Has anyone used Zebra barcode printers with LabVIEW

[morngoose]

it has a serial and lpt port yes, and i have used these before, but i want to try the USB.

Seems using USB with labview is not possible? I had a look at .net constructors too, but cant find anything that I can use

there must be something, to enable use of the usb port for these

[hegb_85]

You're right it's interest to use the zebra printer with USB.

Maybe someone from NI could help us in this?

[JÞB]

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morngoose wrote:

Hi there,

Has anyone had any luck talking to a Zebra printer using the USB port yet with labview?

Just got my printer today, but have no idea where to start, in terms of USB, to start sending ZPL commands to it.

thanks

Goose

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Goose,

I am currently integrating 3rd party provided software with our hardware in a project that does print to a Zebra printer through USB.  I am not at liberty to share the code   but I can state that these printers can be integrated from LabVIEW on a USB.

The functioning source code on this system opens a referance to the zebra application and controls the various application parameters through invoke nodes and proprety nodes .

[morngoose]

Thanks Jeff,

So I need to get hold of 3rd party software, right?

I will do a google search in that case and see what I can find.

[DougFerguson]

If I remember correctly, its been awhile, I just named the Zebra in Windows printer configuration (add/remove printers) and for the driver I selected generic text. Then in lablview I created a text string with all the zebra commands and printed using the standard report via the Zebra printer name assigned in Windows. Pretty simple. Plus the Zebra was connected through USB.

Here is how you formulate the zebra text...

There are control codes that begin with the character ^ and these tell the printer which bar code font to use, the size, etc. I no longer have the programming manual installed but you should be able to view it on the distribution CD download it from Zebra at http://www.zebra.com/id/zebra/na/en/index/drivers_downloads.html. I think it was the ZPL II programming guide. 

Message Edited by doug@southerndaqsolutions.com on 08-12-2009 11:23 AM

Message Edited by doug@southerndaqsolutions.com on 08-12-2009 11:24 AM

[JÞB]

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morngoose wrote:

Thanks Jeff,

So I need to get hold of 3rd party software, right?

I will do a google search in that case and see what I can find.

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Not at all-  In this case the third party is a programming house that creates some fairly decient LV applications.  Nothing that you could not write as well.  But, as I said, it's not my code so I can discribe the approach but I cannot share the code.

[MattBradley]

I did this about 3 years ago -- at the time, I had to use the parallel port rather than the USB port.  I can't remember why, but I do remember that there was some reason that the USB port didn't work. 

The technique was the same as the one described earlier by Dennis.

[butIdontwantanalias]

 Hello,

I'm yet another person having trouble with printing to a Zebra printer. My printer is one without ZPL (LP 2844) but I've managed to print to it with EPL2 via Hyperterminal. Below in brackets is what I printed (though in hyperterminal, I just set 'send line feeds at end of lines' instead of putting in the \n. Based on this thread I've tried both \n and \r\n as the line feed/ carriage return+line feed.)

[\nN\nB10,10,0,3,3,7,200,B,"998152-001"\nP1\n]

So that line worked from hyperterminal through the USB-to-serial adapter I'm using (a Sunix unit). I'm using a what people have suggested here: create report->append text->print report->erase report. My default printer is set to use the correct com port and 'generic text' as its driver. 

I'm using Labview 8.6 under Windows XP. I've attached the VI.

Does anyone have any ideas why this shouldn't work when the same set of commands worked in Hyperterminal wouldn't work from Labview? Thanks. 

[hegb_85]

Try to send the commands directly to the serial port using VISA VIs, it should work.

[butIdontwantanalias]

Ethan85, I tried VISA VIs previously and got an error. 

−1073807360

Unknown system error (miscellaneous error).

I tried searching around a bit for that error to see if there was a common or known problem but I couldn't find anything.