USB to parallel cable and printer hangs

[Robeyx]

I'm using some old (Datamax) parallel printers with USB to parallel cables. When printing, the printers will regularly just hang. The RAW documents are on the printer queue but the head of the queue shows to be in error. Occasionally, removing the cable and putting it back in causes the printer to burst into life, but more often than not, it doesn't. This happens on XP and Vista.

Anyone any ideas?

 

[wahnula]

The only dongles (adapters) I trust are the ones that come with the cables. You're asking a lot of that little third-party converter, no wonder it gets scrambled from time to time. Those printers don't know what USB is, it's a band-aid cobbled-together solution and it's no wonder you're having problems.

I would eliminate the dongle and go directly into the PC's parallel port. Don't have a parallel port?

http://www.directron.com/pci1plp.html

there are other even cheaper cards for this. The other solution (replacing the printers with USB models) is way more expensive.

Yes you could try other dongles but that probably won't help much. I've seen this problem since the days of pre-serial mice, a different adapter is a long shot. Best of luck to you.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[Robeyx]

Hi Tony

Thanks for your advice - I think that's sound idea. The biggest issue is that the printers and PCs belong to another company and they didn't want to spend £1500 each on new printers (they really do cost that much)and the PCs only have USB ports and no upgrade space for a parallel port.

I've actually convinced them to get hold of some older PCs with true parallel and then I'm sure it will be sorted. I was just wondering if there was a "magic" solution.

Cheers
Frank