sini Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Hello and thanks in advance for any support and assistance you can offer. I am attempting to set up a Star Micronics SP542 printer on a laptop without any serial ports. I am using a RS232 to USB cable to connect the device but I can not get Windows to see the printer or the STAR software on COM2 (virtual). I have tried various settings and nothing seems to work, however, to see if there was a connection I attempted the in the command line "dir c: > com2" and the printer receives and prints the results OK. Why can't I get Windows to see the printer? It says "Offline" so it will not print anything. FYI - The set up is at a racing facility and the software only prints to COM ports, no other option. The printers are part of the package. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dafox Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Why not map a virtual com port to a USB printer. No more dot matrix printing then. Also do you have some other rs232 to usb cables to test with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sini Posted January 31, 2016 Author Share Posted January 31, 2016 The printers come with the software package and there are three of them. Ideally it would be good to use what we have instead of replacing them. They are only printing time slips so don't need to be anything flash. Frustrating as there is clearly a link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sini Posted January 31, 2016 Author Share Posted January 31, 2016 Problem solved! Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneNutter MVC Posted January 31, 2016 MVC Share Posted January 31, 2016 22 minutes ago, sini said: Problem solved! Thanks. You should post the solution, I personally find it annoying when looking for an answer to a problem on Google, someone managed to solve it and never shares the cause of the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sini Posted February 4, 2016 Author Share Posted February 4, 2016 Hello @InsaneNutter fair call. The solution was pretty unobvious. The software / drivers do not even need to be installed. The racing software prints direct to the com (virtual) port. All that was required was specifying com # in the software and it worked. Was unable to get Windows to recognise the printer but that is not required for this situation. +InsaneNutter 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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