Printing while PC-DMIS is running

[Jonathan S]

I have always had a problem with printing while PC-DMIS is running. If I send something to the printer, the program will stop running. I can usually click Stop and then Continue after printing, but occasionally, PC-DMIS gets confused and I will then have an unexpected probe hit or the last feature measured will give strange results in the report. I had always assumed that the problem was due to lack of sufficient RAM and a printer with a very small buffer. Finally, I got upgraded from 512 MB to 1 GB. The problem persisted, so I tried sending my printouts to a shared printer ( a brand new Dell 3 in 1 that should have a decent buffer ). This time, instead of stopping PC-DMIS, the print job hung up and had to be cancelled. It works fine when PC-DMIS is not running. Anyone else have this prroblem? 3.5MR2

PS I also considered that the CAD models were sucking up too much RAM, but the problem occured recently while running a short simple program with no CAD.

[JIM HARRIS]

I have one machine with a hp printer that the machine stops when the printer runs.After talking to are IT guy he told me that some printers do not have there own drivers and they use the drivers in the computer.That is causes it to stop.

[rebeldude]

Try upgrading to 3.7 MR3. It runs much more stable than MR2. I think pretty much everyone here has had problems with MR2.

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

Save the report to a file, then print them to the printer from WORD or whatever you open them up with. Also, is your portlock USB or not? Is your printer USB or not. 99.99999% of the CMM report I generate do not and never need to be printed, summarys from the stat package use MUCH less paper.

[Rick Coleman]

If your printer will support USB and has drivers available, switch it over and most of your printing problems should disappear.

[Jonathan S]

It doesn't matter what program I print from. I do save to Word and print from there. The printer is an old HP on the parallel port with the port lock inline on the same port. That might explain the problem printing to my own printer, but why the problem sending to a shared printer on the network? Unfortunately, I am the only programmer here and haven't had time to really learn the capabilities of Data Page. I miss working with a group of programmers where I could learn from others. On the other hand, I get paid better at this small company and am respected and valued by management here. The pros and cons of big and small companies for a CMM programmer. Thanks for your help.

[T Miller]

I had that happen until I went to a usb printer

[Mike N.]

printing issues are due to the fact most of us are using lpt port dongles that share the port with the printer (unless its a usb printer). The fact also is that pcdmis is constantly checking the dongle for authorization to do just about everything. This in conjuntion with printing through that port will cause collisions in data sent and recieved.

Solution is as stated in previous posts: USB printer

[mtalla]

problems

USB printer (HP Laserjet 1150)
3.7 mr2
no problems
ever

[tenndoc]

That's one of the things that we don't have a problem with and we are printing to the USB port.
3.7 mr3