aloha : how to fire cash drawers connected to ethernet printers

[360fish]

Worked on this for a while and am at a loss. Has anyone configured Aloha to open cash drawers from an ethernet-connected receipt printer?

I've tried various configurations to get the drawers to fire from the cash drawer port of the tcp/ip Epson TM88 printers.

- "traditional" windows printer share configuration with printers shared from either the term or server and configured as Windows printers on the Aloha server (BOH).
- OPOS printers - using epson OPOS drivers on a terminal with the espon printer port configured for IP and OPOS configured on the BOH.
- variations of the above using epson drivers on the FOH terms, generic Windows drivers, etc.

No luck researching in the Aloha docs or google (or here). Any tips appreciated

 

[coorsman]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6284020/Configuring Printer-fired Cash Drawers with Epson OPOS Printers.doc

Here is a link to opos printers and cash drawers.


Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[360fish]

thanks coorsman - following them now they excellent overall only issue they're for 2.5 opos current is 2.7 install screen has many optional components for Epson CO. If I get things working I'll post my install steps

 

[360fish]

Not working yet. Followed the instructions carefully - the cash drawer fires fine from the epson utility and the OPOS setup returns no errors and aloha shows no errors but Aloha stubbornly refuses to open the cash drawer. I haven't checked the OPOS logs yet plus there are a lot of places where it's easy to go wrong in the setup

I'm going to try another one from scratch and see if I have better luck. Will post results.

 

[coorsman]

First thing you have to make sure you installed the cash drawer
component when you installed the Epson OPOS suite.

Once you do that you have to create the printer first, then cash drawer.

Next you have to add the cash drawer device. To do this highlight Cash
Drawer then Add New Device. Select Standard from the Device Name drop
down.

Select Standard for the Device Name and Detailed Model. When you click
Next you will be prompted to either select Stand Alone or the correct
device, in this case the printer you created above. Select that printer
then OK. It needs to be on the same COM port as the printer..the Port is
being used by drop down should show the printer you selected. Select
Finish..you will get a OPOS Contradictory warning. Do nothing here but
select OK.

Now in Aloha Manager, the OPOS name for that cash drawer will be Standard.


Cheers,
Coorsman

cabaretsystems.com

 

[360fish]

thanks coorsman, did all that and more - the difference is I am using an IP printer so it's on an epson IP port and I am using the StandardE drawer driver (for ethernet). I'm unsure about using that driver but trying it with the standard driver returned errors.

As I said I have to re-do the whole thing from scratch (since I've tried so many tweaks already I can't say for sure I didn't introduce a problem while trying to fix another) and I have decent notes from my first attempt. Will definitely post here when I've tried again

 

[coorsman]

Make sure when you name the drawer in the opos software you use the same name in Aloha cash drawers hardware setup.


Cheers,
Coorsman

cabaretsystems.com

 

[eburks]

If I am not mistaken, exact case is important in OPOS naming, not that any type of case is necessary just that it must be absolutely consistent

Standard
STANDARD
standard

ie.
all 3 of the above are different and mixing them in your configuration could result in failure of the device to respond

If anyone can absolutely confirm this please let me/us know I will test it myself when I get a chance.

 

[360fish]

@eburks it is true OPOS names are case sensitive. I vaguely remember some issue where I had to see what their name was in the registry and not just rely on the epson opos program but I don't recall any details. The reg key is HKLM\Software\OLEforRetail\serviceOPOS
don't know if I can work on this again tomorrow but will follow up