Star Micronics LC-6211 - Manual

1 Chapter 1: Printer Setup This chapter contains important information on setting up your printer. Be sure to read this chapter carefully before using the printer for the first time. In this chapter you will learn about: ❏ Choosing a place for the printer ❏ Unpacking and setting up the printer ❏ Ins...

2 Printer Setup Unpacking the printer Check to make sure that the carton contains each of the items shown in the following illustration. If anything is missing, contact the store where you bought the printer and ask them to supply the missing part. A serial-to-parallel interface converter (SPC-8K) i...

General guide 3 General guide The following illustrations show the major component parts of the your printer. Front cover Adjustment lever Paper guide Power switch Control panel Interface connector Platen knob Tractor unit Release lever

4 Printer Setup Installing the platen knob The platen knob is packed into a recess in the packaging material. ❏ Install the knob on the shaft located inside the large hole on the right side of the printer. Make sure that the flat side of the shaft is aligned with the corresponding flat surface insid...

Installing the ribbon cartridge 5 Installing the ribbon cartridge ❏ Make sure that printer is unplugged from its power outlet. ❏ Open the front cover of the printer. ❏ By hand, move the cartridge holder to the center position of the paper guide where there is a cutout to allow easy installation and ...

6 Printer Setup ❏ Carefully place the cartridge onto the cartridge holder making sure that the spindle of the holder fits into the socket on the bottom of the cartridge. ❏ Press down gently but firmly on the cartridge until it snaps securely into place. ❏ Rotate the knob on the cartridge again to ta...

Connecting to a power outlet and turning power on and off 7 ❏ By hand, move the cartridge holder to the center position of the paper guide where there is a cutout to allow easy installation and removal of the ribbon cartridge. Important! Never try to move the print head while the printer is plugged ...

8 Printer Setup ❏ Set the switch on the front of the printer to ON to turn power on, and to OFF to turn power off. Important! We recommend that you unplug the printer from the power outlet whenever you do not plan to use it for long periods. Because of the this, you should locate the printer so that...

12 Printer Setup Printing on fanfold paper When printing on fanfold paper, take care not to print too close to the perforations that separate each sheet. The following shows the recommended print area for fanfold paper and cut-sheet paper. Parking fanfold paper It is not necessary to remove fanfold ...

Unparking fanfold paper 13 ❏ Set the release lever on the back of the printer to the cut-sheet position.The paper is now parked, and you can load cut-sheet paper into the printer using the procedures under “Manual sheet feeding” on page 27. Unparking fanfold paper After you are finished printing on ...

14 Printer Setup Connecting to your computer The computer sends data to the printer through a cable. This printer does not come with a cable, so you must purchase one of your own. You will probably want to use a standard parallel cable for connection, but note that you can also use an optional seria...

16 Chapter 2: Control Panel Operations The control panel gives you push-button control over the printer’s power and paper feed operations. It also includes indicator lights that tell you the current status of the printer at a glance. This chapter describes general functions that can be performed usi...

Paper loading 17 Paper loading ❏ Prepare either cut-sheet or fanfold paper for feeding.For details on how to prepare for paper feeding, see page 8 for fanfold paper and page 27 for cut-sheet paper. ❏ The POWER indicator flashes to indicate there is no paper in the printer. ❏ Press SET/EJECT/PARK to ...

18 Control Panel Operations Parking fanfold paper ❏ Make sure the printer is off-line ( ON LINE indicator is not lit). ❏ Press SET/EJECT/PARK to eject the paper. ❏ After the paper is ejected, the printer will beep and the POWER indicator will flash to indicate there is no paper in the printer. ❏ Lat...

Setting the printing speed 19 Setting the printing speed ❏ Make sure the printer is on-line ( ON LINE indicator is lit). ❏ Press the control panel’s LINE FEED button to switch between NLQ ( NLQ indicator is lit) and draft ( NLQ indicator is not lit) printing. NLQ printing provides high quality, but ...

20 Chapter 3: Using the EDS Mode The letters “EDS” stand for “Electronic DIP Switches.” Just like the small DIP switches that are used by many computers, printers, and other devices, the EDS lets you configure the printer so that it matches your system and software needs. This chapter describes how ...

Entering the EDS Mode 21 Entering the EDS Mode ❏ Turn off the printer. ❏ Make sure that paper is loaded in the printer. ❏ While holding down the control panel’s SET/EJECT/PARK button, turn the printer back on.This causes the following message to be printed. Note: The paper is not fed after the messa...

22 Using the EDS Mode EDS Mode Settings RAM Usage ❏ Specify whether RAM should be used as an input buffer or as a download buffer. Selecting Input Buffer tells the printer to use available RAM to store data it receives from the computer. This speeds up the printing operation, but it also means that ...

EDS Mode Settings 23 Paper Out ❏ Enable or disable the paper out detect function. When paper out detection is set to Enabled , the printer automatically stops printing whenever it senses there is no more paper. When set to Disabled , the printer continues printing as long as there is data. Selecting...

24 Using the EDS Mode Banking Character ❏ Enable or disable banking character font. When the banking character is set to Enabled , the printer uses a special banking font to print the dollar sign and numerals 0 through 9. When set to Disabled , the special banking font is not used. Zero style ❏ Sele...

25 Chapter 4: Paper Handling Your printer is designed to print on a variety of different paper types. This chapter tells you everything you need to know about paper, and how to set the printer up for manual paper feed. In this chapter, you will learn about: ❏ Selecting the best type of paper to use ...

26 Paper Handling Adjusting for paper thickness Paper comes in different weights, normally expressed as gsm (grams per square meter) or lbs (pounds). Some form paper also has multiple pages that make them quite thick. Use the following procedure to change the gap between the print head and the plate...

Automatic fanfold feeding 27 The following table provides a general guide for setting the adjustment lever. Experiment with different settings until you find the one that gives you the print quality you want. Continuous use of the wrong adjustment lever setting can drastically reduce print head life...

30 Paper Handling Note: If you are inserting letterhead paper, insert the sheet so that it is face up with the letterhead portion up. Clearing paper jams Use the following procedure to clear paper jams from the printer. ❏ Unplug the printer from its AC power outlet. ❏ Open the front cover of the pri...

31 Chapter 5: Using the Printer with MS-DOS This chapter contains information about how to use the printer with applications software running under MS-DOS. In this chapter, you will learn about: ❏ How to set up for printing with MS-DOS Setting up for printing with MS-DOS To print from an application...

32 Appendix A: Troubleshooting The appendix tells you what you need to know if you experience problems with your printer. It tells you how to test the printer, how to check system software settings, and how to adjust the vertical alignment. In addition, there is information on actions to take for sp...

33 Hexadecimal dump This procedure prints in hexadecimal format all codes (character codes and control codes) that are sent to the printer by the computer. The printer does not execute any control codes (such as 0A - linefeed), it just prints them out. The hexadecimal dump is useful when you are wri...

34 Troubleshooting ❏ If the three lines do not align properly, use SET/EJECT/PARK to move the middle line to the left or LINE FEED to move it to the right. The above step performs alignment for DRAFT mode only. You must make separate adjustments for the D-DENSITY/SPEED, NLQ, NORMAL-DENSITY, PLOTTER ...

35 Printer test works, but printer will not print out data from the attached computer. Your application program’s or system software’s printer selection is wrong. Check the printer selection of your application software. The computer’s system software is not set up properly for the printer or for th...

37 Forms are smudged. Printing is too dark. The printer is not set up correctly for the thickness of paper being used. Set up the printer for the paper thickness you are using. See “Adjusting for paper thickness” on page 26. The ribbon is jammed, twisted, or not set correctly between the print head ...

39 Checking system software settings in Windows Whenever you have problems printing from a Windows application, you should check the following three things: ✓ Is the printer you are using set as the default printer? ✓ Is the printer you are using correctly selected in your application? ✓ Is the corr...

40 Troubleshooting To check the port ❏ Double-click the Control Panel icon in the Main window. ❏ Double-click the Printers icon. ❏ Double-click on the name of your Star printer in the list of installed printers. ❏ Click on Connect . ❏ Make sure that your printer cable is connected to the port highli...

41 Appendix B: Specifications Printing System Serial Impact Dot-Matrix Printing Speed Pitch Draft (cps/dpi) NLQ (cps/dpi) Pica (10 cpi) 180/120H 45/240H Elite (12 cpi) 216/120H 54/240H Condensed pica (17 cpi) 154/240H 77/240H Condensed elite (20 cpi) 180/240H 90/240H H: half-dot Print Direction Draf...

43 Appendix C: Interface Pin Outs Parallel Interface Pin Name Function 1 STROBE Goes low for ≥ 0.5 µ s when active. 2 DATA0 These signals represent information for the 1st through 8th bit of parallel data, respectively. Each signal is HIGH when data is logical 1, and LOW when logical 0. 3 DATA1 4 DA...

44 Appendix D: Character Sets Character Set #2 (Graphics Character Table) Character Set #2 (Italic Character Table)

45 Character Set #1 Other characters are the same as those for Character Set #2, above. International Character Set The character codes shown in the table are hexadecimal.

46 Printer Control Codes Appendix E: Printer Control Codes This appendix lists the printer’s control commands. It gives the name of each control command and the applicable ASCII code. Font and Character Set Control Commands Description ASCII Code Select italic ESC 4 Cancel italic ESC 5 Select Charac...

48 Printer Control Codes Line Spacing Commands Description ASCII Code Advance paper one line (line feed) LF Reverse paper one line ESC LF Set line spacing to 1/8 ″ ESC 0 Set line spacing to 7/72 ″ ESC 1 Set line spacing to 1/6 ″ ESC 2 Set line spacing to n /216 ″ ESC 3 n Set line spacing to n /72 ″ ...

49 Horizontal Print Position Control Commands Description ASCII Code Move print head to next horizontal tab position HT Return print head to left margin (carriage return) CR Move print head to absolute horizontal position ESC $ n 1 n 2 Add n dot spaces between characters ESC SPn Set horizontal tab p...

50 Glossary Appendix F: Glossary Centronics cable Parallel cable normally used to connect the printer to the computer. control code A numeric code that instructs the computer to perform an operation. For example, the computer sends the printer a form feed control code (12) to tell it to eject the cu...