One of two Aloha terminals died: is there a workaround for the printers?

[Tyler121515]

Hello!

I have two Aloha terminals, one in the bar (Master Terminal), one in the kitchen. The terminal in the kitchen died. I have a replacement on the way, but the two kitchen printers were connected to the terminal that died, so now all the kitchen bound chits are printing at the bar staff receipt printer on the other side of the restaurant. This is causing all kinds of havoc. Is there a temporary work around? The two kitchen printers are both in reach the of the network switch that connects all the terminals to the BOH fileserver, but plugging them into the switch didn't work as expected since I didn't configure anything.

Thank you for reading!

Ty

 

[eburks]

Since the printers were not connected to that switch most likely they are serial printers using cat5/6 wiring and connectors with serial adapters. Those ports on the terminal are most likely serial com ports. If there is a printer closer than the one they are routing to now you could do a printer reroute via the FOH functions/system menu.

Whoever installed the system should have connected 1 kitchen printer to each terminal to give you redundancy and flexibility. If it is 100 feet or less that is what you should do when you can.

 

[AlohaRoss]

This will depend on your environment, how the cables were run in your place
Also if your printers are opos or serial based. You can look in Aloha to see how they are connected
Go to maintenance, hardware, printers and see if the kitchen printer is assigned as com# or opos name.
If opos you should just be able to tell the Aloha to move to term1.
If serial you will need to get 2 cables from the outside terminal to the kitchen printers.

Not an easy task.

What are you doing to repair/replace the down computer? There are a bunch of inexpensive repair places you can go to

http://www.needalohahelp.com

 

[Tyler121515]

Hey thanks for your replies.

Indeed they are actually parallel printers with parellel to CAT5 adapter on the printer, which connected to the kitchen terminal in the back with serial to CAT5 adapters.

 

[Tyler121515]

Oops I accidently submitted that post. Yes those printers are configured as COM in Aloha manager.

 

[Tyler121515]

Here is how it is configured:

Master Terminal Receipt Printer - COM2
Hot Kitchen Printer - COM3
Cold Kitchen Printer - COM4
Since the terminal they were connected to via serial is gone, both hot and cold kitchen are printing at Master Terminal Receipt Printer (thermal printer).
Is there anyway I can just plug the two Hot Kitchen and Cold Kitchen into the switch and then configure it through Aloha maanger somehow? ALthough there will be wires running across the kitchen to the office, it's still better than everything printing at the bar.

 

[tsl757]

you actually have to plug the two printers into com 3 and com 4 of master terminal and reconfigure aloha manager to look for these printers from the master terminal com 3 and com 4 respectively or whatever comport is not used.
hope this helps.

 

[Tyler121515]

That's what I feared. Thanks for your help. Luckily all should be well on Friday when I get my new unit.

You asked about fixing my terminal. Unfortunately, we had a power surge and both the hard drive and motherboard got fried. I tested this myself. It was time to get a unit anyway as this thing was almost 13 years old. The unit was still running Windows 2000.

 

[Tyler121515]

That reminds me. When I have my dealer come install and configure the Aloha software on the new unit, is it going to be an issue that the HD from the old one is dead? Is there any important data on there he will need to properly configure the new unit?

 

[Knectech]

Tyler,

you should be fine. What unit did you buy? If you're in need of terminals, we offer a far better terminal at a better price and comes with 3 year warranty.

Knectech
Knectech POS