Printfil Manual - How to capture serial ports - Input from external equipment

Chapter 7.1 - How to capture serial ports - Input from external equipment

Printfil allows you to capture and redirect print jobs sent by external equipment (e.g. industrial machinery, medical devices, scales, measuring instruments) to a physical serial printer.

By connecting the external hardware directly to a serial port (RS-232) on the Windows PC via a null-modem cable, instead of connecting it to the serial printer, Printfil captures the data stream and redirects it to any Windows printer (PDF, network, USB, virtual, etc.).

Hardware Requirements

• Connecting cable: Null-Modem serial cable (with crossed TX and RX lines)
• PC serial port: Physical COM port or USB-to-Serial adapter recognized by Windows

Step-by-Step Configuration Procedure

1. Connect one end of the null-modem cable to the serial output port of the external equipment and the other end to the serial (COM) port of the Windows PC where Printfil is installed
2. Right-click the Printfil icon in the notification area and select Configuration -> Standard
3. In the "Capture Port" field, select the COM port name on the PC connected to the cable in step 1 (e.g. COM1, COM2)
4. In the "Mode" field, select "4" (Mode 0 is reserved for capturing data from other programs installed on the same PC)
5. Click the "Hardware COM: Options" icon that lights up after selecting Mode 4 above
6. Configure the transmission parameters so that they match the settings on the external equipment exactly:
   • Speed (baud): e.g. 9600, 19200, 115200
   • Parity: None, Even, Odd, Mark, Space
   • Data bits: e.g. 8
   • Stop bits: 1 or 2
   • Flow control (Handshake): None, P=Hardware (RTS/CTS) or X=Software XON/XOFF (depending on the source hardware specifications)

Troubleshooting

Printfil receives no data:

• Verify that the cable being used is actually a Null-Modem cable (crossed TX/RX) and not a straight-through (Pin-to-Pin) serial cable
• Verify that no other software on the PC is holding the same COM port open

The captured data contains incorrect or unreadable characters:

• Verify that the transmission parameters configured in step 6 perfectly match the settings of the sending device