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Star Micronics NX-2480 User's Manual

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1. Pitch Display Pica 10 cpi 10 Elite 12 cpi le Semi condensed 15 cpi Condensed pica 17 cpi Condensed elite 20 cpi Super condensed 24 cpi Proportional Condensed proportional Only available in IBM emulation mode e Make the printer ready again Changing the zoom size The zoom feature allows you to print at 100 full size 67 two thirds size or 50 half size of the normal size The normal size is the size that the computer thinks the printout will be Page 40 This is a useful way of printing for example wide spreadsheet results on a narrow piece of paper To change the zoom level e Put the printer into not ready mode e Press and hold down the button e While holding down the button press the button e Each time you press the button the dis play will change Zoom size Display 50 50 on 67 Wee 6 7 ON 100 goo OO oFF e When you ve selected the zoom scale you want make the printer ready again Note Changing the zoom size will reset the printer Selecting the print color The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour will always print in black unless you tell it otherwise even if the multi color ribbon is installed Here s how you set the print color from the front panel e Put the printer into not ready mode e Press and hold down the button e While holding down the button press the button Page 41 e With each press o
2. ccccccceee ees Printer behaves erratically c ccccccecccecsesseeetteseenretterersenenernneeral Printing COASES ccecceesceeseeeteceetsctterenneneeseraeenertetsessreseensanennarecseaterens Display Messages NOn error cece cette eters reeset te eeranenees Display messages error cece eee eee eee te rene erate reeeecitseseatenees Beep tOMeS ccseccceccesesersssssssstesesssecesersserneneccsensecessecsvansavavsrsssseressseeners Checking system software settings ieee In Windows In MS DOS ee Introduction cli hk het sided dene naa Font control commands 0 5 Character set commands Character size and pitch commands Vertical position commands 0 cc cee Horizontal position commands ee Graphics COMMANGS 0 ccc cette reece rete teenre ee rteeenenercetenteneens Download character COMMAMNGAS 0 ieee ceee rte eerte ceteris Other printer COMMANAS cece eee ee rene tete reteset tenets tener Appendix 135 Specifications 0 0 2 cssscsscssssssosssseenssscsnsssasestssstseeesnetenensesesansanenstseneenes 135 Parallel interface 0 00 0 ccccccc ce ceceseceeceeeeceeseeccaetaseenerensesarsseeereneseaes 140 Character s t ea inc bs incest anit 141 Standard character Set 2 0 ccccccccccceeeteceee cee tee tae ceeeteesearsnesenee 142 International character Sets 0
3. Ee Carriage home position error Turn off the printer wait a few seconds and try printing again po E3 Paper handling error Turn off the printer wait a few seconds and try printing again EY S W 1 error Turn off the printer wait a few seconds and try printing again ES EEPROM or RAM memory error Turn off the printer wait a few seconds and try printing again _ aia E Watchdog internal software error Turn off the printer wait a few seconds and try printing again If any of these errors persist consult your supplier Page 87 Beep tones In addition to the display the printer also uses its inter nal beeper to alert you of problems and internal condi tions Here s a summary of the different tones Beep tones Meaning 2 second tone The printer has detected an error condi tion Turn off the printer wait a few sec onds and try printing again One long tone The printer has detected an error condi tion Turn off the printer wait a few sec onds and try printing again Four short tones repeated twice The printer is out of paper One short tone Two short tones The buffer has been cleared See Clear ing the buffer on page 43 The top of form has been set See Set ting the top of a form on page 35 The quiet mode has been selected See Quiet printing on page 37 The zoom size has been changed See Changing the z
4. Trademark acknowledgments NX 2480 Rainbow Colour NX 2420 Rainbow Colour NX 2420 SF LODW SPC 8K Star Micronics Co Ltd LQ850 LQ860 LQ1050 LQ1060 Seiko Epson Corporation IBM PC IBM Proprinter X24E IBM Proprinter XL24E IBM Proprinter X24 IBM Proprinter XL24 International Business Machines Corporation TrueType Macintosh Apple Computer Inc PostScript Adobe Systems Incorporated MS DOS Microsoft Windows Windows 3 1 Microsoft Corporation Grappler Orange Micro Inc Notice All rights reserved Reproduction of any part of this manual in any form whatsoever without STAR s express permission is strictly forbidden The contents of this manual are subject to change without notice Ali efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the contents of this manual at the time of printing However should any errors be found STAR would greatly appreciate being informed of them The above notwithstanding STAR can assume no responsibility for any errors in this manual Copyright 1993 Star Micronics Co Ltd Guide to this manual Even though the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour is basically a very simple printer to use it is also capable of many complex functions We have grouped this manual into two main sections divided into seven chapters and an appendix For normal everyday use you may never need to refer to Section II at all We strongly recommend however that you read through Section I Chapters 1 2 an
5. Printer is not receiving power Ifit is try a different power Check whether the power cord is correctly connected cord source is working by _ plugging in another device Check whether the power unplugging the printer and Possible causes Action The ribbon is jammed twisted or not set properly between the print head and the print head shield The print gap is not set correctly page 10 Use the adjustment lever to set the print gap Move the lever to a lower darker Make sure that the ribbon cartridge is correctly installed See Installing the ribbon cartridge on setting See Adjusting the print gap on page 24 Page 76 Possible causes l Action The wrong emulation is selected Check the emulation selection See Al Emulation on page 56 Change it if necessary selected by your application program or system software The wrong printer hasbeen Check the printer selection in your application or system software See Checking system software settings on page 89 The computer system software is not set up properly for the printer or for the type of interface cable that you are using Check the system software settings See Checking system software settings on page 89 The interface cable is _ incorrectly connected or damaged Check that the pri
6. page Set top of page at current position MODE ASCII Decimal IBM lt ESC gt 4 Hexadecimal 2 sed 1B 34 Sets the current position as the top of page top of form position Page 114 Set bottom margin MODE ASCII Both lt ESC gt N n Sets the bottom margin to n lines where nis between 1 and 127 in Standard mode or between 1 and 255 in IBM mode The bottom margin is reset when you change the page length Decimal Hexadecimal 27 78 n 1B 4E n Cancel bottom margin MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt O 27 79 1B 4F Cancels the bottom margin Form feed MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Feeds the paper to the top of the next page according to the current page length and moves the print position to the left margin When the automatic sheet feeder ASF is selected with EDS switch A6 this command ejects the current page Set vertical tab stops MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt B nl 27 66 nl 1B 42 ni AZ as S02 BA Goa tO n2 00 Cancels all current vertical tab stops and sets new verti cal tab stops at lines n1 n2 etc where n1 n2 etc are numbers between 1 and 255 A maximum of 16 vertical tab stops can be set The tab stops must be specified in ascending order any violation of ascending order termi nates the tab stop list Standard termination is by the
7. When printing in its 360 dpi letter quality mode that s more dots per inch than some laser printers it turns out beautifully finished work at up to 100 characters per second With clearly labeled buttons an informative LCD screen and easy paper loading the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour can be used by any one even without previous computer or printer experience With the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour s Elec tronic DIP Switch feature you can change the printer s default power on settings from the front panel Page 1 LCD screen Fonts Graphics Zooming Paper types Page 2 You can see your printer s settings at a glance by looking at the informative LCD screen It shows what font you are using how big it is the font pitch and other useful information this feature does not apply when you use the printer with Windows 3 1 or later The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour is a multi font printer which means that it can print text in a variety of different type styles fonts 10 in all These include Draft Roman Sanserif Courier Prestige Script ORATOR Orator 2 H Gothic SLQ Roman You can print these fonts in different styles such as emphasized bold shadow and out line as well as being able to change the size of the font The advanced 24 pin print head can print up to 360 dots per inch and in color too mak ing it an ideal printer for graphics programs and for programs running under Windows
8. ane CTS Space when computer is ready to send data The printer does not check this pin t 6 NC Unused 7 GND Signal ground T 8 10 NC Unused 11 RCH OUT Turned to Space when printer ready to receive echoes DTR 20 4 12 19 NC Unused 20 gt DTR OUT Turned to Space when printer ready to receive 21 25 NC Unused Setting up an MS DOS computer If you are using an IBM PC or compatible running MS DOS edit the AUTOEXEC BAT file to include a line that reads MODE LPT1 COMn nis the number of the serial port either 1 or 2 The line above will send printer output to the COMn serial port Next include the line MODE COMn baud parity data length stopbits p to set up the COMn port to match the DIP switch set tings on the serial to parallel converter For example Page 72 MODE COM2 9600 N 8 1 p will set up COM2 to run at 9600 baud with no parity a data length of 8 bits and 1 stop bit an MS DOS byte terminating convention The p indicates that the printer will continually try to re transmit data should an error occur Setting up a Windows computer Double click the Control Panel icon in the Main win dow Double click the Printers icon Make sure that NX 2480 Rainbow Colour is selected in the Installed Printers list Click on Connect Click on the serial port COMn to which the serial to parallel converter is connected Click OK to return to the Printers window Click Close to
9. c cece cere eee teteerseceeteeeenseeed 144 IBM character Set 2 0 0 00ccccc cece eccccsecceeceeceeeeeeeeceeeetereeeeuseeesneernees 145 Code page 437 U S A icici ccc ttceteeneens tere re erences tieenetnseneeey 145 Code page 850 Multi lingual cccccccccc citer tren ttaneeees 147 Page vil Code page 860 Portuguese 0 ccccccceceecseecsseeessneesesteneres Code page 861 Icelandic 0 ccccccccceeeteeeeeteeretnsnneneese Code page 863 Canadian French ccccesccccereceneseeernens Code page 865 Nordic ccccccccscetetesesseeesesssseenersesenses Character set 1 2222 sts cee e a OI ei eee aatiiede IBM special character Set 0 0 cece eecteeeeeeeeeneeeeereeaees Glossary Index Costomer service information Page viii 167 171 Chapter 1 Introduction Thank you for buying a STAR NX 2480 Rainbow Colour printer We are confident that it will provide you with years of reliable high quality printing We think we have made the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour one of the fastest quietest and easiest to use dot matrix printers ever We hope you agree with us Features Color Fast Easy to use You only need to add a color ribbon cartridge to print vibrant full color documents You can choose from up to 256 colors depending on your computer software The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour speeds through drafts at 330 characters per second 15 pitch
10. can use one of two character tables The character table Page 59 which you select with this switch depends on the emula tion set at the time Al Emulation on page 56 When the printer is in standard Epson emulation set ting Cl to ON selects the IBM Character Set 2 confus ing but true When OFF this switch selects an italic character table When the printer is in IBM emulation setting this switch ON selects IBM Character set 2 box drawing graphic characters international accented characters for example and U as well as common mathe matical and technical symbols such as Q and u Set ting this switch to OFF selects a smaller set of characters for use if your computer only sends 7 bit data to the printer If you re not sure what this means you probably won t need to use this setting D2 through D4 character code tables Again these switches perform different functions depending on the emulation Al Emulation on page 56 and the character table selected D1 Charac ter table on page 59 Use these switches to pick a char acter code table which contains the characters you need In all modes except Standard Epson emulation Al ON with the Italic character set selected D1 OFF the switches select the following code pages character tables 7 Code page D2 D3 D4 437 USA ON ON ON api E 850
11. gt 71 1B 47 Causes subsequent characters to be printed in double strike mode with a slight horizontal motion in between causing a thickening of vertical strokes For bold print use of double strike is recommended in LQ mode and combined use of emphasized and double strike is recommended in draft mode Cancel double strike printing mone ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ZSC gt H 27 72 18 48 Cancels double strike printing Page 95 Underlining MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ES gt p OT BS A 1B 2D n z Causes subsequent characters to be underlined when n is 1 and cancels underlining when n is 0 Block graph ics characters and spaces skipped by horizontal tabula tion are not underlined Overlining MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal IBM lt ESC gt on 27 95 n 1B 5F n Causes subsequent characters to be overlined when n is 1 and cancels overlining when nis 0 Spaces skipped by horizontal tabulation are not overlined Select score Decimal Hexadecimal 27 40 45 31 1B 28 2D 03 QO T id 00 02 nl n2 n2 Start score according to the values of n1 and n2 as shown below n1 Function n2 Function 1 Underlining 0 Cancel score 2 Strike through 1 Single continuous line 3 Overlining p2 Double continuous line 5 Single broken line l 6 Double broken line Page 96 Select ornament c
12. run the same system and appli cations software as an IBM PC Personal computer made by IBM capable of running MS DOS and Windows system software See also IBM compatible Dot matrix printer which the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour printer can emulate On screen symbol in Windows or Macintosh which represents a program or document You can double click on an icon to start the program or open the docu ment Physical link between the printer and the computer Variant of the Standard charac ter set containing characters for a particular country or region Landscape mode is when a docu ment is printed on paper with the longest sides of the paper at the top and bottom Printing mode in which the built in fonts are used to produce high quality suitable for corre spondence text output An instruction from the com puter which tells the printer to advance the paper by one line Long test Macintosh Macro Micro feed MODE statement Monospaced font MS DOS Repetitive printer test showing every available font and pitch setting all characters sets cur rent vertical alignment and cur rent Electronic DIP switch settings Easy to use personal computer which allows you to print using TrueType and PostScript fonts to use PostScript fonts you must have installed Adobe Type Manager To use the printer with a Macintosh you need an additional interface cable Printer function which allows you to save
13. 55 57 Micro feeding paper 35 Microsoft Windows software 19 Monospaced fonts 39 MS DOS 17 72 90 MS DOS application software 17 Multi part forms 23 55 58 Mute cover 5 14 P Page feed 34 Page length 55 59 Paper entrances 5 Page 168 Paper guide 14 26 Paper length test 48 Paper release lever 66 Paper tear off 55 Paper thickness adjustment lever 5 Paper out 55 58 Parallel cable 8 15 Parity 68 Parking paper 31 37 Pausing printing 33 Pitch and font lock 46 Pitch lock 45 Pitch selection 39 Platen knob 5 9 PostScript fonts 22 Power switch 5 Print area test mode 48 Print buffer 43 Print gap adjustment lever 24 Print head 5 Print mode 55 59 Printer driver Windows 20 Printer environment 7 Printer parts 4 Proportional fonts 39 Proportional pitch fonts 39 Q Quiet printing 37 R RAM usage 55 57 Ready and not ready modes 33 Ready mode 33 Reducing printout size 40 Release lever 5 78 Ribbon cartridge 5 10 Roller unit 5 12 S Saving macros 42 Selecting Electronic DIP Switch bank 53 Selecting Electronic DIP Switch number 54 Selecting fonts in Windows 22 Selecting the print color 41 Serial cable 71 Serial Parallel converter SPC 8K 9 67 Setting the top of a form 35 Short test print 47 Software handshaking 69 SPC 8K serial parallel converter 9 67 Standard emulation mode 91 Storing settings 42 T Tear off 58 Tensioning the ribbo
14. 72 Setting up a Windows COMPUTEL cccceccetcceete sete ence tteeteteertserteetnnens 73 Troubleshooting 75 Common problems and solutions ccc ete ete te ete teees 76 Power switch is on but POWER indicator is neither lit nor flashing 76 Printer sounds as if it is printing but is NOT cccccccie ete 76 Printing is WOK visicccciciccsc sith Balseset ones seutenesitecses Siinahcgessccednsatthaesttesteedans 76 Printer tests work but printer will not print out data from attached COMMDULEL esc occa cee sa ssn aa csc tee ates goes e ieas as arii gout deb evens Vaaa 77 Font selection changes unexpectedly cccccccccccssseeeeiteseneteereeeees 77 Printer will not feed paper properly 0 cccccccscesenereeeteensttenensenees 78 Page vi The printer will not print in colot ccc teeter ttes Line spacing is incorrect cccc Over printing OCCUIS cc0cccc tte Incorrect number of lines per page Malformed text or graphics 0 cccccccsees tere ttreteeeeteerteeereeteeaeenneees Poor printing Quality 0 20 cccccccccccercseeterenerreseeerstsessenennenensneteanennans Forms are smudged 0 Printing is too dark cc0000 Printer case is hot 0 000 Printer makes excessive noise Printer prints beyond the edge of the papel cccscries Left margin moves towards the right during printing Some incorrect characters are being printea
15. 92 nl n2 1C 5C nl n2 IBM lt Esc gt N nl n2 27 92 nil n2 1B 5C nil n2 Enables printing of all characters in the IBM character set including those characters which are normally con sidered control codes This command remains in effect for the next n1 n2 x 256 characters where n1 and n2 are between 0 and 255 During this time no control functions are executed If a code with no assigned char acter is received the printer prints a space Enable printing of all character codes on next character Decimal Hexadecimal 28 94 n 1C 5E n This command operates like the previous command Enable printing of all character codes except that it remains in effect for only one character Page 101 Character size and pitch commands Pica pitch MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt ESC gt P 27 80 18 50 IBM lt DC2 gt 8 12 In Standard mode changes from either elite or semi condensed to pica pitch 10 cpi or from condensed elite to condensed pica 17 cpi In IBM mode changes from elite or condensed to pica 10 cpi Ignored if the PITCH LOCK mode was selected during power up Elite pitch Decimal Hexadecimal In Standard mode changes from either pica or semi condensed to elite pitch 12 cpi or from condensed pica to condensed elite 20 cpi In IBM mode changes from pica or condensed to elite 12 cpi Ignored if the PITCH LOCK mode was selec
16. If you set this switch to OFF this allows you to use the fanfold tear off function page 34 If you this switch is ON the function is disabled B4 Reserved Leave this switch on B5 and B6 Multi part mode When using multi part forms there are three settings you can make depending on the number of sheets you are feeding through the printer at one time Multi part mode B5 B6 Normal mode one sheet ON ON pe Multi part 1 up to 3 sheets ON OFF Multi part 2 up to 5 sheets OFF ON Page 58 C1 and C2 Print mode You choose the default pitch and font settings with these switches Print mode C1 C2 10 cpi draft ON on 17 cpi draft OFF JON 10 cpi LQ OFF OFF Note Any pitch and font settings you have stored in a macro page 42 will be erased if you change these switch settings C3 through C5 Page length If you are using US letter paper or 11 inch fanfold paper leave all these switches ON You should set the switches as follows for different sizes of paper Page Length c3 C4 C5 7 25 inches sideways US executive OFF OFF Orp 8 inches OFF ON O 8 5 inches sideways US letter ON ON OFF 0 5 inches US executive O OFF OFF 1 inches US letter ON ON O 1 7 inches internationa A4 O OFF O 12 inches OFF OFF lo 14 inches US legal OFF ON OFF D1 Character table In each emulation mode the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour
17. Normal Proportiona 0 172 Courier Italic Proportiona 0 184 Courier Empnhasized Proportiona 0 85 Courier Italic emphasized Proportiona 0 221 Prestige Normai Semi condensed 0 253 Courier Emphasized Pica condensed 0 254 Courier Normal Pica condensed Page 105 n1 n2 Font Mode Pitch 1 Prestige Normal Pica condensed 201 Prestige Normal Pica condensed 202 Prestige Normal Elite condensed 235 Courier Normal Elite 236 Courier Normal Semi condensed 237 Courier Normal Pica condensed 238 Courier Normal Elite condensed 239 Prestige Normal Elite 240 Prestige Normal Semi condensed Expanded printing Causes subsequent characters to be expanded to double width when nis 1 and cancels it when n is 0 Expanded printing for one line MODE ASCII l Decimal Hexadecimal lt 50 gt 14 OF Both lt ESC gt lt s0 gt 27 14 18 OE Causes subsequent characters in the current line to be expanded to double width Characters return to normal width after the next line feed lt LF gt The lt DC4 gt lt VT gt lt FF gt and lt ESC gt W 0 commands also cancel expanded printing Page 106 Cancel one line expanded printing MODE ASCH Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt pca gt 20 14 Cancels one line expanded printing set with lt SO gt or lt ESC gt lt SO gt Does not cance
18. SPC 8K When you use the SPC 8K with your computer and printer you must remember that you are printing through the serial not the parallel port on your com puter Page 70 The only other thing to remember is the buffer memory The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour contains memory which can be used as a print buffer page 57 which must be cleared Clearing the buffer on page 43 if a print job is to be halted The SPC 8K also contains a buffer which must also be cleared if you are to halt a print job suc cessfully You clear the SPC 8K s print buffer by pressing the but ton recessed in the body of the SPC 8K Buffer reset EY button SS Er The serial connector on the SPC 8K The following information is provided for use if your computer does not have a standard 25 pin serial connector If you computer does have a standard 25 pin serial connector you can use a straight through 25 pin cable If you need to use the SPC 8K with any other computer you will either have to buy or make your own cable If you are in doubt show the chart below to your com puter supplier or to friends who have experience with serial cables 5 Signal In or Pin g Function name Out 1 GND A Printer chassis ground 2 TXD our Data from the orinter Page 71 Signal In or J Pin g Function name Out 3 RXD IN Data to the printer 4 RTS OUT Always space
19. Selects character set 2 Page 98 Select international character set MODE i ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta lt zsc gt R n 27 82 n 18 52 n Selects an international character set according to the value of n n Character set n Character set 0 USA 8 lapan 4 J 1 France 9 Norway 2 Germany 10 Denmark Il 3 England 11 Spain 1 4 Denmark 12 Latin America Sweden Korea Any one of the first eight of these character sets from U S A to Spain I can be selected as the power up default using EDS switches D2 to D4 International character set variations are shown in the Appendix Page 99 Select IBM code page MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both LESC ie p 27 91 84 1B 5B 54 lt 4 gt lt a gt lt 0 gt 4 0 0 04 00 00 lt 0 gt nl n2 0O nl n2 00 nl n2 Changes the code page of the current IBM character set according to the values of n1 and n2 as shown below n1 n2 Code page 1 181 437 U S A 3 82 850 Multi Lingual 3 92 860 Portuguese 3 93 861 Icelandic 3 95 863 Canadian French 3 97 865 Nordic One of these code pages can be selected as the power up default using EDS switches D2 to D4 The various code pages are shown in the Appendix Page 100 Enable printing of all character codes MODE ASCH Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt Fs gt nl n2 28
20. and the printer will continue to print in hexadecimal dump mode until you turn it off and on again in the usual way Adjusting the dot alignment Note You may never need to use this function Use it only if graph ics printouts appear strange as in the illustrations below After you have owned and been using your printer for some time you may find that when you print graphics the printed dots are slightly out of line with each other For instance what you intend to look like this may come out like this HLL or like this WAL pih Yii This is due to the mechanical parts of the printer work ing slightly out of alignment It happens very rarely you may never see this symptom However if it does occur it is nothing to worry about and you can cure it in the following way e Load a sheet of paper or load fanfold paper into the printer and turn the printer OFF Page 50 Press and hold down both the and the buttons Turn on the printer After a few seconds release the buttons The display will show dA dot adjustment The printer will then print something like DOT ADJUSTMENT SETTING LO ELT EET ed The number before the vertical bars may not be 3 but whatever its value it will be also shown in the display 3 After the bars have been printed the printer will feed the paper so that you can see the printout clearly Each vertical bar is actually two bars You can
21. attach it to the holder shaft Page 64 e Make sure that the mounting brackets on both sides of the SF 10DW are properly mounted on the printer If they have been properly mounted you can use the platen knob to turn the ejection roller on the SF 10DW e Install the printer cover supplied with the SF 10DW Install the hopper attachment on top of the SF l10DW hopper support section e Fit the stacker attachment into the fixing groove in the front of the sheet feeder You may need to squeeze the stacker attachment a little to fit it Keep the printer s front cover mute cover roller unit and paper guide together for possible future use Using the SF 10DW e If you have already loaded fanfold paper park the paper page 31 Page 65 e Push the paper release lever to the back position e Pull the SF 10DW paper loading lever forward to pull the hopper forward e Adjust the left paper guide to the position at which you want the left edge of the paper e Take about 50 sheets of paper about 20 Ib weight fan them and square them off before putting them into the SF 10DW By doing this you separate the sheets This stops the sheets from sticking together and jamming as they are fed through the feeder into the printer Page 66 e Insert the paper into the SF 1ODW Do not attempt to force sheets into the feeder If the stack of paper does not fit easily into the feeder remove some s
22. gap on page 24 The print head is damaged dealer for repair Return the printer to your l Page 80 Printing is too dar Possible causes Action The print gap is not set correctly set the print gap Move the Use the adjustment lever to lever to a higher lighter setting See Adjusting the print gap on page 24 sad twisted or not set properly between the print head and the print head shield Print head shield is damaged or missing cartridge is correctly installed See Installing Make sure that the ribbon the ribbon cartridge on page 10 Return the printer to your dealer for repair Possible cause Action The printer s air vents are blocked or obstructed 3 return the printer to your Switch off the printer and allow it to cool down Check the air vents on the underside of the printer to see if they are clogged or obstructed in any way Remove the obstruction or clogging material if possible If the problem persists dealer for repair Page 81 Possible causes Action The front cover and mute covers are Off Replace the covers The printer is vibrating is on a level steady Move any unrelated objects that are touching the printer Make sure that the printer surface Possible causes ue T
23. guides upside down and printing side towards the rear of the printer and gently push it down between the guides until you feel it stop Page 26 e Press the button This should make the printer feed the paper round the platen until it is ina position suitable for printing The ON LINE indicator should come on If this does not happen you have probably not loaded the paper correctly Take the sheet out and try loading it again e Ifthe paper is at the wrong place to start printing for instance if the address printed on the top of your let terhead takes up a lot of space put the printer not ready mode press the button and use the micro feed function as described in Chapter 4 e You can now start printing Loading and parking fanfold paper You can use fanfold paper up to 25cm 10 wide with this printer You can feed this paper from the bottom or the rear of the printer These are the ways in which fanfold paper is fed through the printer _ Le Page 27 Loading paper from the rear of the printer Always load fanfold paper with the printer s power turned OFF Place the stack of fanfold paper behind and below the printer Pull the release lever at the right of the printer towards you t This releases the paper from the platen and allows it to feed through the tractor roll ers Open the mute cover and the rear cover Grip the gray tractor position locking levers on both si
24. is currently selected where n1 n2 etc are numbers between 1 and 255 The maximum number of horizontal tab stops allowed is 32 in Standard mode and 28 in IBM mode The tab stops must be specified in ascending order any violation of ascending order terminates the tab stop list Standard termination is by the lt 0 gt control code To clear all tab stops specify lt ESC gt D lt O gt Reset all tab stops Decimal Hexadecimal Resets the horizontal tab stops to their power up values in which a tab stop is set every 8 columns starting at column 9 Also clears all vertical tab stops Horizontal tab MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ET gt 9 09 Moves the print position to the next horizontal tab stop Ignored if there is no next horizontal tab stop on the current line Note that when underlining is selected spaces skipped by horizontal tabulation are not under lined Page 119 Relative horizontal tab MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt ESC gt nt n2 7 92 ni n2 1B 5C nl n2 Moves the print position right or left a specified dis tance Ignored if the resulting position is beyond the right or left margin The formula for the distance and direction are as follows If n2 is between O and 63 the print head moves right by nl n2 x 256 dots If you want to move the print head to the left n1 and n2 are obtained by subtracting
25. is in not ready mode and it will not be able to accept data from the computer You can usually only make changes to the printer s settings using the front panel when this indica tor is not lit You set the printer ready and not ready with the ON LINE button Pausing printing You can make the printer not ready if you want to pause in the middle of a printing job Printing will Page 33 restart from the point where it left off when you make the printer ready again Feeding paper through the printer There are a number of ways in which you can feed paper through the printer One line or several lines at a time Make the printer not ready by pressing the button and press the button This will feed the paper forward one line If you continue to hold down the button the printer will continue to feed the paper one line at a time Make the printer ready again to continue printing A page at a time This will either eject a cut sheet or feed fanfold paper to the top of the next sheet To determine where the top of a sheet should be see Setting the top of a form on page 35 If you want to feed a page of paper through the printer make the printer not ready Press and hold down the button e While holding down the button press the button e Release both buttons at the same time The paper will feed through Individual form tear off You can tear off individual sheets for instance sales invoices from fanfold pa
26. is ready to start printing normally after it has printed the bottom message Hexadecimal dump mode This feature is most useful for programmers and sup port staff who need to check that the printer is really receiving the expected data In this mode the printer does not act on so called control codes codes which cause the printer to perform an action such as feeding paper Characters are printed in the following way A space is printed with its hexadeci mal value 20 61 20 74 68 61 74 20 74 68 65 20 70 72 data tha 65 72 20 69 73 20 72 65 63 65 69 76 69 inter is OA 57 68 65 6E 20 79 6F 75 20 70 65 72 ng When 6 mah 64 dump 28 es char 20 des and 65 codes a ed out i Non printable control characters are shown as periods and printed with their hexadecimal values re witi own prog send out he print s someti ul to pr the raw t the pr receivi you per exadecim all cod acter co control re print n hexade Printable characters are printed with their hexadecimal values on the left and the characters on the right This kind of format is familiar to anyone who has used the MS DOS DEBUG command Page 49 To enter the hexadecimal dump mode make sure paper is loaded into the printer e Turn the printer OFF e Press and hold down the and the buttons e While holding down the and the buttons turn on the printer e Release the buttons The display will show Hd hexa decimal dump
27. it Save the packing material and carton in case you need to move the printer in the future Fitting the platen knob This knob is packed into a recess of the packaging mate rial in the printer box To fit the knob rotate the knob on the shaft lining up the flattened side of the shaft with the flattened part of the hole on the knob After you have lined up these flat tened sides push the knob firmly onto the shaft Page 9 Removing the front cover You will need to remove the front cover the smoked plastic cover on the top of the printer to install and change ribbon cartridges Lift the cover from the rear using the grips on the sides then lift up to remove the cover from the body of the printer Installing the ribbon cartridge You have the choice of using a color or a black ribbon with the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour Both ribbons are installed and removed in the same way e Take the slack out of the ribbon by turning the knob on the ribbon cartridge clockwise as shown by the arrow Page 10 Place the cartridge on the cartridge carrier inside the printer Make sure that the ribbon is between the print head and the print head shield Press the cartridge so that it clicks into place If the cart ridge does not click into position on both sides you may need to turn the cartridge knob about 1 4 of a turn clockwise Once the cartridge is in the carrier tighten the rib bon again by turning the cart
28. of a page This is how you tell the printer about the top of a page e Put the printer in not ready mode Page 35 Set the paper position to the top of a page where you want the printing to start on each page using the micro feed functions page 35 Press and hold down the button While holding down the button press the button Release both buttons The display will show which means that the top of the form has been set Put the printer back into ready mode Note The printer now knows the top of a page but it doesn t know the exact page unless you tell it which means that when you do a page feed the printer will not necessarily move to the correct position on the next page You must set the page length using the Electronic DIP Switch mode described on page 53 Changing the autoloading position When you load cut sheet paper the printer automati cally loads the paper so that printing starts one line from the top of the paper unless you tell it otherwise This is how you tell it otherwise for example if you re printing a lot of letters on letterhead paper e With the printer in not ready mode load cut sheet paper using the button Use the micro feed functions page 35 to alter the print position Notice that a number will appear in the LCD window This means you can remember that for instance we should print starting from 67 steps down on headed invoices If the value goe
29. put the printer in not ready mode and change fonts and pitch using the button and the button Selecting the different fonts on page 38 Any software commands from your computer that try to change the pitch or font will be ignored by the printer Pitch and font unlock Reset the printer See Setting the printer back to default settings on page 44 This will reset the pitch lock and the font lock Page 46 Test printing The following modes allow you to produce test prints which show off the capabilities of your printer and also confirm that it is in good working order Short test To print the short test first make sure there is paper in the printer e Turn off the printer e Press and hold down the button Turn the printer on while holding down the button Release the button The display will show P1 The printer will print the ROM version number the ver sion of its own built in software followed by 7 lines of characters this is a greatly reduced example E ai i Ee 2 k a A Aa eed A i e If you have a color ribbon cartridge fitted each line of characters will be printed in a different color the order will be the same as in Selecting the print color on page 41 Long test Note This test produces a lot of printout We suggest that you load fanfold paper if you want to run this test This test produces a list of all the current Electronic DIP switch settings see page 56
30. ready and change fonts using the button Selecting the different fonts on page 38 but any software commands from your com puter that try to change the font will be ignored by the printer Font unlock Reset the printer See Setting the printer back to default settings on page 44 This will also reset the pitch lock see below Pitch lock This stops you from accidentally changing the pitch with software commands e Turn the printer OFF front switch e Press and hold down the button Page 45 e While holding down the button turn the printer on again e Keep holding down the button until the printer beeps and the display shows REJJ You can put the printer in not ready mode and change the pitch using the button Changing the pitch of the font on page 39 Any software commands from your computer that try to change the pitch will be ignored by the printer Pitch unlock Reset the printer See Setting the printer back to default settings on page 44 This will also reset the font lock see above Pitch and font lock This stops you from accidentally changing the font and or the pitch with software commands e Turn the printer OFF front switch e Press and hold down the button and the button e While holding down the button and the button turn the printer on again e Keep holding down the FONT and PITCH buttons until the printer beeps and the display shows both and You can
31. return to the Control Panel window Double click on Ports The Ports dialog box appears Click on the name of the port to which the serial to parallel converter is connected Click on Settings For each setting Baud Rate Data Bits Parity Stop Bits and Flow Control protocol select the appropri ate setting from the pull down menu alternatively you can type in your selections directly Click OK to return to the Ports window Click Close to return to the Control Panel window Page 73 Page 74 Chapter 6 Troubleshooting Your NX 2480 Rainbow Colour printer should perform without any problem most of the time However things will go wrong from time to time A list of common prob lems and corresponding suggestions for solving them is given below A further section Checking system software settings suggests ways for you to check whether your system software MS DOS or Windows is correctly set up for printing If the suggested remedies do not cure the problem con sult the store where you purchased your printer for assistance Note The printer contains high voltages Do not try any repair oper ation other than those described in this chapter You could receive an electric shock or cause damage to the printer This will also invalidate the warranty ee ed Page 75 Common problems and solutions Power switch is on but p Possible cause Action
32. the font pitch zoom resolution single sheet auto load position and fanfold auto load position Macro settings come into effect each time the printer is switched on See forward micro feed and reverse micro feed Statement in an MS DOS AUTOEXEC BAT file that deter mines to which port the com puter should send printer output Font in which all characters are of the same width The most common operating system software for the IBM PC and compatible machines Page 161 Multi part form NCR sets Not ready mode Orientation Over printing Paper feed Paper guides Paper out Parallel cable Parallel interface Page 162 Forms such as invoices con sisting of several sheets one on top of another enabling several copies to be made simulta neously No Carbon Required multi part forms which use pressure sensitive chemicals to mark the lower copies Printer mode in which you can change printer settings using the control panel The printer cannot print in not ready mode The rotation in which paper is loaded See landscape orienta tion and portrait orientation Printing text on top of existing text This may be caused by an incorrect auto line feed setting Control panel operation which allows you to feed paper through the printer one line at a time Devices which hold single sheets so that they are fed into the printer correctly Printer function which automati cally d
33. the value from 65536 and dividing the result into high and low bytes The unit of movement is fixed at 1 120 inch in draft mode and 1 180 inch in LQ mode Relative horizontal tab in inches Hexadecimal 27 100 nl n2 1B 64 nl n2 Sets the next print position to n1 n2 x 256 120 inches from the current position Ignored if this position is beyond the right margin The maximum tab position is 8 inches Absolute horizontal tab in inches MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta CESC nl n2 27 36 nl n2 iB 24 nl n2 Sets the next print position to n1 n2 x 256 60 inches from the left margin on the current line Ignored if this position is beyond the right margin Page 120 Graphics commands Print normal density 8 bit graphics MODE ASCII Decima Hexadecimal Both SESC K nl 2A PISE 1B 4B nl n2 mi m2 n2 mi m2 n2 mi m2 Prints bit image graphics at 60 dots per inch horizon tally The graphic image is 8 dots high and n1 n2 x 256 dots wide Maximum width is 8 inches 480 dots ml m2 are the dot data each a 1 byte value from O to 255 representing 8 vertical dots with the most signif icant bit at the top and the least significant bit at the bottom The number of data bytes must be n1 n2 x 256 Dots beyond the right margin are ignored On com pletion of bit image printing the printer returns auto matically to character mode Print double density 8 bit graphics Bo
34. ulti lingual OFF ON ON 860 Portuguese ON OFF O 861 celandic OFF OFF 863 Canadian French ON ON 1 OFF 865 ordic OFF ON OFF aes lt 2 Page 60 In the following mode only Standard Epson emulation Al ON with the Italic character set selected D1 OFF the switches select the following Country D3 D4 U S A France Germany FF Denmark I Sweden O O O England F ON O O O Italy Spain D5 CR centering With this switch OFF when the printer feeds fanfold paper past the perforations the print head moves to the center of the paper This will improve print quality Obvi ously for this function to work you must set the page length to work with the actual length of each fanfold page page 59 When this switch is ON the print head does not move when fanfold paper is being fed E1 through E5 LQ Font selection These switches allow you to set the default font used when you select LQ mode Font name E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 Roman ON ON ON ON ON Sanserif OFF ON ON ON ON Courier ON OFF ON ON ON Prestige OFF OFF ON ON ON Page 61 Font name E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 Script ON ON OFF O ON Orator OFF OFF OFF O O Orator 2 O ON ON OFF O H Gothic O ON OFF OFF O SLO Roman O ON ON OFF OFF F1 Electronic DIP switch settings If you set this switch OFF all sw
35. use the button to move the bottom row of bars to the left and the button to move them to the right DOT ADJUSTMENT SETTING LO T ga ae Pb Os OE CEs EO f SET EJECT PAPER FEED jam Before printing the test pattern again the printer will reverse feed the paper After printing the pattern the printer will feed the paper up for you to see it clearly In the illustration above you would want to move the bottom row to the right so pressing the button will give you the following printout DOT ADJUSTMENT SETTING LQ F E AE EE Cel Page 51 e The display will now show 2 The bars are more aligned now Keep using the button and button until the two rows are aligned You have now aligned the printer in Letter Quality LQ mode By pressing the button you can now cor rect the dot alignment of the draft mode There are six modes where the dot alignment may need to be corrected LQ DRAFT A DRAFT B DRAFT COND condensed GRAPHICS A and GRAPHICS B Cycle around these modes by pressing cycling here means that if you are in the last mode GRAPHICS B and you press ON LINE the printer will go back to LQ The different modes may have different alignments because of the way that the printer s electronics drive the moving parts e When you have adjusted all the dot alignments exit from the mode by pressing PITCH The printer will print END and go into ready mode e Eje
36. use the 15 TrueType fonts included with the printer If you have installed Adobe Type Manager soft ware on your computer you can also display and print Adobe PostScript fonts Page 22 Chapter 3 Using your printer Loading paper The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour can print on a variety of paper types as explained below Cut sheet paper The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour can use single sheets of paper cut sheets or letterheaded stationery Use the fric tion feed or the optional SF 10DW automatic sheet feeder Fanfold paper It can also accept fanfold continuous computer statio nery Fanfold stationery has the sheets joined together with perforations between sheets and holes sprocket holes along each edge to help the printer grip the paper You should not print too close to the sprocket holes Otherwise you run the risk of jamming the paper in the printer Multi part forms You can print continuous multi part forms which are either carbon backed or pressure sensitive carbonless NCR with up to five copies including the top copy If you use multi part forms we suggest that you feed them through the bottom paper feed slot as this will help to prevent premature separation of the forms There should be a difference in thickness of not more than 0 05mm between the side edges Note If you use multi part sets set up the Multi Part setting using the Electronic DIP switches as described in B5 and B6 Multi pa
37. 1 Tee ee SLLELL LLG GGaas prs ccs ese a fe a ee B i Page 152 IBM special character set Additional characters that can be printed using software commands FARRAR ARP RRR basi ADE eee ee ee ees a Page 153 Page 154 Glossary This section gives a brief explanation of some of the terms used in this manual Adobe Type Manager Adjustment lever AEC mode Application Auto line feed Auto load position AUTOEXEC BAT Software for Windows and Mac intosh which allows you to print PostScript fonts Lever which lets you adjust the position of the print head for dif fering paper thicknesses See Automatic Emulation Change mode Software program such asa word processor from which you can print out documents Printer function in which the printer automatically performs a carriage return and line feed whenever it receives a carriage return control code Position of the print head after paper is loaded relative to the physical top of the page MS DOS set up file containing statements which determine to which port the printer output is to be sent Page 155 Automatic Emula tion Change mode Automatic Sheet Feeder Bi directional printing Bit Bitmap fonts Bottom feed Carriage return Centronics connector Page 156 Printer mode in which the printer automatically senses which emulation mode Stan dard or IBM the
38. 2 Saving MACIOS ccccccccssescerscescstsseseeeeeneceseenseserenerieseranernessieneersengees 42 Removing the macro ccccccccccecescscecceseseeeesesseeceecsetesneseesnetnennennees 43 Clearing the buffer eeiseererssesosreererresrseserearnsoneserereevereresersrsrernerereees 43 Setting the printer back to default settings 44 Locking the printer ceseeeee ce reeeeeeeteceeeeeneenerseneatens 45 FORE LOCK seek EEE E E E T 45 Font GI OGK siainen eaae a a aga snag aaa gh sess 45 VA MOCK EEEE AE SE E tghevdestnvionendibaateaveczana seeetes aaa ee 45 Pitch unlocken aniren eaa eia naa EEEE EE RA a D a N araara 46 Pitch and font lock cccccccccccccce ce cece ee neneeceeeeneseeeeeecnneeaeeeeeniageeesenterne 46 Pitch and font UNIOCK ccccccc ect eceeee te ceeeteniesenneneseieeectteeennineeres 46 Test Printing oo appe ei aa i TANA aia A 47 SRO TOSE TAEA E EE T aE teeta 47 Long Bk 1 7 Seve OEE OES EEEEEEPOESOSEESSESSESIOTESEOSSOIIEOSESOOSSOOOSIOOSIOOSISOOOEIIE 47 Print area test mode cccccccc cect c cee eteeteeccenenneaeeeseeentaenesesnnenanssetsene 48 Hexadecimal dump mode cccccseeerecesteceesneeeeee settee erenetsenineeeee 49 Adjusting the dot alignment cccccee cette reeneeeeeteateteens 50 Electronic DIP SWITCHES ccc ccc ee teen ee ee ee reeset teneneneneneenes 52 Using the Electronic DIP switches 0 etree 53 Banks and NuMb0 S cccccccccceceece
39. 3 1 and later You can print documents at 50 or 67 of their actual size As a result you need only use a single sheet of paper to print large doc uments such as spreadsheets You can print on a wide variety of different paper types and sizes from fanfold computer paper to single sheets and stationery to multi part forms Even when fanfold paper is loaded the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour allows Compatiblity you to print on single sheets saving you time and effort A tear off function allows you to tear off single printed fanfold paper sheets from the printer without wasting paper You can feed fanfold paper from either the rear or the bottom of the printer An optional automatic sheet feeder is also available which holds up to 50 sheets of paper By emulating the industry standard Epson and IBM printers the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour allows you to print just about any thing your computer software can generate The NEC graphics command set is also sup portted for even better graphics compatibility The Automatic Emulation Change feature means that the printer can automatically change to the appropriate printer emulation for the application software depending on the data received Special drivers and scalable fonts are included to allow you to produce high quality printout from Windows 3 1 and later applica tions Page 3 Parts This is what your new printer looks like These diagrams may be useful in the next few se
40. 7 71 C Changing an Electronic DIP switch value 54 Changing the zoom size 40 Character code tables 60 Character set commands 98 Character size and pitch commands 102 Character table 55 59 84 Clearing the buffer 43 Code page 55 84 Color printing 41 Commands character set 98 character size and pitch 102 download character 125 font control 93 graphics 121 horizontal position 117 other 129 vertical position 110 Control panel 5 CR centering 56 61 Cut sheet paper 23 26 D Default Printer 89 Default settings 44 62 Display screen 5 Dot alignment adjustment 50 Download character commands 125 E Ejecting paper 37 Electronic DIP switches 52 Emulation 17 55 56 84 Epson emulation mode 91 Epson LQ 860 1060 18 F Factory settings 44 Fanfold paper 23 27 Fixed pitch fonts 39 Font control commands 93 Font lock 45 Font pitches 40 Font selection 38 56 61 Font selection in Windows 22 Front cover 5 10 13 Page 167 G Graphics commands 121 Graphics print direction 55 57 H Handshaking 69 Hardware handshaking 69 Hexadecimal dump mode 49 Horizontal position commands 117 j IBM Proprinter 18 Individual form tear off 34 Interface connector 5 International character set 55 L Line feed 34 Loading cut sheet paper 26 Loading fanfold paper 27 Loading paper 23 Locking font selection 45 Locking pitch and font 46 Locking the pitch 45 Long test print 47 M Macros 42 Memory usage
41. Hexadecimal 1B l n In IBM mode this command defines the distance the paper advances or reverses in subsequent line feeds to n 72 inch where nis between 1 and 85 The new line spacing does not take effect until the next lt ESC gt 2 command Execute lt ESC gt A MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sets the line spacing to the value defined by the last pre ceding lt ESC gt A command Sets the line spacing to 1 6 inch if there is no preceding lt ESC gt A command Line feed MODE ASCII Decimai Hexadecimal Both lt LF gt 10 oA Prints the current line and advances the paper to the next line The line spacing is set by one of the com mands listed previously Page 112 Reverse line feed MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta lt 250 gt gp 27 10 1B 0A IBM aso 27 93 1B 5D Prints the current line and moves the paper in the reverse direction to the preceding line Ignored when the printer is in friction feed mode The line spacing is set by one of the commands listed previously Select forward feed mode MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal 28 Std lt Fs gt p 70 1c iG Cancels the reverse feed mode and selects forward feed mode This is the default setting at power on Select reverse feed mode 1C 52 Selects reverse feed mode Reverses the direction of all vertical movement
42. LF with CR If A5 is ON your computer needs to send both a line feed code and a carriage return code at the end of each line If A5 is set to OFF the printer will automatically perform a line feed each time it receives a carriage return As a result your software only needs to send a carriage return at the end of a line e If your output is double spaced when it should not be you may need to set this setting to ON e Ifthe lines of your output are being printed on top of one another you should set this setting to OFF A6 Auto sheet feeder If you have installed the optional automatic sheet feeder SF 10DW you should turn this switch OFF Other wise simply leave it ON B1 Graphics direction When you are printing graphics you can print bi direc tionally left to right and right to left for speed ON Uni directional graphics printing OFF means that the print head prints from left to right returns to the left without printing and prints from left to right again Page 57 This is a little more accurate than bi directional print ing but for most purposes you ll probably find that bi directional printing is accurate enough B2 Paper out When ON the printer takes note of its internal paper sensor It prints to the bottom edge of the paper and then stops waiting for a new sheet If this switch is OFF the printer ignores its sensor and will continue printing even if there is no paper to print on B3 Tear off
43. Rainbow Colour is ideally suited for use with computers running Microsoft Windows system soft ware It works best with Windows version 3 1 or later If you are running an earlier version of Windows we rec ommend you upgrade your computer to the latest ver sion In particular this will allow you to use the 15 TrueType fonts included on the floppy disk packaged with this printer To use the printer with Windows you need to install a file known as the printer driver file onto your computer This file is supplied on the floppy disk packaged with the printer The following description assumes that you are using a mouse Click and double click refer to the action of using the mouse to point at an item with the on screen pointer and then pressing the left mouse button either once or twice in quick succession If you are not using a mouse you can still carry out the installation Refer to the Microsoft Windows User s Guide to find out how to use the keyboard instead of a mouse to operate Windows Page 19 To install the printer driver under Windows 3 1 do the following For Turn on the printer and start up your computer If Windows does not start up automatically type WIN and then press ENTER or RETURN Double click the Control Panel icon in the Main win dow Double click the Printers icon If you have never previously installed a printer on your system under Windows a list of supported printers is disp
44. Replacing the front Cover oo cece reeetenssecsereneseneteeeees 13 Installing the paper guide cere reeeeeeeettenesereneeeees 14 Installing the Mute COVED cece eereeetserecesceeeetseeetaataeees 14 Connecting the printer to the compute 0 ccccee 15 Setting up your printer with your compute 0000 17 Setting up with MS DOS 0 0 ceneeeeeeeeeteteeeaeeeneneneneeaeaeees 17 MS DOS oeiee sirane apean e site ca Aena A aed a Aa naar e EE gees 17 MS DOS application software ccccccccccsesceceecsnsresecesenreesssnsneseeees 17 Setting up the printer in Windows ssesesssseererereeersrssesiererinensnnnene 19 Installing TrueType fonts for Windows 0 cccccccccecesstessetsneneeeees 21 Selecting different fonts cc ccccctcceeeeeeneeceereeersarerseasesenseteensaeseeees 22 Using your printer 23 LOading paptr eraen aeshiigt este 23 Adjusting the print gap 0 0 0 0 cece ene eeee eects re ceeetereetereceraeneneen 24 Loading cut sheet paper wan ie AEA 26 Loading and parking fanfold paper 0 00000 0c eee ttc eneeteeee 27 Loading paper from the rear of the Printe 0 ccccccceescseesetttteeeeees 28 Loading paper from the bottom of the printel ccccccccesctereee 30 Parkin Paper sesine t a tae oh oh is Les cap alee eb 00 SAN AAG aa EASE eng STE EAE IG 31 Unparking the papet iraina e a e pa aeieeiaii 32 Using the control panel 33 Ready and not ready m
45. SF MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt lt EM gt T n 27 25 84 n iB 19 54 n Skips n 6 inches at the top of the page where n is equal to or greater than 1 Ignored if EDS switch A6 is ON ASF is not installed Reset printer MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt Std lt FS gt Re initializes the printer Clears the print buffer and returns settings to their power up values Does not clear the input buffer or change ASF selections Page 132 Set initial conditions MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal IBM SESC U K lt 32 gt 27 OR PDS PR SBr AB 03 0 gt lt 0 gt lt 3 gt on 0 0 3 mJ O0G 00 03 n Re initializes the printer to the initial conditions deter mined by the value of n The value of nis the sum of the values given below for the desired characteristics Function n value Function n value Disable alarm 32 12 inch forms 4 Auto CR with LF 16 Slashed zero 2 Auto LF with CR 8 Character set 2 1 Page 133 Page 134 Appendix Specifications Printing system Serial Impact Dot matrix Printing speed 10 cpi 12 cpi 15 cpi Semi Pica Elite condensed Draft 220 cps 264 cps 330 cps Letter Quality 67 cps 80 cps 100 cps Print direction Bi directional logic seeking Uni directional logic seeking selectable Print head 24 pins Life 200 milli
46. SUAI USERS MANUAL NX 2480 corte BF 80825591 Federal Communications Commission Radio Frequency Interference Statement The 120V version equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device pursuant to Part 15 of FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation This equipment generates uses and can radi ate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions may cause harmful interference to radio communications However there is no guarantec that interference will not occur in a particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television which can be determined by turning off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is con nected Consult the dealer or an experienced radio TV technician for help Unauthorized modifications of this product by the user will void his authority to operate the equipment unless expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance For compliance with the Federal Noise Interference Standard this equipment requires a shielded cabl
47. Select download character set woos Asch oean Wowie Selects the download character set Ignored when EDS switch A3 is ON Select ROM character set MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt ESc gt mm lt gt 27 37 0 1B 25 00 Stops using the download character set and returns to the built in ROM character set Ignored when EDS switch A3 is ON Page 128 Other printer commands Select print color MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESc gt r n 27 1l4 n 1B 72 n Selects the printing color according to the value of n as shown below Ignored if EDS switch A4 is OFF or ifa color ribbon is not installed n Color n Color 0 Black Yellow ns ae 1 Magenta Orange 2 Cyan Violet Sets the most significant bit of each subsequent byte received to 1 allowing users with a 7 bit interface to access characters with ASCII codes greater than 127 Set MSB to 0 MODE Sta ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal lt ESC gt 27 61 1B 3D Sets the most significant bit of each subsequent byte received to 0 Accept MSB as is MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta lt Esc gt fhe 27 35 1B 23 Cancels the preceding commands and accepts the most significant bit as it is when it is sent to the printer Page 129 Delete last character sent ASCII Decimal Hexadec
48. Windows Double click on Fonts The Fonts dialog box appears Click Add The Add Fonts dialog box appears Insert the disk in your computer s floppy disk drive Select the drive by letter this is usually A some times B The names of the fonts stored on the disk are displayed in the List of Fonts window Each font name is followed by the word TrueType Select the fonts you wish to install If you want to install all of them click SelectAll Click OK The Fonts dialog box reappears and instal lation is carried out The names of the newly installed fonts are automatically added to the Installed Fonts list Within your application program select Printer Setup from the application s File menu and reselect the printer The application can now display text on screen and print text on your printer using the new fonts Note The TrueType fonts that are supplied can only be used on IBM PC compatible computers running Windows 3 1 or higher Page 21 Selecting different fonts If you are running applications software under Windows you will select fonts from within your applica tion refer to your application s manual for details Your application software manual will tell you the vari ous ways in which you can type set your text on screen so that it is ready to print out on the printer Your Windows system already includes several fonts such as Arial Times New Roman and Symbol You can also
49. and then prints out sam ples of all the fonts available Page 47 e Make sure the printer is loaded with fanfold paper and that it is turned OFF e Press and hold down the button e While holding down the button turn on the printer e Release the button The test pattern will start printing The display will show Pe When the pattern comes to the end it will start from the begin ning again To stop the test pattern turn off the printer wait a few seconds and then turn it on again Print area test mode This function allows you to see how long the printer thinks the paper is This works best with cut sheet paper e Make sure that there is paper in the printer and turn the printer OFF e Press and hold down the button e While holding down the button turn the printer on again e The display will show P3 and will print hrs 1s First Ine at the top of the paper e Ifyou are using cut sheet paper the paper will feed to the bottom of the paper or where the printer thinks is the bottom of the paper and print for example r This eo Line O68 This number of lines is based on the figure of 6 lines to the inch In this case number of lines 68 length of 11 333 ength of paper Z A Page 48 We can guess from this that the paper is probably international A4 size If you use this feature with fanfold paper only the top message will be printed The printer
50. are printed If you have fitted a color ribbon each line will be printed in a different color Mode in which the printer emu lates an Epson LQ 860 printer Software that runs on your com puter to control basic computer functions screen display key board input disk access and printer output Printer function which allows you to remove fanfold output without altering the current position of the fanfold paper Part of the unit which grips the fanfold paper Type of scalable font which you can install on your computer and print on the printer pro vided you are using Windows 3 1 or later Page 165 Typeface Uni directional print ing Vertical alignment Weight Windows Zoom mode Page 166 The design style of a font Com mon typefaces are Times and Helvetica Mode in which the printer prints graphics from left to right only See dot adjustment mode The thickness of the lines which make up a font s characters Common weights are Medium Bold and Black System software for the IBM PC which has an easy to use inter face Printer mode that allows you to print documents scaled to 50 or 67 Index A Adjusting dot alignment 50 Adjusting the print gap 24 79 80 Adobe Type Manager 22 Auto LF 57 79 80 Auto LF with CR 55 Auto sheet feeder 55 57 Autoloading position 36 Automatic emulation change 55 56 Available fonts 2 B Baud rate 68 Buffer 5
51. character set with characters for a particu lar country or region for exam ple code page 860 Portuguese See IBM compatible See fanfold paper A code number which instructs the computer to perform a par ticular operation For example the computer sends the printer a form feed control code 12 to make it eject the current page 1 Panel on the printer that dis plays information about the printer s current working and allows you to operate the printer 2 Windows utility which allows you to make system settings such as printer selection and port set up Page 157 Cut sheets Default Printer Default setting DOS Dot adjustment mode Double spacing Downloaded character Draft Electronic DIP Switch settings Emulation Epson LQ 860 Page 158 Single sheets of paper The printer which is automati cally used by Windows applica tions Feature setting adopted if no user setting has been made sometimes called factory set ting See MS DOS Mode in which you can realign the print head in bi directional graphics mode Printing text with a blank line between each printed line User defined character created on the computer Sent to and stored in the printer for later printing Printing mode in which only the Draft font is used The printer can print more quickly in Draft mode than in Letter Quality mode Printer settings which take effect when you switch on the
52. computer requires and changes mode accordingly An optional device which allows a number of cut sheets to be stacked into a hopper and fed one at a time through the printer Mode in which the printer prints graphics both from left to right and from right to left Short for binary digit The smallest unit of information On or Off 1 or O Fonts that can only be printed at a particular size The fonts which you can select from the printer s control panel are bit map fonts The way in which fanfold paper is fed upward through the bot tom of the printer as opposed to the way in which it is fed from the back of the printer An instruction from the printer which tells the printer to move the print position to the start of the current line See auto line feed The type of connector which plugs into the printer s interface connector socket Character code Character set Character table Code page Compatible Computer paper Control code Control panel A number which stands for a let ter digit or symbol A computer sends text to the printer in the form of character codes A fixed set of printable charac ters A character set normally includes upper and lower case letters the digits 0 9 punctua tion symbols and various other characters for example accented characters for foreign languages or block graphic characters See character set A variant of the IBM
53. ct the paper and continue with normal printing Electronic DIP switches Conventional printers have a set of small 2 way switches Dual In line Package hence DIP which you use to set up various features of the printer which you want to use every time you turn on the printer The list of settings that you can change is given on page 55 Although the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour has a Macro function to allow you to set up some of these power on default settings see Saving Macros on page 42 However when it comes to DIP switches it is not a con ventional printer it makes your life much easier Instead of poking around with small switches and a screwdriver all switch settings are made from the front panel hence Electronic DIP switches Here s how they work Page 52 Using the Electronic DIP switches e To use the Electronic DIP Switch mode turn the printer OFF e Press and hold down the SET EJECT the and the buttons _ Turn the printer on while holding down these but tons Wait a few seconds and release them e The display will show GT oN EDS e This means that we are in Electronic DIP Switch mode that switch number 1 of bank A switch A1 has been selected and it is now ON Banks and numbers Conventional DIP switches are arranged in banks Each bank contains a number of different switches If the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour had conventional DIP switches this is how th
54. ctions to identify the dif ferent parts mentioned paper guide rear fanfold paper entrance behind mute cover front cover release lever platen knob ower fanfold paper entrance underneath interface connector ribbon cartridge The printer with the front and rear covers removed and no interface cable connected Page 4 Parts an explanation The paper guides hold single sheets and sets their posi tion so that they are fed into the printer correctly The paper entrances are where paper feeds into the printer There is one for single sheets and two for com _ puter fanfold paper rear and bottom The release lever grips single sheets as they are fed in The lever should be pushed towards the back of the printer to hold single sheets properly and released pulled forward when fanfold paper is in use The platen knob lets you feed paper through the printer manually Usually though you will find that the button see Feeding paper through the printer on page 34 is the most efficient way of doing this The front cover protects internal components and reduces printing noise The mute cover further reduces printing noise The display screen shows information about the print er s current setting The control panel has buttons to control the printer The power switch turns the printer on and off The interface connector accepts the cable connector that links the printer to t
55. d Standard Friction feed with paper guide Push tractor feed from the rear of the printer Pull tractor feed from the bot tom of the printer Option Friction feed with SF 10DW automatic sheet feeder Paper feed speed 3 4 inches second maximum Page 137 Paper specifications Cut sheet Width 5 5 11 0 139 7 279 4 mm Length 5 5 14 0 139 7 355 6 mm Thickness 0 07 0 12 mm Weight 14 24 lb 52 90 g m 45 77 kg Fanfold continuous Width 4 0 10 0 101 6 254 0 mm Length Minimum 5 5 139 7 mm Thickness Single ply paper 0 07 0 12 mm Total for multi part forms 0 35 mm Weight 14 22 lb 52 82 g m 45 70 kg Copies Original 4 copies Maximum buffer size Without Download 46 7 kB With Download 256 bytes Emulations Standard mode Epson LQ 860 NEC 24 wire graphics commands IBM mode IBM Proprinter X24E Interface Centronics parallel standard RS 232C serial option Ribbon type On carriage dedicated Monochrome black only Color black magenta cyan violet yellow orange green Page 138 Ribbon life Monochrome Z24HD 3 million characters draft pica Long life Monochrome 4 5 million characters draft LZ24HD pica Color X24CL 1 million characters color draft pica Dimensions and Weight Width Depth Height Weight Power supply Options 473 mm 18 6 371 mm 16 6 174 mm 6 8 7 6 kg 16 7 Ib 120VAC 220VAC 230VAC 240VAC 50 60 Hz var
56. d 3 before connecting and using the printer for the first time Section Chapter 1 Features and parts Chapter 2 Unpacking and setting up the printer including setting up your computer software Chapter 3 Using the printer including loading paper using the display and control panel and printing Pr nter reference cont Troubiestao i Chapter 7 Information on the sof thatthe printer can accept from your computer useful for programmers Appendix Further technical information Glossary Simple explanations of printer and computer jargon Introduction 1 FOALS oobi ee Aor ts saga a a ar e a 1 Parts oc hee ae ei ak Ae Se cee a Neaise gta ett aoe 4 Unpacking and setting up 7 Choosing a place for the Printer cece cetcseeeeneteeetetees 7 Unpacking the printer c cccccccccccccccscccccccctsssseseseenensseseetenssseeesenenseteees 8 Setting up your Printer cic cctee te teeeteeeeteeeeteneeneestrestenes 9 Fitting the platen KNOD 0 00 00 0 cece cceeecteeereeeecereeaenereeserreateaeen 9 Removing the front COver eessseseserrsrsrerrerrererrrrrsererisssrerrersirirenrere 10 Installing the ribbon cartridge cece ce seeeeee neces retanes 10 Removing the ribbon Cartridge 0 0 0 cece eee ceseeeeeeeeerastaeees 12 Installing the roller UNit 0 00 0 0 0 eee ene eeeeeeeeereereceeseaterteceetantaeees 12 Removing the roller unit eeeeneeereceeeeseatecseserecanaeeaes 13
57. d the right margin at column n2 See the preceding commands for margin restrictions and other notes Carriage return MODE ASCII Both lt CR gt Prints the current line and sets the print position to the left margin If EDS switch A5 is set to OFF this com mand also performs a line feed Set automatic line feed wove acy Beat vorades lt ESC gt 5 lt 1 gt Causes the printer to perform both a carriage return and line feed each time it receives a lt CR gt code This command overrides EDS switch A5 Decimal Hexadecimal 0 13 D Cancel automatic line feed MODE ASCII 26 3 aQ Decimal Hexadecimal IBM lt Esc gt s lt O gt 1B 35 00 Causes the printer to perform only a carriage return when it receives a lt CR gt code This command takes pri ority over EDS switch A5 Backspace MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt Bs gt 8 08 Moves the print position one column to the left Ignored if the print position is at the left margin This command can be used to overstrike or combine characters Page 118 Set horizontal tab stops MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt D ni 27 68 nl 1B 44 ni AZ oie lt 0 AZ 2250 Q nn lt 00 Cancels all current horizontal tab stops and sets new tab stops at columns n1 n2 etc in the current charac ter pitch pica pitch if proportional spacing
58. de requires that the printer is in ready mode This is an exception to the general rule that settings are made when the printer is in not ready mode Page 37 e Press the button The printer will beep once and will appear on the display e To cancel quiet mode the printer must be in the ready mode Press the button The printer will beep twice and will disappear from the display Changing the way your printout looks The following section describes how you can change the look of the printout from your printer Selecting the different fonts The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour has a range of different fonts which can be selected using the front panel con trols The display highlights the currently selected font by enclosing the font name with lines The Prestige font SLO DRAFT Script has been selected Roman ORATOR PITCH Sanserif Orator 2 Courier H Gothic Prestige OPTION Set the printer to not ready e Press the button The printer will highlight the font names in the display in the following order Font name Display highlights pea DRAFT Roman Roman Sans serif Sanserif l p Courier Courier Prestige Prestige Script Sotipt Orator ORATOR Orator 2 rator Page 38 Font name Display highlights H Gothic H Gothic Super Letter Quality Roman sLQ Roman _ When you have highlighted the font you want to use press again to make the printer in read
59. des of the tractor unit and rotate the tractor unit as far as it will go about 20 degrees so that the top is tilted slightly towards you Open the tractor pin covers and align the holes in the fanfold paper with the pins on the tractor unit You will probably need to slide the tractor pin units left and right to align the paper properly Use the gray locking levers on each tractor pin unit to allow the unit to slide left and right along the rail Remember to Page 28 lock each tractor pin unit in place again when you have finished moving it Close the pin unit covers after you have made sure that the paper holes are properly lined up with the tractor pins If the holes and pins are not correctly lined up you may find that the paper tears and jams Note If the paper is too tightly stretched or too loose between the pin holders the paper will tear or jam as it is fed through the printer You may need to experiment to find the ideal tension lIlSESES S Ee_eEeeee___O3_ _ _ _ _ Close the rear and mute covers and insert the paper guide in the horizontal position See Installing the paper guide on page 14 When you turn on the printer using the switch at the front the display will show PE alternating with the character pitch The printer will also beep Press the button to load the paper into the printer The printer will go into ready mode If you want to adjust the paper position pu
60. ds a brief beep tone on the printer Bi directional printing Decimal Hexadecimal 1B 55 00 Causes subsequent printing to be performed in the nor mal bi directional mode which is faster than uni direc Uni directional printing tional printing MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt U lt 1 gt 27 85 1 1B 55 01 Causes subsequent printing to be performed uni direc tionally ensuring maximum vertical alignment preci sion One line uni directional printing MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta lt ESC gt lt 27 60 1B 3C Immediately returns the print head to the left margin then prints the remainder of the line from left to right Normal bi directional printing resumes on the next line Page 131 Manual feed MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt lt EM gt lt 0 gt 27 25 0 1B 19 00 Selects manual sheet feeding even when the sheet feeder is used Ignored if EDS switch A6 is ON ASF is not installed Auto feed move ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both CESC lt EM gt lt 4 gt 27 25 4 1B 19 04 Selects the automatic sheet feeder Ignored if EDS switch A6 is ON ASF is not installed Eject paper ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal lt ESC gt lt EM gt R 27 25 82 1B 19 52 Ejects the current page Ignored if EDS switch A6 is ON ASF is not installed Set print start position on A
61. e The 220V version equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class A digital device pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide reasonable protec tion against harmful interference when the equipment is operated in a commercial environment This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the instruction manual may cause harmful interference to radio communications Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to cause harmful interference in which case the user will be required to correct the interference at his own expense For compliance with the Federal Noise Interference Standard this equipment requires a shielded cable The above statement applies only to printers marketed in the U S A Statement of The Canadian Department of Communications Radio Interference Regulations This digital apparatus does not exceed the Class B limits for radio noise emissions from digital appara tus set out in the Radio Interference Regulations of the Canadian Department of Communications Le pr sent appareil num rique n met pas de bruits radio lectiques d passant les limites applicables aux appareils num riques de la classe B prescrites dans le R glement sur le brouillage radio lectrique dict par le Minist re des Communications du Canada The above statement applies only to printers marketed in Canada
62. e between the print head and the platen This dis tance can be adjusted to suit dif ferent thicknesses of paper Printer part that transfers the image to the paper A thin metal plate between the print head and the platen See pitch The part of the page on which the printer can print Computer file which enables sys tem or application software to print to a particular printer Font in which different charac ters can be of different widths Method of regulating information transfer between the computer and the printer Sometimes called handshaking Mode in which the printer prints more quietly and slightly more slowly Printer mode in which the printer can receive and print data from the computer Lever that grips single sheets as they are fed into the printer Control panel operation which to feeds paper backwards through the printer in small steps Ribbon cartridge Scalable fonts Serial interface Serial to parallel interface converter Short test Standard mode System software Tear off function Tractor TrueType font Cartridge that contains the rib bon which the head uses to mark the paper Fonts which you can print at any size TrueType fonts are scal able A computer interface which transfers data one bit at a time Optional accessory that allows you to connect the printer toa serial port on your computer Printer test in which seven lines of characters
63. e causes Action Paper is jamming Check the print gap If necessary use the adjustment lever to set the print gap See Adjusting the print gap on page 24 leading has been selected from your application program The wrong line spacing or l Choose a different setting in your application Auto line feed with carriage return is selected The CR LF setting is wrong See A5 Auto LF with CR on page 57 Possible causes Action j Auto line feed with carriage return is not selected The CR LF setting is with CR on page 57 wrong See A5 Auto LF Paper is jamming _ adjustment lever to set the print gap See Adjusting Check the print gap If necessary use the the print gap on page 24 Page 79 Possible causes Action Printing is starting from the wrong place on the page _ Adjust the auto load position See Setting the top of a form on page 35 Auto line feed with carriage return is selected The CR LF setting is wrong See A5 Auto LF with CR on page 57 The wrong line spacing or leading has been selected from your application program Possible causes Choose a different setting in your application Action The print gap is not set correctly Use the adjustment lever to alter the print gap See Adjusting the print
64. e character The hexadecimal character code for a character can be found by reading the hexadecimal column and row numbers which are at the top and on the left of the table For example the character A is in column 4 and row 1 so its hexadecimal character code is 41 This is equivalent to decimal 65 4 x 16 1 65 which is the decimal number shown in the inset Control codes are indicated by abbreviations in angle brackets e g lt LF gt Page 141 Standard character set 2 ERERERERERERERERERERERERERERERE ene A wt st a N CN os N cN pow EE E Ss x a A _ _ wot t a pe ea eee E RHS a ee S er Sh te ct ac 3 AAE 299 9 eee ae ef aa Page 142 Standard character set 2 continued Fi i i aca a ec ii CB PP Pn Ea Peas Seca See ee Oe ele ee eee ee dh nN eee te et L eee eee ee eee ee feet ee be Se Ene See Page 143 International character sets The character codes are shown in decimal Country 35 36 eaf aaf sof si 92 93 94 96 ts te as 1 usA f lsjelxjz Ap fetid France j isjajxjzie elsi l Tefo GERMANY 1 S x Z x oll als als ENGLAND fejsjejxjz Ap yt DENMARK 1 lsjejxjz aj ojaj gt gt ej ja SWEDEN 2 x z eee eee ITALY j ejx z paw Tr s CO Tats elx etfateley Tyee at urate fa slala zli afele alata ofa moa efs efaj i e
65. e printer with the front cover removed we do not suggest that you do this The printer will be noisy and it is also possible to drop things into the printer which may damage the mechanism Ol Io e Hold the cover by the grips so that the grips are on the side of the cover furthest from you Tilt the top of the cover towards you a little e Insert the tabs into the slots in the case e Lower the rear of the cover into position Page 13 Installing the paper guide You can set the paper guide on the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour in one of two positions horizontal for fanfold paper and vertical for single sheets e Hold the paper guide either horizontally or verti cally depending on the type of paper used e Fit the tabs into the slots on the printer body to install the paper guide e Make sure the guide is firmly in position Installing the mute cover The mute cover helps reduce the noise from your printer when you are printing Page 14 Hold the mute cover upright so that the ridges on the cover are towards you and at the top e Slide the left tab on the mute cover into the left hole on the front cover e Drop the right tab on the mute cover into the right slot on the front cover Close the mute cover by swinging it down Connecting the printer to the computer We assume here that you are connecting the printer to an IBM or IBM compatible computer using the parallel interface If you are connecting u
66. e second until the printer beeps e The display will show bc buffer cleared Release both buttons If you hold them down for a little longer the printer will beep three times and will be reset to default settings not necessarily what you want e Ifyou need to make any control setting changes maybe you were printing in the wrong font or the wrong color make them now e Ifyou haven t already stopped the computer print job stop it now Otherwise you ll continue the print job where it was interrupted not from the beginning e Now make the printer ready again Setting the printer back to default settings As mentioned above Clearing the buffer on page 43 if you clear the buffer and continue to hold down the and buttons together for about three sec Page 44 onds after you clear the buffer the printer will beep three times The printer s default settings will be restored Locking the printer Its sometimes useful to be able to lock settings using the front panel If your computer sends unwanted com mands they won t accidentally change settings Here s how Font lock This stops you from accidentally changing the font with software commands e Turn the printer OFF front switch e Press and hold down the button e While holding down the button turn the printer on again e Keep holding down the button until the printer beeps and the display shows REJJ You can make the printer not
67. e sheet total in mm lever position yp 1 rearmost Single 14 to 24 Ibs 52 to 90 gsm 0 07 to 0 12 2or3 2 part 111 to 14 Ibs 40 to 52 gsm 0 12 to 0 14 20r3 3 part ee 14 Ibs 40 to 52 gsm 0 18 to 0 21 3or4 4 part 11 to 14 ibs 40 to 52 gsm 0 24 to 0 28 al 4or5 5 part 11 to 14 ibs 40 to 52 gsm 0 30 to 0 35 5or6 Note If you use multi part sets set up the Multi Part setting using the Electronic DIP switches as described in B5 and B6 Multi part mode on page 58 Page 25 Loading cut sheet paper This procedure shows you how to load cut sheet paper using the paper guide If you are using the SF 10DW automatic sheet feeder please refer to Using the SF 10DW on page 65 e This is how cut sheet paper is fed through the printer A EH a e Make sure that the paper guide is in the vertical posi tion See Installing the paper guide on page 14 If no fanfold paper has been loaded and no cut sheet paper has been loaded the display will show PE alternating with the character pitch when the printer is turned on The printer will also beep e Make sure that the release lever is at the back posi tion 4 e Adjust the left and right paper guides to the position you want Allow the paper to feed through the guides smoothly but without allowing it to move from side to side while feeding through A gap of less than a milli meter 0 04 is ideal e Place a sheet of paper in the
68. eee tceeseecececeneteeeeenneeeeesenranienarenteniantes 53 Selecting the switch Dank 0 ccccccccececcecece teers tit te teens te retnnanets 53 Selecting the switch NUMDEL cccccc ite ite etter enatees 54 Changing a switch s value cccccccceteteneie rete e ene teeter erect enetaes 54 An example onini nn iiine noriai eani iini aaan 54 Exiting Electronic DIP Switch mode c cccci ttre ete tte tenes 54 What you can change with the Electronic DIP Switch mode 55 Meanings of the switches 20 0 0 ccc eee teee ee teteeeere teeter teaeeeees 56 Al Emila O a sais ALS te eee ten 56 A2 Auto Emulation Change AEC mode ccccceccseeeseeteeeenees 56 A RAM Sa e 25 cic seicesestcacocas sec ite Son gpcd esata cavenctbec ev oteete iaa EE ah 57 A4 Color ain ZOO 32 5255 0 coh ae hak is Sha teen ede hs ea Sees ee sana as See 57 AS Auto LF With CR vieteri iaai aa ie eapi 57 AG Auto sheet feeder ccc ccc cccecccce cee eeeeeeeeeeetenecsscaaaenasessaseceseeeeeesenes 57 B1 Graphics Girection 00cccccccccct ccc e cece et ceesecnssenneeenaesessensnennanenss 57 BZ Pap r OUT oo cccis tutes decrees e ei ve ch E E RADA RARE taser aun cee 58 B3 Tear off B4 Reserved B5 and B6 Multi part mode 0 cccceccceenee eens eeteaeeenensecensesesnesense 58 CT and C2 Print MOG monin ep ei Na 59 C3 through C5 Page length cctteserneecnenseres
69. eeseseaseeeteeeae 59 D1 Character table eiiim isi iieii eiaa 59 D2 through D4 character code tables cccccccccccssseeeteseerteeeeteeees 60 D5 CR centerihg oenina Ea aeiae ASEAN ER i ieaiaia 61 E1 through E5 LQ Font selection cccccccccceecccceteeettseeeenneeeenesssseeees 61 F1 Electronic DIP switch S ttingS c cccccsssscceseeeeeeseserseseeerenneenens 62 Optional accessories 63 Accessories available 0 0 cccccccccccc cece eseeeseseseeeneseeeensneten 63 THE SF 10DW entire aar cide beta a aiaa die cede 63 npaeking eraa a N ai o ates Ea E A a E I a 63 Installing the SF 10DW ASF cccccccesccssseseeeeseesssenesesseeseeeraeeneenaeeas 64 Using the SF 10DW 00 0 cccceeceecccecnssetecescenscesceeessaerasesesensssassessaeeneneateaees 65 The SPC 8K serial parallel converter 0 0 0 0 000 ccc eeeeeeeerees 67 B d at ici Fei vase aad og cee sa Savage nad NEEN ead tae aaa TEES 68 Number of bits in a word 0 0 ccccc ccc cece cere tneene ces eseaseeseeeerennepeneeetersaneeees 68 PAPIEY EPE EE E E EE E TA T tere eM 68 Hand shakin oix 2 35s 555 ae earainn R saaa 69 Connecting the SPC 8K converter ccc eee te nee e ete ecetteeenteennneeees 69 Using the SPC 8K vieraana e Ee sted bie ca ni KoA a TAA E ea aaia aaa 70 The serial connector on the SPC 8K 0 ccccccccccceetteteterene eee teetneneens 71 Setting up an MS DOS COMpPUTEL ccceccecc eet ce tect eenee eee tenets rete
70. er the MNO message appears Make the printer ready again Removing the macro If the ME message is shown on the display and you want to remove it do the following Put the printer in not ready mode Press and hold down the button While holding down the button press the button and hold them both down until WO disappears from the display The printer will beep three times Release both buttons after the MA message goes away Make the printer ready again Clearing the buffer When the printer takes data from the computer it stores the data in a buffer before it prints it This means that it Page 43 can accept data from the computer faster than it can print it This allows the computer to finish sending data before the print job is finished freeing up the computer for the next job This is usually useful but there may be times when you want to stop the print job halfway through e g you re printing the wrong file or printing on the wrong kind of paper In this case halting the print job on the com puter may not be enough the printer may still continue to print the data stored in its buffer You can clear the buffer by switching the printer off and on again but that s a bit drastic Here s a better way e Put the printer in not ready mode e Press and hold down the button e While holding down the button press and hold down the button Continue holding both but tons down for about on
71. et line spacing to n 360 inch Sta lt ESC gt n 27 43 n 1B 2B n td lt ES gt 430 28 51 n rE 33 n Sets the distance the paper advances or reverses in sub sequent line feeds to n 360 inch where n is between 0 and 255 Page 110 Set base unit for line spacing MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal IBM LESENE AAE 27 91 92 1B 5B 5C lt 4 gt lt OQ gt lt a gt 4 0 0 04 00 00 lt O gt nl n2 0 nl n2 00 ni n2 Sets the base unit for the line spacing commands lt ESC gt 3 and lt ESC gt J as shown below n1 n2 Line spacing unit 0 180 1 180 inch 0 2 6 1 216 inch 1 104 1 360 inch This command becomes effective only after lt ESC gt 3 or lt ESC gt J is received The default base unit is set to 1 216 Set line spacing Sets the distance the paper advances or reverses in sub sequent line feeds to n 180 inch STD and IBM mode n 216 inch or n 360 inch IBM mode only according to the preceding base unit The value of nis between O and 255 If n O in Stan dard mode the line feed distance is set to O but in IBM mode the command is ignored Page 111 Set line spacing to n 60 inch or n 72 inch MODE ASCII Decimal Both lt Esc gt A n 27 65 n In Standard mode sets the distance the paper advances or reverses in subsequent line feeds to n 60 inch where nis between 0 and 255 If n 0 the line spacing is set to O
72. etects when the paper has run out and stops printing Standard cable for connecting the printer to a computer An interface which transfers data between the computer and the printer 8 bits at a time Parity checking A way of checking that informa tion sent over a serial interface has been received correctly Parking paper Printer function that allows you to print on single sheets without removing fanfold paper Pitch The number of characters in a one inch line of text Pitch lock mode Mode in which font selection can only be made from the printer s control panel Platen Roller that guides paper through the printer and provides a solid surface against which the print head can make an impression on the paper Platen knob Printer wheel that allows you to advance paper manually Port Socket in the back of a computer through which a computer com municates with other devices such as the printer Portrait Portrait mode is when a docu ment is printed on paper with the longest sides of the paper at the sides PostScript font Type of scalable font similar to TrueType fonts PostScript fonts can be printed if you have installed the Adobe Type Man ager program on your computer Page 163 Print gap Print head Print head shield Print pitch Printable area Printer driver Proportionally spaced font Protocol Quiet mode Ready mode Release lever Reverse micro feed Page 164 The distanc
73. ey would look ce Eo ea a Lad a he a ee 2 a 2 Bo 2 o 3 BI 3 s 3 EL 3 ea 4 EO si El Ee 4 ee 5 ELO s Ea 5E si s Ei CaS ae E ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF BANKA BANKB BANKC BANKD BANKE BANKF As it is the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour switches are rep resented on the front panel Selecting the switch bank To select a switch bank in Electronic DIP Switch mode press the button With each press of the button the display will change from A to B through F and back to A again If you have selected a switch number other than 1 the number will be changed to 1 when you go to the next bank Page 53 Selecting the switch number To select a switch number press the button With each press of the button the display will change from 1 round the number of switches in the currently selected bank only one switch in bank F Changing a switch s value When you have chosen the bank and switch you want to change press the button to toggle the switch s value from ON to OFF or OFF to ON as the dis play shows you An example Suppose you have just turned on the printer in Elec tronic DIP Switch mode and you want to change switch 5 in bank C from ON to OFF Here s how you do it e Press the button twice You are now in bank C e Press the button four times You have now selected switch 5 of bank C e Press the button o
74. f the button the print color will change Color Display Black cl Magenta ce Cyan ci Violet cH Yeilow c5 Orange c8 Green cl e When you make the printer ready again printing will restart in the color you have just chosen Controlling the printer s memory The following two functions allow you to change the memory in the printer Saving Macros It is obviously a nuisance to have to set up a particular font color etc every time you turn on the printer If you want the printer to remember and recall these settings every time you turn it on you can use a macro to store them This what you store when you make a macro e Current font See Selecting the different fonts on page 38 e Current pitch See Changing the pitch of the font on page 39 e Current zoom size See Changing the zoom size on page 40 Page 42 Current color See Selecting the print color on page 41 The current auto load position for cut sheets fanfold paper and use with the automatic sheet feeder See Changing the autoloading position on page 36 Also see the section on the automatic sheet feeder on page 63 This is how you store a macro Put the printer in not ready mode Press and hold down the button While holding down the button press the button and hold them both down until WAN appears on the display The printer will beep twice Release both buttons aft
75. haracter MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt ESc gt q 2 27 113 n 1B 71 1 Selects an ornament character according to the value of n as shown below n Character 0 Normal I Outline 2 Shadow 3 Shadow and outline Superscript CO lt ESC gt s lt 0 gt 27 83 0 1B 53 00 Causes subsequent characters to be printed as super scripts Does not change the character pitch Subscript MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt s lt 1 gt 27 83 1 18 53 01 Causes subsequent characters to be printed as sub scripts Does not change the character pitch Cancel superscript or subscript MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both T 27 84 18 54 Cancels printing superscripts or subscripts and returns to normal printing Page 97 Character set commands Select character table MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt t an 2 7 116 n 1B 74 n Std lt FS gt I on 28 73 n iC 49 n Selects a character table according to the value of n as shown below n Character table 0 Standar character set i IBM character set Shift downloac character area Standard mode only NO Select character set 1 Selects character set 1 Select character set 2 MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both LESO 76 27 54 23 36
76. he host computer The print head transfers the image to the paper The ribbon cartridge contains the ribbon which the head uses to mark the paper The paper thickness adjustment lever lets you adjust the position of the print head for different paper thick nesses and for multi part forms The roller unit helps to grip paper and pull it through the printer Paged The tractor unit grips the sides of fanfold computer paper When you use the tractor unit the tractor cov ers must be closed Page 6 Chapter 2 Unpacking and setting up Choosing a place for the printer Before you start unpacking and setting up your printer make sure that you have a suitable place to put it By a suitable place we mean A firm level surface where the printer will be stable and vibration free Away from any heaters Away from direct sunlight Not in an excessively humid area Somewhere that is clean dry and dust free Basi cally computer equipment works best in the same kind of temperature and humidity as you do Allow 6 15cm of free space either side of the printer and adequate space for paper behind the printer if you want to use fanfold computer paper If you want to use the bottom feed for fanfold com puter paper you should locate the pile of paper at least one page length about 12 30cm below the printer Make sure the printer is connected to a steady power supply It should not be on
77. he list of installed printers e Make sure that Set As Default Printer is checked If it is not click on the check box and try printing from your application again e Click on Close to return to the Control Panel win dow Secondly check that the printer is correctly selected in your application e Select Print from the application s File menu A dia log box appears listing available printers e Make sure that NX 2480 Rainbow Colour is high lighted If it is not click on it and try printing again Thirdly check that the correct port is selected Double click the Control Panel icon in the Main window e Double click the Printers icon Page 89 e Click on NX 2480 Rainbow Colour in the list of installed printers e Click Connect e Make sure that your cable is connected to the port highlighted in the list of ports If you are using a parallel cable you will probably be using LPT1 If you are using the SPC 8K serial to parallel con verter you will be using COM1 or COM2 Click on the appropriate port name e Click OK e Click on Close to return to the Control Panel win dow If you still cannot print successfully consult your soft ware dealer for assistance MS DOS If you cannot print a text file using the MS DOS PRINT command check the AUTOEXEC BAT file to see whether it contains any of the following statements MODE LPT1 COM1 or MODE LPT1 COM2 These indicate that the computer is set u
78. he paper guides are positioned incorrectly the position of the paper guides Reload the paper Action Remove the paper adjust The ribbon is jammed causing the print head to jam cartridge is correctly Make sure that the ribbon installed See Installing the ribbon cartridge on page 10 Page 82 causing the print head to jam Remove all paper from the printer Reload paper Check the print gap If necessary use the adjustment lever to set the print gap See Adjusting the print gap on page 24 Inappropriate margin settings have been selected from your application program Choose different margin settings in your application Possible causes The ribbon cartridge is incorrectly installed causing the print head to jam Action Make sure that the ribbon cartridge is correctly installed See Installing the ribbon cartridge on page 10 T he paper is not loaded properly causing the print head to jam Remove all paper from the printer Reload paper The print gap is not set correctly Use the adjustment lever to set the print gap See Adjusting the print gap on page 24 Page 83 Static electricity caused by interference from nearby electrical devices or by a low level of humidity is affecting the printer s operation _ Make sure the printer is _ not
79. heets and try again e Adjust the right paper guide to allow the paper to go through the feeder smoothly without allowing it to move from side to side A gap of less than a millimeter 0 04 is ideal e Push the paper loading lever towards the rear of the printer e You are now ready to start printing with the SF 10DW Automatic sheet feeder The SPC 8K serial parallel converter The SPC 8K serial parallel converter takes serial signals from your computer and converts them to parallel sig nals which can be understood by the printer The SPC 8K has one bank of eight DIP switches which must be set before you connect the SPC 8K to the printer and computer Page 67 These switches control the way in which the SPC 8K expects the data to come from your computer and will return data to your computer when necessary You must also make sure your computer s serial ports match the settings you make on the SPC 8K You will need a serial cable in addition to the SPC 8K see page 71 Baud rate You must tell the SPC 8K the baud rate of your com puter s serial port how fast it can expect to receive data from your computer Use switches 6 through 8 for this purpose Set them as described in the table below Baud rate 2400 ON 4800 ON OFF ON 9600 ON ON OFF 19200 ON ON ON Number of bits in a word Set switch 1 to ON for 8 data bits in a serial word this will be the mos
80. ically sense which emulation is required and will change emulation as necessary This chapter describes the printer s control commands Some commands are common to both Standard and IBM modes All commands will grouped by function The name of each command is followed by a table like the one below MODE ASCH gt pee Hexadecimal Sta lt ESC gt x lt 1 gt 27 120 1 1B 78 01 MODE Indicates the mode in which the command is recognized Std Standard Epson mode EDS switch Al is ON IBM IBM mode EDS switch Al is OFF Page 91 Both Both Standard Epson and IBM modes ASCII Indicates the ASCII coding of the command Control characters are enclosed in angle brackets For example lt 1 gt means character code 1 Decimal Gives the command in decimal character codes Hexadecimal Gives the command in hexadecimal char acter codes Parameters for which values must be supplied are indi cated by letters such as n mor d Page 92 Font control commands Select print quality MODE ASCH Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt Esc gt x on 27 120 n 1B 781 Changes the print quality according to the value of n as shown below n Print quality 0 Draft 1 Letter quality Ignored if the FONT LOCK mode was selected during power up Select print quality Hexadecimal ma 7 100 5B 64 01 00 Changes the print quality according to the value of n as shown be
81. ies according to the country of purchase Automatic sheet feeder SF 10DW Serial Parallel Converter SPC 8K Page 139 Parallel interface SIGNAL GND Pin Name Function E STROBE Goes low for gt 0 5us when active 2 DATAO High when active 3 DATA1 High when active 4 DATA2 High when active 5 DATA3 High when active 6 DATA4 T High when active 7 DATA5 High when active 8 DATA6 High when active 9 DATA7 High when active 10 ACK 10us to acknowledge receipt of data 11 BUSY Printer sets line low when ready to receive data 12 PAPER High when paper runs out Can be disabled with EDS setting SELECT High when printer is on line Signal ground SELECT IN 17 CHASSIS Chassis ground 18 5V 5V DC output from printer 19 30 GND Twisted pair ground return 31 RESET When this signal is set low the printer is reset 32 ERROR Low when printer cannot continue due to an error 33 EXT GND External ground Always high Page 140 Character sets The following tables show the Standard and IBM char acter sets Also shown are the IBM code pages interna tional variations of IBM character set 2 and the standard Epson mode international character sets international variations of the Epson Standard charac ter set The decimal character code for each character is shown in an inset at the bottom right of th
82. imal lt DEL gt Ley 7E Deletes the last character received Ignored if the last character received has already been printed or if the last character received was part of a command MODE Sta Cancel last line Hexadecimal MODE ASCII Decimal Both lt CAN gt 24 Deletes the last line currently in the print buffer 18 Set printer off line Decimal Hexadecimal lt ESC gt Q S 19 13 Sets the printer off line into not ready mode The printer disregards all subsequent characters and com mands except lt DC1 gt which puts it back on line into ready mode The printer s ON LINE indicator will not go off Set printer on line MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt DC1 gt 17 11 Puts the printer back on line into ready mode allow ing it to receive and process all subsequent characters and commands This command is ignored if the printer was set off line into not ready mode by pressing the button on the control panel Page 130 Stop printing MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal IBM CESC 2 27 106 1B 6A Prints the entire contents of the input buffer then sets the printer off line into not ready mode The ON LINE indicator on the control panel will go off Bell MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal 7 Both lt BEL gt 07 Soun
83. itch settings will be set to factory settings all ON except for A5 Page 62 Optional PHEDBES accessories Accessories available _ The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour has two optional acces sories available for it the SF 10DW Automatic sheet feeder and the SPC 8K Serial Parallel converter The SF 10DW The SF 10DW allows you to load cut sheet paper which will be automatically fed one sheet at a time for printing Unpacking Make sure that you have the following when you unpack the SF 10DW e Sheet feeder e Hopper attachment e Stacker attachment e Printer cover e SF 10DW User s manual Page 63 If any of these items is missing contact your supplier The SF 10DW is protected by packing material and tape when it is shipped from the factory Make sure that you remove all packing material and tape before you start to use the SF 10DW Installing the SF 10DW ASF Use the EDS function to set the Automatic sheet feeder to Installed See the section on Using the Electronic DIP switches on page 53 especially A6 Auto sheet feeder on page 57 Open and remove the front cover of the printer Lift the cover from the rear using the grips on the sides Lift up to remove the cover from the body of the printer see page 10 Remove the roller unit see page 13 Tip the SF 10DW forward slightly and put it into place behind the printer platen roller 4 Lower the back of the SF LODW and
84. l expanded printing set with lt ESC gt W 1 Select character width Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt Fs gt a p 28 69 n 1C 45 n Selects a character width according to the value of n as shown below Character width o ee Triple wide Select master print mode MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta lt ESO gt I n 27 33 n 18 21 n Selects a combined print mode according to the value of n The value of nis the sum of the values given below for the desired characteristics Function nvalue Function nvalue Underline 128 Emphasized 8 Jo Italic 64 Condensed 4 Expanded 32 Proportional 2 Double strike 16 Elite p Page 107 Increase character spacing MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt Esc gt lt SP gt n 27 32 n 18 20 n Increases the space between characters by n dots where nis a number from 0 to 127 Used in micro justification Print double height characters MODE ASCH Decimal Hexadecimal ae lt ESC gt w lt 1 gt 27 119 i 18 77 Ql td lt FS gt Vv lt 1 gt 28 86 1 iC 56 01 Prints subsequent characters double height without moving the base line and without changing the line spacing Return to normal height ae lt ESC gt w lt 0 gt 27 119 0 1B 77 00 td cess v lt 0 gt 28 86 0 Cancels double height printing and
85. layed If you have already installed one or more printers select the Add button to dis play the list of supported printers Click on Install Unlisted or Updated Printer in the list so that this option is highlighted Click Install A window prompts you to put in the floppy disk supplied with the printer Insert the disk with the printer driver file on it and click OK A new list of printers appears If you have inserted the disk into a drive other than drive A you must type in the drive letter followed by a colon and a backslash e g B before selecting OK Select NX 2480 Rainbow Colour from the new list of printers Click OK The list of installed printers appears including the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour Click on Set As Default Printer Click on Close to return to the Control Panel win dow instructions on how to configure the printer see the section of the Microsoft Windows User s Guide called Control Panel Page 20 If you cannot print from your applications programs after installing the driver refer to the section In Win dows on page 89 Note Unless the user chooses a different printer from within the application Windows applications always print to the cur rently selected default printer Installing TrueType fonts for Windows To install the TrueType fonts that are on the floppy disk accompanying this printer follow the procedure below Double click the Control Panel in
86. low Print quality Uncnanged Draft Letter quality Ignored if the FONT LOCK mode was selected during power up Page 93 Select LO font MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt Esc gt k n 27 107 n 1B 6B n Selects an LQ font according to the value of n In draft mode this command remains dormant and takes effect later when LQ is selected Ignored if the FONT LOCK mode was selected during power up or the correspond ing font is not installed n Font 0 Roman 1 Sanserif 2 Courier 3 Prestige 4 Script 7 Orator 8 Orator 2 12 H Gothic 32 SLO Roman Select italic characters MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta lt ESC gt 4 27 52 1B 34 Causes subsequent characters except IBM block graphic characters to be printed in italics Page 94 Select upright characters MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std IESE et 1B 35 Cancels italic printing and causes subsequent charac ters to be printed upright Emphasized printing MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt 5 27 69 TET Causes subsequent characters to be emphasized by adding extra thickness to horizontal strokes Cancel emphasized printing Decimal Hexadecimal Cancels emphasized printing Double strike printing Decimal Hexadecimal
87. lt O gt control code The vertical tab stops are set in terms of the current line spacing and do not move if the line spacing is changed later Page 115 Set vertical tab stops in channel MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt ESC gt b nO 27 98 nO nl Ae a KOJ nin2 0 Cancels all current vertical tab stops in channel no where nO is between O and 7 and sets new vertical tab stops in this channel A channel is a set of vertical tab stops selected with the lt ESC gt command See the lt ESC gt B command for parameters n1 n2 lt O gt Select vertical tab channel MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta ESO J no a7 47 nO 18 2F nO Selects a set of vertical tab stops designated by a chan nel number nO from O to 7 The tab stops in each chan nel are set by lt ESC gt b Vertical tab Both LYT LT OB Feeds the paper to the next vertical tab stop and moves the print position to the left margin Performs a line feed if no vertical tabs are set such as at power up Feeds to the top of the next page if vertical tabs are set but the current line is at or below the last vertical tab stop Page 116 Horizontal position commands Set left margin MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta lt ESC gt 1 n 27 108 n 1B 6C n Sets the left margin at column n where n is between O and 255 at the current character pitch
88. n 11 Test printing 47 Tractor covers 6 Tractor unit 6 TrueType fonts 21 U Unpacking the printer 8 Unparking paper 32 V Vertical position commands 110 W Windows 21 73 89 Word length 68 Page 169 Customer service information If you experience some technical difficulty with your Star printer please refer to Common problems and solutions on page 78 This chapter provides you with easy methods to diagnose and resolve problems which you may encounter For further technical support you should first contact your Authorized Star Dealer If you require additional support Star Micronics offers a wide variety of technical support services Please use the phone numbers listed below based on the country which your Star printer was purchased Star Micronics Technical Hotline North America 1 908 572 3300 Hong Kong 852 795 2335 Australia 61 2 748 4300 New Zealand 64 9 570 1470 Star Micronics FaxBack Document Retrieval System Requires access to a facsimile machine or board with receive capability North America 1 908 572 4004 Star Micronics Bulletin Board Service Requires a computer modem North America 1 908 572 5010 United Kingdom 44 494 461395 France 33 1 305807 Germany 49 69 780929 Netherlands 31 73 424485 Australia and New Zealand 61 2 748 2960 Customer response Star Micronics Co Ltd invites your suggestions and com ments on your printer and this manual Please addres
89. nce The display should show 5 OFF EDS And that s it Exiting Electronic DIP Switch mode Press the button to save the switch settings and exit the Electronic DIP Switch mode The printer will now operate in the mode you have just set up with the Electronic DIP Switch mode Page 54 What you can change with the Electronic DIP Switch mode g 5 5 Function Meaning Meaning q E when ON when OFF V A Emulation Standard Epson BM A AEC mode Enabled Disabled A RAM usage Input buffer Download buffer A Color and zoom Enabled Disabled A Auto LF with CR Disabled Enabled A Auto sheet feeder Not installed nstalled Graphics direction Bi directional Uni directional Paper out Tear off Reserved Enabled Disabled Disabled Enabled Leave this switch ON See page 58 Print mode See page 59 C A C C Page length See page 59 C Character table D In standard mode Graphics Italics In IBM mode IBM 1 IBM 2 D D Code page interna See page 60 tional character set D Page 55 x fincan Meaning Meaning x E when ON when OFF i D 5 CR centering Disabled Enabled E i E 2 E 3 ley egarmelecien See E1 through E5 LO Font selection on page 61 E 4 E 5 eee F 1 Electronic DIP User settings Default factory Swi
90. nter interface cable is correctly connected If it is try a different cable Possible cause Action Your application software is overriding the control panel font selection This does not apply to systems running Windows Use the control panel to lock font selection by application software See Font lock on page 45 Page 77 Possible causes Action The release lever is in the wrong position Paper is jamming correctly The print gap is not set _ Make sure that the lever is 1 pushed back if you are printing on single sheets or pulled forward if you are using fanfold stationery Remove paper from the printer Reload paper Refer to page 26 and page 27 _ Check the print gap If necessary use the adjustment lever to set the print gap See Adjusting the print gap on page 24 ee ES re ee Possible causes _ Action z A monochrome ribbon cartridge is installed Install a color ribbon cartridge A printer that does not support color has been selected either in Windows or in your application program Select a different printer _ driver See Setting up the printer in Windows on page 19 Electronic DIP Switch settings prevent use of color Check the settings See A4 Color and zoom on page 57 Page 78 Possibl
91. o 41 3 LQ elite 29 ml through m9 indicate Index Table data ml and m2 indicate the address where Dot Pattern is stored m1 is the high order byte m3 indicates the num ber of columns in the character memory and m4 indi cates the number of columns in the character ms through m9 are compression mask bits Data com pression allows the efficient use of memory in storing downloaded characters providing space for more charac ters than would be available without compression The printer repeats the previous dot column in the current column when the current column compression mask bit is set to 1 It is necessary to define all of Index Table data before the Dot Pattern data to download many characters dl d2 dxis the Dot Pattern data being downloaded Each data byte indicates eight vertical dots with the most significant bit being the top dot and the least sig nificant bit being the bottom dot Copy character set from ROM into RAM MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta lt ESC gt lt 0 gt n lt 0 gt 27 580 n o 1B 3A 00 n 00 Copies the character set selected by n as shown below to the corresponding download character RAM area Page 127 overwriting any downloaded data already there Ignored when EDS switch A3 is set to ON n Font 0 Roman 1 Sanserif 2 Courier 3 T Brestia 4 Script 7 Orator 8 Orator 2 12 H Gothic 32 SLO Roman
92. odes nieeeieieeeeisieiererrerererererresssrrersinirenrnt 33 Page iv PaUSING PFiNting 2 c ce cece cette eee teecneeeneceneeneenentaeetetenerietiaetueteneas 33 Feeding paper through the printer 0 cece eter 34 One line or several lines at a time ccccecccce cscs eeteeeene ee cteettreeeeee 34 A page at a time ecc ccc ct etc ete ene eens eee ete cnen ener eee t re cnnereneceetiee tetany 34 Individual form tear off cccccccecceseccectscecenssesencesesseeseassseeeeesreeetens 34 Loading paper ou cece cece eee rset teeta nen eres eeeceseceectaeeneeraeeeeetaeeetitteengs 35 Micro feeding paper backwards and forwards c0cc 35 Setting the top of a fOKIM A ccc teeter ee te te reteirenereeentates 35 Changing the autoloading poSition 0 cc etnies 36 Eject and parkinin ern errian iip eai 37 Quiet printing sisih ineeaaiierotri iissa pirisee aTi 37 Changing the way your printout looks cee 38 Selecting the different fonts nosssrsirereereersrnreerrrrnerersrnsrnerrenernrere 38 Changing the pitch of the font 0 ccccccecreettee tees tee ttetneeneeereteaes 39 Changing the ZOOM SiZ ccccce cece et cee ene cnet tise re tieete riser rneenneeeeenats 40 Selecting the print COIOL 0 cccccccccccceseensetete cere e nner ceesneneresnene teeters 41 Controlling the printer s Memory cece cee tenets rece retetetetetenees 4
93. on dots pin Line spacing 1 6 1 8 n 60 n 72 n 180 n 216 n 360 inches Typeface Draft Roman Sanserif Courier families Prestige Script Orator Orator 2 H Gothic SLQ Roman Page 135 Characters ASCH International IBM special IBM block graphic IBM code page Download 96 16 sets 111 50 6 sets 256 USA France Germany England Denmark I Sweden Italy Spain I Japan Norway Denmark II Spain II Latin America Korea Irish Legal 437 USA 850 Multi Lingual 860 Portuguese 861 Icelandic 863 Canadian French 865 Nordic Number of columns Pica 10 CPI Elite 12 CPD Semi condensed 15 CPI Condensed pica 17 CPI Condensed elite 20 CPI Proportional Character matrix Pica Elite Semi condensed Condensed pica Condensed elite Proportional Page 136 Draft 24x9 24x9 16x7 24x9 24x9 80 96 120 137 160 Variable LQ 24 x 31 24 x 27 16 x 21 24 x 16 24x 16 24xn Bit image dot matrix 8 pin normal 60 DPI 8 x 480 8 pin double 120 DPI 8 x 960 8 pin high speed double 120 DPI 8 x 960 8 pin quadruple 240 DPI 8 x 1920 8 pin CRT I 80 DPI 8 x 640 8 pin CRT II 90 DPI 8 x 720 24 pin normal 60 DPI 24 x 480 24 pin double 120 DPI 24 x 960 24 pin CRT III 90 DPI 24 x 720 24 pin Triple 180 DPI 24 x 1440 24 pin Hex 360 DPI 24 x 2880 Jt is impossible to print adjacent dots in modes marked with an asterisk Paper fee
94. oom size on page 40 The Electronic DIP Switch mode has been selected See Using the Electronic DIP switches on page 53 The macro definition has been selected See Saving Macros on page 42 The quiet mode has been cancelled See Quiet printing on page 37 Three short tones The macro definition has been cancelled See Removing the macro on page 43 The printer has been reset See Setting the printer back to default settings on page 44 One shorter tone Hexadecimal dump mode has been selected See Hexadecimal dump mode on page 49 Pitch lock mode has been selected See Pitch lock on page 45 Font lock mode has been selected See Font lock on page 45 Page 88 Beep tones Meaning Pitch and font lock have been selected Two shorter tones together See Pitch and font lock on page 46 The release lever has been moved while Intermittent tone the fanfold paper is not parked See Park ing paper on page 31 Checking system software settings In Windows If you cannot print from your Windows application there are three things that you can check You may also wish to refer to the Microsoft Windows User s Guide Firstly check that the printer has been set as the Default Printer e Double click the Control Panel icon in the Main win dow e Double click the Printers icon e Click on NX 2480 Rainbow Colour in t
95. p to print to a printer via a serial cable not a parallel cable So if you are using a parallel cable delete the line from AUTOEXEC BAT Resave AUTOEXEC BAT and restart your computer Try printing again Conversely if you are using the SPC 8K serial to paral lel converter make sure that a statement is included in AUTOEXEC BAT See Setting up an MS DOS com puter on page 72 If you still cannot print refer to the MS DOS User s Guide or consult your software dealer If you can print from MS DOS but cannot print from your application check to see which printer driver is selected in the application Check the application s manual for details of printer selection If you still cannot print consult your software dealer Page 90 Chapter Software commands Introduction The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour has two emulation modes Standard Epson mode and IBM mode In the Standard Epson mode the printer emulates the Epson LQ 860 850 and can also recognize the graphics commands of NEC 24 wire printers In IBM mode the printer emulates the IBM Proprinter X24E Some addi tional command codes which are a superset of these emulations are also supported The emulation can be changed by changing Electronic DIP Switch EDS setting Al When A1 is ON the printer is in Standard Epson mode when it is OFF the printer is in IBM mode see Chapter 4 In addition when EDS switch A2 is ON the printer can automat
96. parking the paper When you have finished printing on cut sheet paper and you want to start printing again on fanfold paper here s how you do it e Remove any cut sheets which may still be in the printer e Place the paper guide in the horizontal position e Move the release lever to the front 5 position The printer will beep if you move the lever while paper is still loaded ready for printing e Press the button The parked fanfold paper will be fed into the correct position ready for printing again Page 32 Using the control Chapter 4 panel _ The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour control panel has five buttons which have white labels above them to indicate their primary functions Other functions are available as alternative functions labelled in brown or by pressing combinations of buttons labelled in yellow SCO RAFT SCAPE BUNIA Roman Os PITCH POWER FF PTION EDS REA ps a v MICRO FEED v SETEJECT QUIET FONT PITCH PARK PAPER FEED ON LINE ALT MACRO COLOR ZOOM CLEAR There are two indicators the POWER indicator shows that power is supplied to the printer When steadily lit it means that paper is correctly positioned for printing When flashing it means that paper is not correctly posi tioned for printing Ready and not ready modes When the ON LINE indicator is lit it means that the printer is ready to accept data to be printed from the computer If it is not lit the printer
97. per e While the printer is in ready mode press and hold down the button e Press the button The paper will move forward about 2 inches 50mm so that you can tear off the sheet Page 34 e When you press the button again the paper will move back to its original position Loading paper For the most part paper loading is described in Chapter 3 However one important point to note is that if paper _has not been loaded the printer will indicate that it is not ready Pressing the button will start loading paper and automatically enter the ready mode Micro feeding paper backwards and forwards It is often useful to be able to feed the paper backwards or forwards in the printer by very small amounts For example to get the correct printing position on pre printed stationery e Put the printer in not ready mode e Press and hold down the button e While holding down the button press the button to advance the paper in a series of small steps e While holding down the button press the button to move the paper backwards in a series of small steps Release both buttons the and the PAPER FEED or SET EJECT buttons when the paper reaches the place you want e Put the printer back into ready mode Setting the top of a form Very often when feeding fanfold paper through a page at a time see A page at a time on page 34 the printer s top of a page does not correspond with the actual top
98. pica pitch if proportional spacing is selected The left margin does not move if the character pitch is changed later The left margin must be at least two columns to the left of the right margin and within the limits given below lA Expanded pica 0 ns 38 Expanded elite Semi condensed Expanded semi condensed O lt n lt 130 Expanded condensed pica Condensed pica Condensed elite 0 lt n lt 152 Expanded condensed elite Set right margin MODE Decimal Hexadecimal ED lt ESC gt Q n 27 8l n 1B 51 n Sets the right margin at column n in the current charac ter pitch pica pitch if proportional spacing is currently selected Column n becomes the last character position in the line The right margin does not move if the char acter pitch is changed later The right margin must be within the limits below Pica 4 lt n lt 80 J Elite 5 lt n lt 96 Expanded pica 2 lt n lt 40 Expanded elite 3 lt n lt 48 Semi condensed 6 lt n lt 120 Expanded semi condensed 3 lt n lt 60 Condensed pica 7 lt n lt 137 ule Condensed elite 8 lt n lt 160 Expanded condensed pica 4 lt ns68 Expanded condensed elite 4 lt n lt 80 Page 117 Set left and right margins ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal IBM 27 88 ni n2 1B 58 nl n2 MODE lt ESC gt SR nl n2 Sets the left margin at column n1 an
99. printer You can make these settings using the control panel Imitation by one type of printer of the functions of another type of printer Dot matrix printer which the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour can emu late Epson emulation mode Factory settings Fanfold paper Fixed pitch font Font Font lock mode Form feed Forward micro feed Graphics direction Handshaking Hexadecimal dump IBM emulation mode See Standard mode See Default settings Sheets of paper joined by perfo rations Fanfold paper has small holes at the edges See monospaced font A set of characters of a particu lar typeface which you can select for printing Mode in which font selection can only be made from the printer s control panel Printer operation which ejects the current page and feeds the next sheet into position ready for printing Control panel operation which feeds paper through the printer in small steps The printer s method of printing graphics See bi directional and uni directional printing See protocol A printout of all character codes and control codes as they are received by the printer along with their hexadecimal base 16 values Mode in which the printer emu lates an IBM Proprinter X24E Page 159 IBM compatible IBM PC IBM Proprinter X24E Icon Interface International character set Landscape Letter Quality Line feed Page 160 A personal computer that can
100. printers are not color printers so if you select one you will not be able to print in color If none of the printers above is listed choose one of the following in order of preference These two printers are not color printers so if you select either you will not be able to print in color Note The printers in shaded boxes do not support color If you select them all output will be in black only regardless of the ribbon installed or the software settings If you select either of these IBM Proprinter models you may need to change your printer emulation The Auto Emulation feature page 56 of the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour should take care of this for you See Al Emula tion on page 56 on how to change the emulation if you have trouble with your printer Page 18 If your software doesn t list printer names but asks you questions about your printer you should answer Yes to the following two questions e Can your printer perform a backspace e Can your printer do a hardware form feed The answers to any other questions are not so impor tant Answer these using the default settings in the software When you ve set up your software try a few test prints using features like bold italic etc to see how it works If you find you have problems making your software work with your hardware the best source of help is usually your software supplier Setting up the printer in Windows The NX 2480
101. prints subsequent characters normal height Page 108 Select character height width and line spacing MODE ASCH Decimal Hexadecimal IBM lt ESC gt 27 91 64 1B 5B 40 lt 4 gt lt O0 gt lt 0 gt 4 0 0 04 00 00 lt 0 gt n m Oo n m 00 n m Selects a combination of character height width and line spacing according to the values of n and m as shown below Does not move the base line n Line spacing Character height 0 Unchanged Unchanged 1 Unchanged Single height Double height Unchanged Single line Unchanged 17 Single line Single height 18 Single line Double height 32 Double line Unchanged 33 Double line Single height Double height 34 Double line m Character width 0 Unchanged 1 Single width same as lt ESC gt W 0 2 Double width same as lt ESC gt W 1 Page 109 Vertical position commands Set line spacing to 1 8 inch MODE ASCH Decimal Hexadecimal Both CESC o 27 48 18 30 Sets the distance the paper advances or reverses in sub sequent line feeds to 1 8 inch Set line spacing to 1 6 inch MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta ESO 9 27 50 1B 32 Sets the distance the paper advances or reverses in sub sequent line feeds to 1 6 inch S
102. pst hep Anere ma Pee re eA Page 144 IBM character set 2 Code page 437 U S A Page 145 Code page 437 U S A continued aa eat Pla a Pl S Pl P othe peer feds dee deeded fede ele lee ele eb ele o e j te a h e eh eee ele de fede le fe fe ee eee ee de ele de fede ede ede eile te fe le Jefe do be fe Jefe fe be le oletle fen fele de de de dele lee ee ee Lee Ae ae eee Sse Page 146 The other characters are the same as in code page 437 Code page 850 Multi lingual Page 147 The other characters are the same as in code page 437 Code page 860 Portuguese ans tas Page 148 The other characters are the same as in code page 437 Code page 861 Icelandic SEAS R SSE E SEES Sle hernia aa PRESSES REGBGG DSRS RBE BERENS IN DSSS EBSA Gb DSSS AERO mitts DA SSSR SERRE GU DLR Raa Gui pa ee pee ae ele eee Pease aa Page 149 Code page 863 Canadian French The other characters are the same as in code page 437 Page 150 The other characters are the same as in code page 437 Code page 865 Nordic EPP PP lB khk eee ne eee eee OS En oe eee ee eee ies lee ee eile e ee jee bh FOP Po ee eee dee eee fe fe dee fe fe ee fe eh ee eee dee fee ee al oe 0 eee eee ees eee Page 151 Character set 1 The other characters are the same as in each version of character set 2 eee
103. raphics 90 dots per inch l 39 24 bit Triple density 180 dots per inch 40 24 bit Hex density 360 dots per inch Page 123 Select graphics mode MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal IBM RESCD te ep 279i 1 03 1B 58 67 nl n2 mO ni n2 mo ni n2 m0 mi ir AES mil m2 mi m2 Selects one of eight graphics modes depending on the value of mO and prints bit image graphics in this mode The graphics image is n1 n2 x 256 1 dots wide See the lt ESC gt K command for 8 bit graphics or the lt FS gt Z command for 24 bit graphics for information on ml m2 etc mo Graphics mode 0 8 bit Normal density 60 dots per inch 1 8 bit Double density 120 dots per inch 2 8 bit Double density double speed 120 dots per inch 3 8 bit Quadruple density 240 dots per inch 8 24 bit Normal density 60 dots per inch 9 T 2a bit Double density 120 dots per inch 1 1 24 bit Triple density 180 dots per inch 12 24 bit Hex density 360 dots per inch Convert graphics density move ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt ESC gt 2 nm 27 63 nm 13 3F nm Converts graphics defined by subsequent lt ESC gt K lt ESC gt L lt ESC gt Y or lt ESC gt Z commands to a den sity mode defined by lt ESC gt nis K L Y or Z indicating the mode to be converted m is a code from lt 0 gt
104. ridge knob clockwise about 1 2 a turn Check once more to make sure that the ribbon is between the print head and print head shield if it isn t take the cartridge out and try again Page 11 Removing the ribbon cartridge To remove the ribbon cartridge press the cartridge grips inward and lift the cartridge upward out of the printer Installing the roller unit Page 12 Open the rear cover by pushing the cover grips backward and upward Pick up the roller unit so that the small illustration is on top of the roller unit and the smoked plastic side with six small black rollers is facing you Hold the roller unit so that the top is tilted slightly away from you Slide the hooks on either side of the back of the roller unit over the platen the large black roller and under the silver bar behind and above the platen The hooks should both be between the metal plates at either end of the silver bar a e Push the front of the roller unit down firmly so that the unit clicks into place If it does not fit properly remove it and try again Removing the roller unit e Pull both gray locking tabs towards you and lift the front of the roller unit slightly to remove the roller unit Pull the roller unit out of the printer towards you Replacing the front cover Once you have fitted the ribbon and roller unit you should replace the front cover i isl _ _ See Note Even though you can operate th
105. rt mode on page 58 Page 23 Where you can print on each kind of paper Fanfold forms Single sheets 5 mm 5mm 18 mm 18 mm foo oo w aS mn cae f oo0oo0oo 5 mm 5mm Perforation i 19mm Bottom of Form 81 mm DoodcTT TOO DOOOOOOODOODDOOOODO00000000000 oooo0o0o0000000000000000 If you print outside these limits you run the risk of damaging the printer mechanism and tearing the paper or jamming it as it goes through the printer Adjusting the print gap Note Important If you do not adjust the print gap properly you run the risk of shortening the life of the print head Different paper thicknesses need a different gap between the print head and the paper The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour allows you to make six different set tings using the adjustment lever at the left of the printer If you push this lever towards the back of the Page 24 printer the gap is narrowed thin paper and if you pull it towards the front the gap is widened thick paper Thick paper As you move the lever you can feel it click between the six different positions Position number 2 starting from the rearmost position is the one you will generally use for single sheets of paper fanfold or cut sheet Here is a table for the adjustment lever when you use multi part sets Recommended Paper Weight of each Thickness F typ
106. s Ignored when friction feed is used Perform one time line feed MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt 350 gt J n 27 Tan 3 4A n Feeds the paper once by n times the defined base unit n 180 inches in Standard mode The value of n is between 0 and 255 If n 0 the line feed distance is set to 0 Does not move the print position right or left Does not change the line spacing setting Page 113 Perform one n 180 inch reverse line feed MODE ASCH Decimal Sta BSR j n 27 106 n Feeds the paper once by n 180 inches in the reverse direction where n is between 0 and 255 If n 0 the line feed distance is set to 0 Does not move the print position right or left Does not change the line spacing setting Hexadecimal 1B 6A n Set page length to n lines MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt C n 27 67 n 18 43 on Sets the page length to n lines at the current line spac ing where nis between 1 and 127 Changing the line spacing later does not alter the physi cal page length The current line becomes the first line of a new page Set page length to n inches ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt Esc gt c lt 0 gt n 27670 n 18 43 00 n Sets the page length to n inches where n is between 1 and 32 in Standard mode or between 1 and 64 in IBM mode The current line becomes the first line of a new
107. s it is fed through the printer You may need to experiment to find the ideal tension e Replace the roller unit see Installing the roller unit on page 12 e Replace all the covers that you have removed Turn on the printer e Put the printer into not ready mode use the button and use the button to advance the paper so that the print head is just below a perfo ration Put the printer into ready mode again Parking paper Paper parking allows you to print single cut sheets even when fanfold paper is loaded The fanfold paper is tem porarily parked out of the way while the cut sheet is fed through the printer Note You can only use the paper parking function when fanfold paper is loaded from the rear You cannot use it when you are feeding fanfold paper from the bottom slot e The power should be ON The release leaver should be pulled forward 5 and the fanfold paper loaded e Put the printer into not ready mode use the button e Tear off the last page of the fanfold paper If the paper is not in a suitable position to be torn off use the button to feed the paper forwards to a suitable position Page 31 e Press the SET EJECT button The printer will feed the fanfold paper back until it is out of the way e Move the release lever to the back 4 position e Place the paper guide in the upright position Load single sheets as described in Loading cut sheet paper on page 26 Un
108. s or by a devices with electric low level of humidity is motors or raise the affecting the printer s _ humidity level operation i Display messages non error The following messages do not indicate an error in the printer but this table provides a quick lookup to deter mine the meaning of messages Message l Meaning DRAFT Draft mode has been selected You cannot select pro portional pitch Roman Roman LQ font has been selected Roman Sta Roman SLO font has been selected Sanserif Sans serif LQ font has been selected Courier Courier LO font has been selected Prestige Prestige LO font has been selected Sctuipt Script LO font has been selected ORATOR Orator LO font has been selected Orator 2 Orator 2 LO font has been selected Page 85 Message Meaning H Gothic H Gothic LO font has been selected ZOOM The zoom mode has been selected The message below indicates the current size PITCH The current pitch size The message below indicates the current size EDS The electronic DIP switch mode is selected see page 53 F LOCK Font changes cannot be made from application pro grams See Font lock on page 45 P LOCK Changes to the font pitch cannot be made from applica tion programs See Pitch lock on page 45 ON Displayed in Electronic DIP Switch mode to show the er status of the currentl
109. s over 99 steps the display changes from 99 to Set the printer back in ready mode e All cut sheet paper loaded from now on will be loaded so that printing starts at this position until you Page 36 change the position again using this procedure or until the power to the printer is turned off Ifyou want to save this value for future use after the printer has been turned off and on again you must save it as a macro See Saving Macros on page 42 Note This function will only work if you use it immediately after you have loaded paper as described above If paper has already been fed into the printer this function will not work Eject and park If paper has already been loaded and the printer is not ready the button has two different functions depending on the setting of the release lever e If the release lever is set to the back position for cut sheet paper pressing the button will eject the sheet e If the release lever is set to the forward position for fanfold paper 5 pressing the button will park the fanfold paper to allow you to print on cut sheets See Parking paper on page 31 Note If you are feeding fanfold paper through the bottom slot of the printer this button will have no effect Quiet printing Even though the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour is a quiet printer it also has a quiet mode which allows it to print at a reduced noise level Setting the quiet mo
110. s your correspondence to Worldwide Headquarters STAR MICRONICS CO LTD 20 10 Nakayoshida Shizuoka Japan 422 91 Attn Product Manager North and South America Markets STAR MICRONICS AMERICA INC 70 D Ethel Road West Piscataway NJ 08854 Attn Product Manager European Market STAR MICRONICS DEUTSCHLAND GMBH Westerbachstrafse 59 D 60489 Frankfurt F R of Germany Attn Product Manager U K Market STAR MICRONICS U K LTD Star House Peregrine Business Park Gomm Road High Wycombe Bucks HP13 7DL U K Attn Product Manager French Market STAR MICRONICS FRANCE S A R L 25 rue Micha l Faraday F 78182 St Quentin en Yvelines Cedex Attn Product Manager Asian Market STAR MICRONICS ASIA LTD 18 F Tower 2 Enterprise Square 9 Sheung Yuet Road Kowloon Bay HONG KONG Attn Product Manager PRINTED IN JAPAN
111. sing a serial interface or connecting to any other type of computer read Chap ter 5 Note Before connecting or disconnecting the printer and the com puter make sure that the power to both the printer and the computer is turned OFF If the power is on when you make or break these connections there is a risk that you will damage the circuitry of the computer and or the printer Repairs can be expensive e Press the cable plug into the printer socket e Clip the cable into the socket using the wire clips on either side of the socket Connect the D connector on the other end of the cable to the parallel printer port on your computer This will probably be labelled Printer Parallel PRN LPT 1 or something similar Refer to your com puter s instruction manual for details of how to secure the cable e Now you can turn on your printer and computer Page 16 Setting up your printer with your computer In this section you will learn to set up your printer with two different computer environments MS DOS or Microsoft Windows 3 1 or a later version of Windows If your computer uses a different operating system you should refer to Chapter 5 for details of setting up your printer Refer to your computer operating system manu als for details of configuring the operating system Setting up with MS DOS Every program that you use with MS DOS must be told separately what printer is connected to
112. t commonly used setting Set Switch 1 to OFF for 7 bit use Parity A parity bit can be added to each word to make the total value of bits to be odd or even This allows for error checking of the data as it is transmitted over the serial line Use switches 2 and 5 to set this Page 68 Set switch 2 ON if you don t want parity checking and set it to OFF if you want parity checking If you have set switch 2 to OFF you must choose whether you are going to use even or odd parity IF switch 5 is ON the SPC 8K will use odd parity and if this switch is OFF the SPC 8K will use even parity If switch 2 is ON switch 5 will have no effect Handshaking Handshaking is the term used to describe the way in which serial devices say to each other Are you ready for me to give you more data No I m not wait a moment thinks and processes data OK I m ready now More data please Obviously computer devices don t use these words there are two ways in which they have these conversa tions One way is by changing the voltage along one of the serial lines hardware or DTR handshaking The other way is by special codes which cannot be printed but are interpreted by computer devices along the lines of the conversation above software handshaking An older less frequently used method is called ETX ACK and the other main method more common than ETX ACK is called XON XOFF some
113. t of m1 is the top dot the least significant bit of ml is the eighth dot from the top the most significant bit of m2 is the ninth dot the least significant bit of m2 is the sixteenth dot from the top the most significant bit of m3 is the seventeenth dot from the top the least sig nificant bit of m3 is the bottom dot The rest of the data is organized in the same way The number of data bytes must be 3 x n1 n2 x 256 Dots beyond the right mar gin are ignored On completion of dot graphics printing the printer returns automatically to character mode Page 122 Select graphics mode MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std SESE OMe ort 27 42 nO 1B 2A nO ni n2 mi ni n2 ml nl n2 ml m2 m2 m2 Selects one of eleven graphics modes depending on the value of nO and prints bit image graphics in this mode See the lt ESC gt K command for 8 bit graphics or the lt FS gt Z command for 24 bit graphics for information on nl n2 ml m2 etc no Graphics mode 0 8 bit Normal density 1 4 8 bit Double density 8 bit CRT graphics mode 60 dots per inch 120 dots per inch 2 8 bit Double density double speed 120 dots per inch 3 8 bit Quadruple density 240 dots per inch 80 dots per inch 6 8 bit CRT graphics mode I 90 dots per inch 32 24 bit Normal density 60 dots per inch 33 24 bit Double density 120 dots per inch 38 24 bit CRT g
114. t the printer into not ready mode use the button and use the micro feed function described in Chap ter 4 Page 29 Loading paper from the bottom of the printer Always load fanfold paper into the printer with the print er s power turned OFF Remove the front cover and the roller unit See Removing the front cover on page 10 and Removing the roller unit on page 13 for details Grip the gray tractor position locking levers on both sides of the tractor unit Rotate the front of the trac tor unit upward so that the top is horizontal With a stack of fanfold paper below the printer feed the top sheet of the stack through the feed slot at the bottom of the printer and pass it over the platen Open the tractor pin covers and align the holes in the fanfold paper with the pins on the tractor unit You will probably need to slide the tractor pin units left and right to align the paper properly Use the gray locking levers on each tractor pin unit to allow the unit to slide left and right along the rail Remember to lock each tractor pin unit in place again when you have finished moving it Close the pin unit covers after you have made sure that the paper holes are properly lined up with the Page 30 tractor pins If the holes and pins are not correctly lined up you may find that the paper tears and jams Note Ifthe paper is too tightly stretched or too loose between the pin holders the paper will tear or jam a
115. tch setting settings Note that e All switches are ON when they leave the factory Setting F1 to OFF will set all switches to ON e If switch F1 is set to OFF the changes made to other switches will have no effect All switches will be reset to factory settings e You should not change the setting of switch B4 Meanings of the switches A1 Emulation This switch determines what printer the NX 2480 Rain bow Colour emulates pretends to be When ON the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour emulates an Epson LQ 860 and when OFF the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour emulates an IBM Proprinter X24E A2 Auto Emulation Change AEC mode If this switch is ON the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour will automatically change between the two emulations above depending on the data received If this switch is OFF the printer will stay in whatever emulation you have selected with Al Page 56 A3 RAM usage The printer s internal memory can be set as either buffer memory ON the printer accepts data from the com puter faster than it can print it or download memory OFF you can invent your own character symbols and download them using software into the printer A4 Color and zoom If this switch is ON both color printing and zooming page 40 are enabled If OFF you can do neither color printing nor zoom printing If you have set a zoom level and stored it as a macro page 42 and turn this switch OFF the zoom size will be cancelled A5 Auto
116. ted during power up Semi condensed pitch MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Sta ates g 27 103 23 67 Changes from either pica or elite to semi condensed pitch 15 cpi Ignored if the PITCH LOCK mode was selected during power up Page 102 Condensed printing MODE ASCII Decimai Hexadecimal lt SI gt 15 OF Both s lt ESC gt lt SI gt 27 3 LOS _In Standard mode changes from pica to condensed pica 17 cpi or from elite to condensed elite 20 cpi In IBM mode changes from pica to condensed pica Ignored if the PITCH LOCK mode was selected during power up Cancel condensed printing MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal i2 Both lt DC2 gt 18 In Standard mode changes from condensed pica to nor mal pica or from condensed elite to normal elite In IBM mode always changes to normal pica Ignored if the PITCH LOCK mode was selected during power up Proportional spacing MODE ASCH Decimal Hexadecimal Std SESCA pA 27 Dil iB 70 n IBM lt ESC gt P 2 27 80 n F350 Causes subsequent characters to be proportionally spaced when nis 1 and cancels it when n is 0 Ignored if the PITCH LOCK mode was selected during power up Page 103 Select font and pitch MODE IBM ASCII SESG gt I ny 27 Decimal Hexadecimal 73 1B 49 n n Changes the print font and pitch according to the
117. th SESG Lng 27 76 nl n2 1B 4C nl n2 ml m2 mi m2 Prints bit image graphics at 120 dots per inch horizon tally maximum 960 dots wide See the lt ESC gt K com mand for other information Print double density double speed 8 bit graphics MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both lt ESC gt Y pni 4 27 89 nl 1B 59 nl n2 ml m2 n2 ml m2 n2 ml m2 Prints bit image graphics at 120 dots per inch horizon tally maximum 960 dots wide skipping every second dot in the horizontal direction See the lt ESC gt K com mand for other information Page 121 Print quadruple density 8 bit graphics MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Both LESC Z ni 27 90 ni 1B 5A nl n2 mil m2 n2 mi m2 n2 ml m2 Prints bit image graphics at 240 dots per inch horizon tally maximum 1920 dots wide skipping every second dot in the horizontal direction See the lt ESC gt K com mand for other information Print hex density 24 bit graphics MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std lt FS gt ZY nl 28 90 nl 1C 5A nl n2 ml m2 n2 ml m2 n2 ml m2 m3 ae m3 MI nests Prints 24 bit dot graphics at 360 dots per inch horizon tally The graphics image is 24 dots high and n1 n2 x 256 dots wide Maximum width is 8 inches 2880 dots In the data m1 m2 m3 each three bytes represent 24 vertical dots In the leftmost position the most signifi cant bi
118. the same electric circuit as appliances like copiers or refrigerators that cause power spikes and surges Use a power supply of the correct voltage as speci fied on the printer s identification plate Page 7 Unpacking the printer As you unpack the printer from the box make sure that you have all the following items 5 Roller unit 4 Platen meee 6 Mute cover 2 Printer driver and font disk l Printer If any of these are missing please contact your supplier Optional accessories that you may have purchased are e Serial Parallel converter SPC 8K e Automatic sheet feeder SF 10DW For details of how to install these optional accessories see Chapter 5 You will also need a cable to connect the printer to your computer available separately For IBM or IBM com patible computers this will generally be a parallel cable with a 25 pin D connector at one end and a 36 pin Amphenol type Centronics connector at the other end a Centronics printer cable This cable should be no longer than about 6 2m Page 8 If your computer has no parallel port available you will need to use the Serial Parallel converter SPC 8K and a cable to connect your computer to the printer See The SPC S8K serial parallel converter on page 67 for full details Setting up your printer Remove the printer and all supplied parts from the packing material Put the printer on the place you have prepared for
119. times called DC1 DC3 Use switches 3 and 4 to set the handshaking method usually called protocol Protocol Sw 3 Sw 4 DTR hardware handshake ON ON XON XOFF ON OFF ETX ACK OFF ON Connecting the SPC 8K converter Turn the printer and the computer OFF using their power switches Page 69 e Disconnect the parallel interface cable from the printer if connected e Connect the parallel connector of the SPC 8K the connector on the cable to the printer s parallel conec ctor Move both clips on the printer connector inside the clips on the SPC 8K connector until they click into place e Connect the 25 pin D connector on the SPC 8K to the 25 pin end of a suitable serial cable See The serial connector on the SPC 8K on page 71 for details of the kind of cable you will need e Connect the other end of cable to the computer s serial port often labeled COM1 or COM2 Note Some computers use a 9 pin rather than a 25 pin serial con nector If this is the case with your computer you will have to make or buy a 25 to 9 pin adaptor See page 71 for details e Make sure that the main body of the SPC 8K is rest ing on a table or flat surface If it is left hanging in mid air this will put strain on the cables possibly resulting in damage e Make that the computer s serial port settings match the settings you have made with the SPC 8K s DIP switches see below Using the
120. to lt 4 gt or lt 6 gt indicating one of the modes of lt ESC gt Page 124 Download character commands Define download characters MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal Std amp lt O gt 27 38 0 1B 26 00 n2 mO nl n2 mo nl n2 m0 4 1 m2 di mi m2 d ml m2 dl dx G2 ras UR d2 dx Defines one or more new characters and stores them in RAM for later use EDS switch A3 must be set to OFF otherwise RAM is used as an input buffer only not for storing downloaded characters and this command is ignored nl is the character code of the first character to be defined and n2 is the character code of the last charac ter to be defined n1 must be equal to or less than n2 The data for each character starts with three bytes spec ifying proportional spacing attributes the first byte mO specifies the left of the character the second byte m1 specifies the character width the third byte m2 speci fies the right of the character These values must not exceed the following maximum limits Character mode m1 m m1 m2 Draft 9 12 LO pica 31 36 LQ elite l 27 30 LQ semi condensed 19 24 LQ proportional 37 42 Draft super subscript 7 22 LO super subscript 19 36 le prop super subscript 37 42 Page 125 Next comes the dot data Normal character height is 24 dots so there must be 3 x m1 bytes of dot data If the printer is in super s
121. too close to any devices with electric motors or raise the humidity level Inappropriate settings have been selected from your application program Choose different settings in your application Some incorrect characters are being printed Possible causes The wrong emulation is selected Action Check the emulation selection See Al Emulation on page 56 The wrong character table code page or international character set is selected Check Electronic DIP Switch settings See D2 through D4 character code tables on page 60 Static electricity caused by interference from nearby electrical devices or by a low level of humidity is affecting the printer s operation Make sure that the printer is not too close to any devices with electric motors or raise the humidity level Inappropriate settings have been selected from your application program Choose different settings in _ your application There are wires missing from the print head Return the printer to your dealer for repair Page 84 Possible causes Action The interface cable is Check that the printer incorrectly connected or interface cable is correctly damaged connected If it is try a different cable Static electricity caused by lt Make sure that the printer interference from nearby is not too close to any electrical device
122. ubscript mode however the char acter height is 16 dots so there must be 2 x m1 bytes of dot data Each data byte represents eight vertical dots with the most significant bit representing the top dot and the least significant bit representing the bottom dot Define download characters MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal IBM lt ESC gt nl 27 OL m1 1B 3D nil n2 n3 n4 n2 35 n3 n4 n2 23 n3 n4 lt O gt n5 ml m2 O0 n5 ml m2 00 n5 ml m2 m9 dl d2 dx m9 dl d2 dx m9 dl d2 dx Defines new characters and stores them in RAM for later use EDS switch A3 must be OFF otherwise RAM is used as an input buffer not downloading characters and this command is ignored Downloading characters in IBM mode requires Dot Pat tern data and Character Index Table data Dot Pattern data controls which pins fire when printing a character Ind x Table data is placed in a lookup table that pro vides information on where Dot Pattern data is stored in memory and defines certain attributes of the character n1 n2 x 256 gives the number of bytes to be down loaded n3 and n4 indicate the low order and high order addresses in which data is to be stored n3 should be 15 and n4 should be 128 for this printer Page 126 n5 determines the character mode to be downloaded as shown below n5 Character mode A Character width 0 Draft 9 T 1 LQ pica 35 2 LQ proportional 17 t
123. value of n as shown below load load Letter Quality Draft Download Letter Quality Down n Font Pitch 0 Draft Pica 2 Letter Quality Pica 3 Letter Quality Proportional Za 4 Draft Download Pica 6 Letter Quality Down Pica Proportional 4 Letter Quality Down Elite load 6 Draft Pica condensed es ee load 18 Letter Quality EE 4 20 Draft Download 22 Letter Quality Down condensed condensed Pica condensed Ignored if the PITCH LOCK mode was selected during power up Page 104 Select print mode MODE ASCII Decimal Hexadecimal IBM LESCA oh HEY lt O gt nil n2 27 91 73 2 O a ng 1B 58 49 02 00 nil n2 Changes the print mode according to the values of n1 and n2 as shown below n1 n2 Font Mode Pitch 0 11 Courier Normal Tpi 0 12 Prestige Normal Tra o 18 Courier Italic Pica p 0 46 Courier Emphasized Pica 0 57 Courier Italic emphasized Pica 0 60 Prestige Emphasized Pica 0 85 Courier Normal Elite 0 86 Prestige Normal Elite 0 92 Courier Italic Elite 0 108 Courier Emphasized Elite 111 Teresie Emphasized Elite 0 112 Prestige Italic Elite 0 116 Courier Italic emphasized Elite 0 164 Prestige Normal Proportiona 0 171 Courier
124. y mode again Changing the pitch of the font The font pitch means how many characters can be printed in one inch 10 pitch for instance means 10 characters can be printed in one inch across the page There are two special modes on the NX 2480 Rainbow Colour Proportional and Condensed proportional In these modes you cannot say exactly how many charac ters will fit into one inch because each character takes up a different amount of space The opposite of propor tional is fixed pitch or monospaced Look at these two examples Fixed pitch Proportional MMMMMMMMMM IAHI MMMMMMMMMM TIITIITLILI Even though there are 10 characters in each line the M s in the proportional column take up more space overall than the I s The space between letters is pro portional to the letter itself However in the fixed pitch column although each M also takes up more space than each I the space between letters is fixed no matter what the letter so that a row of 10 I s takes up the same amount of space as 10 M s Page 39 Usually it is easier to read proportional text than text which is fixed pitch However if you are trying to line up columns of figures fixed pitch has definite advantages To change the pitch e Put the printer into the not ready mode e When you press the button the pitch will change in the following way
125. y selected switch See Changing OFF a switch s value on page 54 QUIET The quiet print mode is selected See Quiet printing on page 37 MACRO The front panel settings have been saved as a macro See Saving Macros on page 42 Ppl The short test mode has been selected See Short test on page 47 Pe The long test mode has been selected See Long test on page 47 Pd The print area test mode has been selected See Print area test mode on page 48 Hd The hexadecimal test dump mode has been selected See Hexadecimal dump mode on page 49 Top of form is being set manually with the control panel See Setting the top of a form on page 35 be The buffer has been cleared manually with the control panel See Clearing the buffer on page 43 df Dot adjustment mode has been selected See Adjust ing the dot alignment on page 50 Page 86 Display messages error The following messages all show that some error has occurred in the printer Message Meaning J PE No paper loaded in the printer Load paper Loading cut sheet paper on page 26 and Loading and parking fanfold paper on page 27 Er The release lever has been moved while the paper is in printing position Park the paper and try again Parking paper on page 31 El Print head error Turn off the printer wait a few seconds and try printing again
126. your com puter This is usually done in an INSTALL or SETUP pro gram or menu option within your application software word processor spreadsheet or whatever Look for an option called Add printer Install printer or Configure printer in your application software If you can t find this option easily read your software manual to find out how to do it MS DOS MS DOS needs no specific commands to make it work To test that the printer is connected properly to the computer try entering the following command from the C gt prompt PRINT AUTOEXEC BAT If the computer answers with Name of list device PRN hit again The printer should then print the contents of the file AUTOEXEC BAT If the file AUTOEXEC BAT does not exist you will get an error mes sage on your computer Most MS DOS computers do have a file called AUTOEXEC BAT however MS DOS application software The NX 2480 Rainbow Colour can emulate pretend to be a member of one of two printer families Epson or Page 17 IBM When you open the box containing your NX 2480 Rainbow Colour the printer is set to Epson emulation This is commonly supported by most software If your software package gives you a list of printers to choose from choose one printer from the following list in order of preference Star NX 2480 Rainbow Colour Star NX 2420 Rainbow Colour eee Epson LQ 860 1060 o The shaded

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