Hello, I need help finding specific printing product.
In a school lab, we have about 20 oscilloscopes with Parallel ports for
direct graph printing.
This work well with good old HP laserjet 4 directly connected printers.

We're looking for ideas to limit printer proliferation in a share goal
(multiple ocilloscopes for 1 printer) as space in lab is very low.

- 1st idea was to use parrallel port hub. until 4 osciloscope can print
to the same printer. Work nice but not enough cause Parallel cables
cross all over the lab wich left no space to walk safely.

- 2nd idea is to use wireless jetdirect print server but the ocilloscope
side need a special device to send print jobs from parralel port to network.

Looking hard with google with no luck.
Have you got an idea if this type of device could exists ?

Thank you.

On 2011-12-08, rr <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> - 1st idea was to use parrallel port hub. until 4 osciloscope can print
> to the same printer. Work nice but not enough cause Parallel cables
> cross all over the lab wich left no space to walk safely.

> Looking hard with google with no luck.
> Have you got an idea if this type of device could exists ?

I think you'll struggle to find a suitable device as a signle unit.
My only suggestion would be to find some bidirectional serial<->parallel
converters (not to be confused with the more common unidirectional
serial->parallel converters), hook them up to the back of each
scope and wire them back to a central serial access server to get
them all on the network - I know Lantronix make some nice flexible
units that should be able to handle that last bit. Of course you
still have cabling but I don't see how you can avoid that. RS232
will be happy over RJ45 terminated network leads in any event,
although you may need a few modular adapters.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
(E-Mail Removed)

Le 10/12/2011 23:03, Bennett Price a écrit :
> On 12/8/2011 2:31 AM, rr wrote:
>> Hello, I need help finding specific printing product.
>> In a school lab, we have about 20 oscilloscopes with Parallel ports for
>> direct graph printing.
>> This work well with good old HP laserjet 4 directly connected printers.
>>
>> We're looking for ideas to limit printer proliferation in a share goal
>> (multiple ocilloscopes for 1 printer) as space in lab is very low.
>>
>
> How about a less than perfect solution: parallel to usb converters
> plugging into several usb hubs. Thinner less obtrusive wiring - perhaps
> running above/on ceiling. Or same thing with parallel to ethernet adapters

Thank you for suggestion : this could be an idea as small printers are
cheap but only USB now. This is the oppsite device we need : multiple
parrallel to 1 USB printer. All is more complexe if device to plug to
printer isn't PC.

RR

Le 12/12/2011 15:09, Andrew Smallshaw a écrit :
> On 2011-12-08, rr<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>> - 1st idea was to use parrallel port hub. until 4 osciloscope can print
>> to the same printer. Work nice but not enough cause Parallel cables
>> cross all over the lab wich left no space to walk safely.
>
>> Looking hard with google with no luck.
>> Have you got an idea if this type of device could exists ?
>
> I think you'll struggle to find a suitable device as a signle unit.
> My only suggestion would be to find some bidirectional serial<->parallel
> converters (not to be confused with the more common unidirectional
> serial->parallel converters), hook them up to the back of each
> scope and wire them back to a central serial access server to get
> them all on the network - I know Lantronix make some nice flexible
> units that should be able to handle that last bit. Of course you
> still have cabling but I don't see how you can avoid that. RS232
> will be happy over RJ45 terminated network leads in any event,
> although you may need a few modular adapters.
>
Thank you very much.
Serial to ethernet is "findable" didn't know. I'll have a look on
bidirectionnal parallel to serial converter.
ones for the oscilloscope and how about the printer side ?

Yeah we still need some cabling of course. Maybe next scopes will be
directly networked but they are far too expensive to change for now.

Regards.

rr <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hello, I need help finding specific printing product.
> In a school lab, we have about 20 oscilloscopes with Parallel ports for
> direct graph printing.
> This work well with good old HP laserjet 4 directly connected printers.
>
> We're looking for ideas to limit printer proliferation in a share goal
> (multiple ocilloscopes for 1 printer) as space in lab is very low.
>
> - 1st idea was to use parrallel port hub. until 4 osciloscope can print
> to the same printer. Work nice but not enough cause Parallel cables
> cross all over the lab wich left no space to walk safely.
>
> - 2nd idea is to use wireless jetdirect print server but the ocilloscope
> side need a special device to send print jobs from parralel port to network.
>
> Looking hard with google with no luck.
> Have you got an idea if this type of device could exists ?

Hi,
I did a google search for "capture parallel port data" and came across
the following page which offers a parallel-to-usb device:
http://www.pclviewer.com/resources/capture/

Next I found a circuit diagram and building instruction for a
parallel-to-usb device:
http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha.../index.html.en

I stopped searching here, but probably there are more solutions.

HTH
--
Wilfried Hennings
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