Simple Cash Drawer Solution - works w/Mac

[jasonwood]

Need to be able to automatically open a cash drawer?

Don't waste time and money on serial if you don't have to!

Most receipt printers have a port to connect a cash drawer. The one I'm most familar with is the Star TSP600 series.

The Mac OS X driver (and obviously the windows version as well) come with a checkbox in the print dialog. If you want the cash drawer to open when you print, simply check the box!

I would ASSUME (haven't tried YET) that FileMaker will remember this setting in a printing script. You could have two scripts then, one which would open it (for cash sales), and one which would not (other sales).

The cable that connects an APG Cash Drawer to a Star printer is only about ten bucks from my store... a lot cheaper than buying a keyspan serial adapter, using up a usb port, buying a serial plugin, and figuring out how to communciate with it!

--

Jason Wood

HeyWoody.com

[LiveOak]

Assuming which settings the print dialog will remember is a dangerous game. You might want to do the experiment, it's worth a thousand speculations!

-bd

[jeffer]

In case this doesn't help...we have a serial epson printer connected trough the keyspan adapter and off course a cash drawer is connected to the printer. building the troi serial plugin in your database can be difficult but when it works...it's incredible! So when it doesnt work...you could give this a try!

jeff

[jasonwood]

I didn't realize I never followed up on this thread...

The answer is YES, the "Page Setup [Restore]" script step DOES remember the cash drawer setting for Star printers in Mac OS X.

The only thing that is a bit annoying is that it takes a few seconds (about 3 maybe) for the drawer to open, cause it has to send the print job to the print center.

The good news is that you can send a blank job to the receipt printer, and it won't print anything, it just opens the drawer.

Star receipt printers are setup such that you work with a really really long page layout (found in page setup), but when you print, it stops & cuts the paper right after the last dot. No dots-no paper.