printer recommendation request

[Brian K. White]

On 9/2/2010 2:49 PM, daN baueR wrote:
> Sounds good except for the part about having to figure out the tray
> commands, especially when that's exactly what I'm going to need.   I see
> the P4014 listing for 799 with two additional trays at 249 a piece.  I'd
> like to see if there's any consensus in the group on printers these days.

You _always_ has to figure those commands out for each different 
printer. The basic command is standard and defined in any pcl reference 
like the pcl manual you can google up and read on line right from the hp 
site. Google "pcl reference" and the first link is the pcl manual right 
from the hp site, downloadable as pdf or viewable as html in any browser 
thanks to google magic. In the pdf search for "source" which eventually 
gets you the paper source commands on... page 74.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/bpl13210/bpl13210.pdf
or
http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fh20000.www2.hp.com%2Fbc%2Fdocs%2Fsupport%2FSupportManual%2Fbpl13210%2Fbpl13210.pdf

But you always have to trial & error the tray number you put in the 
command, and the behaviour of some tray numbers is dependant upon other 
options you may have either programmed into the unit as defaults, and/or 
other pcl commands you may have sent or will send in the print job. Also 
there is more than one way to designate a paper source just like there 
is more than one way to designate a font.

"tray 1" really doesn't mean anything by itself. It only means something 
in relation to other stuff which is non-static.

Such as the behavior of the "manual/letter" tray if present. (normally 
it automatically becomes "tray 1" or the "default source" if there is 
paper present in it, but that behavior is configurable.

Such as what size paper was requested by the print job.

Such as what size paper was detected in the various bins.

Such as what bins had _any_ paper at all detected.

Such as what pcl commands or front-panel settings you set controlling 
the failover behavior when the requested bin has no paper, but some 
other bin does.

Such as what pcl commands or front-panel settings you set controlling 
the failover behavior when the requested paper size is not detected in 
any bin, but other paper sizes are.

Such as what commands or front-panel settings were set to override paper 
size detection, if any.

Of course the support guy can't tell you the commands. "The commands" 
are about half a page of possibly related pcl commands from the pcl 
language specification, and 5 or more pages of description of those 
commands, and a few minutes to an hour of plain hands-on experimental 
learning. That exceeds the scope of free product support for a printer. 
He should have been able to point you at the pcl reference manual, but 
you should have already known that much.

There are only 10 or so possible tray designations anyways so it's a 
simple matter to just send a little test print job with echo commands 
and find out empirically what happens by just trying it. It's 15  minutes.

1) Pick a bin and label it "1" with a sticker/post-it or a marker or 
just remember it in your head.
2) Hand write  "1" on 5 sheets of paper and put them all in whatever 
bin/tray you labeled "1".
3) Repeat (1) and (2) for the other bins, using "2" and "3" in place of "1".
4) Send a tiny print job with an echo command specifying "bin 1"
Example:
echo "\033E\033&l1H*** esc & l 1 H ***\033E\c" |lp -d newprinter -o raw

And see which paper comes out. You will get a sheet that says "*** esc & 
l 1 H ***" in the top left corner, and in the middle will be your hand 
written bin number for some bin, it might be any of them.

If it says "2" in handwriting in the middle, then the pcl command for 
"bin 1" draws paper from the bin you labeled "2". Simply write that down 
somewhere in a short table, or just keep the paper as it's own 
self-documentation.

5) Repeat (4) 9 times, sending the same pcl command but requesting a 
different bin each time, 1-9. Change both 1's in the above echo command 
to 2, then 3, etc. so:
echo "\033E\033&l2H*** esc & l 2 H ***\033E\c" |lp -d newprinter -o raw
echo "\033E\033&l3H*** esc & l 3 H ***\033E\c" |lp -d newprinter -o raw
echo "\033E\033&l4H*** esc & l 4 H ***\033E\c" |lp -d newprinter -o raw
etc...
If you use ksh, you can just up-arrow to get the previous command and 
edit the two characters that change in it and hit enter. You can cycle 
through all possible commands in less than a minute. If you are doing 
this from any terminal emulator instead of the system console you can 
also cut & paste the commands, also less than a minute for all.

6) Repeat a few more verifying that the command that drew from bin 1 
doesn't automatically draw from some other bin when paper is not present 
in bin 1. If it does, chances are that more than one command drew from 
bin 1, so try all commands that drew from bin 1 originally, and one of 
them will try to draw only from bin 1 without failing over to any other 
bin even if paper is missing from bin 1. Take that one as your "bin 1" 
command for use in the special form.

Repeat (6) for bins 2 and 3.

Sounds like a lot or repeating, but it's a tiny echo command that you 
hit up-arrow and edit one character and hit enter several times, and 
replace a few sheets of paper in the bins when the 5 written sheets are 
drawn. The whole thing takes 15 or so minutes, a half hour if it's all 
new and unfamiliar but you are following this email. It's not a reason 
to hold up the show and avoid buying a printer or delay getting the job 
done.

-- 
bkw