RS 232 Basic Challenge

[maxidivine]

A second challenge I am having is this: 

A governor exists which sends streams of ASCII data to a printer on demand (RS232), by pressing a button on the governor. I would like to disconnect the printer and instead capture that stream of data with labVIEW and send it to a file.

I havent done a project of this scale before and would like to enquire what I would need for this task. Do I need an RS 232 cable connecting the governor to a device on the PC that would run the LabVIEW code?

I need an advice please.

Thanks.

[Eugen_Graf]

The first thing you need is to understand the communication protocoll of the printer. Do you have any documentation for your printer where it is explaned?

[maxidivine]

I would look to see if the manuals exist and get back, hopefully on Monday. Is there any information I need to gather from the governor as well? Thanks a lot Eugen.

[Eugen_Graf]

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean with governor...

You need in principle to simulate your printer through LabVIEW . Your programm should aswer to commands like printer and sample data from the other side.

Or you can don't break the communication and only spy them. You can make a RS232 cable which will spy all the data send to printer.If so, than it's easier, because you'll dont't need to answer  to commands.

[maxidivine]

Thank a lot Eugen. Actually, the governor (governing system) monitors a number of machines and picks up useful parameters from them. It sends these useful parameters to the printer, for printing when it is primpted to do so by a button on the governing system. The printing system has not been good, which has made it necessary to use a file to log the data stored in the governing system.

The task now is when prompted the data should not go to the printer, rather it should be routed to a file on a PC. That is what promted my question in the first place. How I can use labVIEW to pick the parameters (in ASCII stream form) from the governing system and route it to a file instead of a printer.

Thanks.

[Eugen_Graf]

Ok, I understand you now. As I said you will need to know about communication protocol. Just google a little or try to find the documentation for your printer.

http://www.google.de/search?hl=ru&ei=KyxrSsiBJYuI_AaL9tF9&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=st...

[maxidivine]

Thanks a lot. I would try to get information on data sheets for both the printer and the governing system and hopefully get some feedback across on Monday.

Thanks once again.

[Baji]

Which monday you are talking about?