the
data stream.
8. While checking the Hex Dump printout, if you notice 0DH 0AH (Carriage Return
and Line Feed) characters throughout. The command string should be continuous
and no CR or LF characters are allowed between the Start Command (<ESC>A) and
the Stop Command (<ESC>Z). If you are using BASIC, it may be adding these
characters automatically as the line wraps. Adding a "width" statement to your
program and help to suppress these extra 0DH 0AH characters by expanding the line
length up to 225 characters.
If you're not programming in BASIC, check to see if you have an equivalent
statement in the language you're using to suppress extra carriage and line feeds from
your data being sent out to the printer. We want the data stream to be one complete
line going to the printer.
Using the RS232C Serial Interface
1. Is the RS232C Serial cable connected securely to your serial port on the PC (DB-25S
or DB-9S Male) and to the RS232C connector on the printer?
2. Is the cable defective? At the very least, you should be using a "Null Modem
Cable", which crosses pins in a specific manner. This should enable your printer to
print. But we recommend that you eventually use a cable built to specifications as
described in Section 6: Interface Specifications.
3. Is the RS232 Interface Module installed in the printer? The M-84PRO printers
require the new Hi Speed Serial Interface (PN WCL40451) to take advantage of the
faster data transmission speeds. The older Serial Interface Modules will work, but
at a reduced capability.
4. Check for obvious errors in the data stream. Is the data properly framed with the
<ESC>A and <ESC>Z commands? See the Programming Reference if necessary.
5. If after sending your job to the printer, it only "beeps" and displays an error message
on the LCD display, you may have a configuration problem. There may be some
inconsistencies with the Baud Rate, Parity, Data Bits, or Stop Bits in relation to your
host computer. If you are confused as to what the printer's current RS232 settings
are, print a Configuration Test label.
configuration settings.
Pg 14
It will list all of the current printer