Printers- Errors and fault finding

Receipt Printers

To identify if it is an issue within GPoS, try a receipt print or identify which GPoS error message you are seeing on the screen; it may show it's having an issue seeing the peripheral type or that “Both Main and backup devices are marked as bad...”.

Dependent on which printer model you have chosen, they will all have an “Error” light on the front of them should the printer itself be experiencing faults, this could be caused by something being jammed in place of the paper feed or that something is causing issue with its mainboard; maybe the serial cable from your till to the printer is loose or faulty.

To check for anything that may be jamming the paper feed, open the printer up as you would when replacing its paper; check if anything inside of that is stuck or if the paper is creased (as if highly creased it will catch). It is recommended to turn the printer off at this point of checking and to fix any jams carefully; using a screwdriver to pull out a paper jam could cause more fault.

Secondly, while this is open check if the cutting blade is OK, is this sitting in place? Is there anything covering it? Is it broken or bended? Below is a description of how to adjust the cutter unit cog and where it can be found on some of our widely used printer models.

If the printer is clear and looks OK inside and out, have you got a spare power supply for it you can use? If so try using this or borrowing a power supply from another printer to get it working.

A simple test, which can also help identify if it is a GPoS issue too; if you power the printer off via the switch, then press the power on, press and hold the “Feed” button. This will initiate a test print and print the configuration settings of the printer.

Check how the test print looks, is it faded to any of the sides?

Then compare these settings against the peripheral type in GPoS; please note that the print out will show “Hand-Shaking”, this is known as “Flow Control” within the GPoS Programming utility.

It is important to know which COM Port the printer is plugged into and ensuring it is still in that port, no loose cables.

Should you be experiencing issues with the fading of a printer to the left/right then it's likely there is dirt or something blocking your thermal header. This is a strip which is found inside the printer near the cutting blade in some models or near the lid in others; this would just need a wipe. In other cases, it may need the thermal head replacing. 

If the printer isn’t plugged into the till directly but can be used across the network, then below are a few simple checks to run.

If your printer is using a shared printer (IRC Printer) on another till but it suddenly showed a device error; have you checked if any other tills can print to that printer? If not it is likely the host till is experiencing network issues or it’s IP address may have changed; if you're till is using DHCP rather than a manually assigned IP.

The same rule can be applied for kitchen printers or other ethernet printers, if they are experiencing issues then refer to the above. With kitchen printers it may also look faded, this is due to the ink ribbon running out; should you have a spare ink ribbon supplied then this can be replaced by simply opening up your kitchen printer and removing the old ribbon.

Please note that if any paper roll is removed from the printer, that it must go back into the printer so it feeds in the same way. Failure to do so will result in it failing to print out. 

Cutter Unit Cog

Here are a few examples of where to fine the ‘turnover cog’ to repair printers that won’t open as the blade attached is in the way. Each unit has a turning cog, the TRP-100 ll you can turn by hand but the others you will need a 5mm flat head screw driver to turn the internal cog and at the front of the unit indicated below. Have the printer’s lid open and roll out to see if blade moves up and down, if this doesn’t happen or work the printer will need an engineer to repair.

Kitchen Printers

Checking KP issues

1. Items not sending to the KP which was working the day before.
   
2. The first thing to do is confirm that the Kitchen Printer is powered on and that the Ethernet cable is not loose or removed from the back of the printer. 
   
3. The second thing is confirming that the device has a network connection by checking behind the Kitchen Printer, you will notice where the ethernet cable is plugged into the back of the KP, you will see that the network lights will either flash Orange \ Green to show the network point is live.
   

If you open the GPOS Utility to browse into the following path Programming -> System Tables -> Peripheral Setup to make sure the peripheral has not been removed.

If the device exists, you can check that this is the same as the IP Address set in the Kitchen printer by performing the following -

The status sheet will tell you information about the printer including it’s network configuration and MAC address.

To print the status sheet:

• • With the printer turned ON
• • Tilt the printer forward, towards you to access the SW switch on the back, next to the LAN port • Using a ball-point pen, hold down the SW switch
• • Maintain pressure on the SW switch for 5 seconds
• • The printer will print the status sheet
  

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