Micros 3700 Remote Printers

[erichellriegel]

I am installing a 3700 system with 4 workstation 4's, three remote printers, in a new restaurant. I can't get the remote printer's to work. No communication during a confidence test. I have new cat 5e wire pulled with a patch panel and new wall jacks. I have tested cables and jacks with a rj45 jack tester. But I still can't get those WS4's to see the remote printers. Dip switch settings are fine and I can daisy chain printers to run directly off my terminals. What cableling issues could I have?

 

[michael2010]

If you are using the daisy chain method of wiring up the kitchen printers with 3700 system a normal cat5 does not work.

It has to be point to point wiring.

 

[pkuck]

What do you mean by point to point? I think I may have the same issue. Old system going into a place that once had a new system and cat5 wiring. However, the old system had the kitchen printers daisy chained but maybe not with cat5..

 

[michael2010]

Point to point being straight through wiring.

The other tricky part is that Micros uses a proprietary IDN (their acronym - I would have to look up what it stands for I just know how to make it work) type of wiring for these Epson printers.

The jacks on the back of the printers are actually RJ11 and your cat5 drops are going to be RJ45 so there is another challenge as well. You need the PIN outs and ability to make the correct cable to convert from RJ11 to RJ45. The other option is to do their IDN wiring. Either way you still need some pin outs. The RJ11 to RJ45 type cable is not an off the shelf cable so someone does have to make it.

I may be able to get pin outs or the idn specs if anyone is dying for them.

 

[pkuck]

Would an old (running NT) 3700 system have an issue with new cat5 or the new version of the Epson U200B or whatever they are called? The autocut ribbon printers.

Or, would the pin configuration be different on an old system vs the new? Luckily I have the crimper for making new connections so I can make my own.

 

[michael2010]

Pin outs are the same even with the older versions.

 

[MikeRose]

You can do normal cat 5 drops through out. I have all the printer drops in my restaurants pulled to the office, along with 2 drops at each workstation. That way all I have to do is cross connect with a 1 fut cable at the patch panel and any workstation can become a print controller.

The IDN cable that comes with the printer will fit in an RJ45 jack with out any problems.

-Tim

 

[pkuck]

Hey erichellriegel

Have you figured out your problem yet? I'm having the same problem.

 

[pmegan]

Cat5 cable works fine between the data jack and patch panel, but you can't use pre-made cables to connect

The proprietary IDN connection doesn't really matter; it's just a serial line that uses those dip switches to identify devices. The wiring is straight through so pin outs are easy, the wires are identical on both sides of the cable. Hold up both ends of the cable and compare them side by side; they should match.

You can plug the RJ11 ends into an RJ45 jack, it works fine. If you want to put an RJ45 end on the cable just skip the outer pins and connnect the wires to the center 6 pins.


Try toning out your cable in sections. Remote printer to patch panel, workstation return line to patch panel, then patch everything together with the 1 foot jump cable and see if you get a tone all the way through, from the remote printer to the printer that you're daisy chaining off of. If the cable checks out, disconnect both printers, patch both lines into your switch and try running a laptop or workstation off them. Sometimes there will be an intermittent break in the line that standard testers don't pick up but are bad enough to kill data transfer.