able systems limited northwich, cheshire, england www.able-system s. c om users' guide to the able systems a 104b printer controller board contents 1 introduction 2 on- l ine information 3 pin connections 4 inst allation 5 op eration and programming appendices emc disclaimer, pcb layout & schematic 1 introduction this document is a users' guide, written for the person designing-in, connecting and using the able systems a104b printer controller board for the epson m-160 series of 4-ne e dle mini-printer mech an isms. please read it carefully before making any connection. the a104 b is an enhanced replacement for the a160b series of controller boards, and shares many features of the range. every e ffort has been made to simplify the transition for existing customers, but of necessity some of the connections are slightly di f feren t. throughou t this document, the designation a160b can generally be taken to repr e sent the a150b, a160b, a163b, a164b, and national variants of these products. 2 o n -l ine i nformation able systems maintains a site on the world wide web. this include s application data updates, product announcements, and e-mail facilities for customer support. the url of our web site is: http://www.able-systems.com our e-mail address is: co n tact @able-systems.com copyright notice and disclaimer note that copyright subsists in all able systems intellectual property, including controller firmware (embedded software) and circuit diagrams, pin connection lists and application data. no warranty in respect of patent rights of able systems limited or of third parties is given. unauthorised reproduction or amendment of controller firmware may result in prosecution. note: epson is a registered mark of its owner seiko epson corporation. references to this or other owners' marks in this document are for illustrative purposes only.
copyright ? able systems limited 1999 all rights reserved a104b_user_guide.lwp // 01/02/00, 17:40 // ike /agw a 104b users? guide page 2 of 11
3 p in c onnect ions the a104b has three external connectors or conne ction areas, for data and p o wer, auxiliary power, and the printer mechanism. the locations of these connectors , and the overall pcb outline and fixing position s , are designed to be identical to th ose of the a160 b. there are also some onboard jumpers. please refer to the layout diagram for conn e ctor locations and pin orientation. 3.1 data/power connector j3 serial data / para llel data strobe input 16 15 data input d0 reset i nput (low to reset) 14 13 data input d1 power for logic (+5v) 12 1 1 data input d2 power for mec hanism (+5v) 10 9 data input d3 grou n d (0v) 8 7 data input d4 grou n d (0v) 6 5 (baud select) data input d5 inverted mode select input ( low for inverted) 4 3 (baud select) data input d6 busy output (high when busy) 2 1 (s/p select ) data input d7 function j3 pin no f un ction 3 .2 auxiliary power connecto r j4 these connections are in parallel with those on j3, and are provided for cases in which the user prefers to separate the data and power connectors, as we would recommend. j4 pin no function 1 power for logic (+5v) 2 power for mechanism (+5v) 3 ground (0v) 3.3 paper ta ke-up motor co nnector j5 (only fitted to customer order) j5 pin no function 1 ground (0v) 2 paper t ake-up motor +ve the output from pin 2 is in parallel with the mechanism motor drive, with a protective series resistance of about 16 ohms. please consult the factory before making any connection. 3 .4 mechanism connector j2 the a104b is normally supplied without a connector fitted , or with a flat 0.1? pitch jumper cable. j2 pin no function 1 reed switch input 2 reed switch return (0v) 3 motor return (0v) 4 motor drive output 5 solenoid common return (0v) 6 solenoid d output 7 solenoid c output 8 solenoid b output 9 solenoid a output 10 tacho bias 11 tacho in p ut a 104b users? guide page 3 of 11
4 i n stallation 4.1 power supply a clean dc power supply of 5v 5% 3 a is required to po wer the a 104b . the r ise t ime of the s upply must be short e nough to give a va li d reset si gn al to the controller chip. it is recommended that the power supply for the controller circuits is separate from the supply to the mechanism motor and solenoid circuits, to minimise interference . in the event that the power supply is not ade qua te to power the a104b, on board c ir c uitry will hold the printer in reset and avoid any dama ge which may occur to the printer mech anism. 4.2 parallel and serial interface selection serial and parallel data modes are selected using d7 (pin 1 on j3): parallel mo de is selected if d7 is held low (co nnected to 0v) for a period of 100 m s after the printer is reset. seri a l mode is selected if d7 is held high or l e ft u nconnected ( internal pull-up to +5v) for a period of 100 m s after the printer is reset. in ?classic? mode, the parallel interface is s elected by having d7 low (logic ?0?) at power up. in some parallel applications the port driving this pin may be indeterminate at power up and so an alternative parallel select is provided (jumpers s5 / s 6 ) . if either of the two serial/parallel select pins are held to ground on start up, then parallel mode is selected. both pins must be left high to select serial data. in order to cha nge from serial to parallel, or from para llel to serial, the printer must be reset. serial data baud rates are selected on d5 and d6 when the printer is in serial mode. serial data baud rates : 0 1 1 0 d6 0 1 0 1 d5 9,600 2,400 1,200 300 baud note that the combination for 9600 baud was used to select 110 baud in the a 160b family of controller boards. in order to implement the ba ud rate the printer must be reset. 4.3 jumpers there are three jumpers on the a104b (refer to layo ut for po sition). closing these jumpers will sele ct th e following: s1 / s 2 self test s3 / s4 i nverted prin tin g s5 / s6 a lter n ative paralle l (classic /new mode) selec t. 4.4 emc compli an ce as a component, the a 104b is outside the scope of the emc directive an d the user mu s t take responsibility for the compliance of the complete equipment or installation . please refer to the emc disclaimer in the appen dix. 5 o p eration and p ro gra mmin g 5. 1 mechanism selection all the four-needle epson mini-printer mechanisms (m150, m160, m163, m164 and m170) are now support e d by a single a104b device. the a104b exercises the mechanism on the first power - up, and its type is sensed by counting tacho pulses per head cycle. the result is stored in the eeprom , and on a 104b users? guide page 4 of 11
subsequent power- ups the mechanism identity is read from there . if the eep rom is not fitted, the chip will carry out the mechanism selection test at every power-up. n.b. if the mechanism is changed, the esc,<125> command can be used to force re-detection. a 104b users? guide page 5 of 11
5.2 parallel data mode d 7 to d 0 are the data connections for para llel mo de 8 bit data . if us ing one of the bac k wards co mpa t i b le 7 bit charac ter set s (a 160 c f amily ) d 6 to d0 are the data connect ion s . positive true asc ii codes are accepted at ttl or 5v cmos levels. the data inputs are not latched and must be stat ic during the handshak e sequ ence. the data strobe input times the i ncom ing data transfer. when the printer is not busy (the busy signal is low) the data must be held stat ic on th e data pins and the str obe signal ta ken low until the bu sy signal goes high to acknowled ge the data transfer. the data strobe must then be taken high ready to transmit the next byte. figure 5.1 shows typical connections to a pc para llel port. f ig. 5.1 para llel c onnectio n to a pc 5 .3 serial da ta mo de the serial data input acc epts a tt l or 5v cmos positive true signal. the busy signal will be low when the printer is ready to accept data. the a 104b is not suitable for direct connection to a pc rs232 c om: port. (please refer to asl for a converter board, or alternatively able systems produce an ap 25 s which is the ser ial rs232 ver sion of the ap25 and is suita b le for direct connectio n to a pc .) figure 5 . 2 shows t ypi c al connections to a pc serial com: por t fo r the ap2 5. fig. 5 .2 serial connec tion to a pc a 104b users? guide page 6 of 11 printer j3 2 4 5 6 8 pc parallel port 1 2 3 7 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 10 / 11 19 / 12 nc nc nc d7 d6 d5 d4 d3 d2 d1 d0 busy invert gnd gnd vcc reset strobe mech strobe d0 d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 d6 gnd ack / busy paper end / gnd error printer j3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 nc nc nc d7 busy invert gnd gnd vcc reset mech d0 d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 d6 serial ttl data pc serial com. port nc baud rate select baud rate select nc nc nc nc nc rs232 serial busy gnd rs232 - ttl converter converter ttl - rs232 nc nc 25 way d-type 7 2 data transmit 5
5.4 busy output signal the controller asserts the busy output when the input buffer is one character away from being full. the following character will, ho wever, be loaded into the input buffer. this avoids any data being lost due to the host not responding to the busy signal immediately (such as with a double-buffered uar t in a pc). 5 . 5 printing modes and data buffer character printing modes include graphics, inverted, double height and double width. graphics mode is cancelled at the end of every dot line, whereas the combinations of double height and width remain in force until cancelled by a new command. t he a 104b will print data before the escape code and then implement the new mode selection. the data buffer accommodates 48 bytes, which can extend over many physical print lines, depending on the mechanism in use and the data format ; and new data can be entering the buffer as previous data are being printed. 5.6 character printing th e a104b prints the cha racters from left to right. the chara cters fit into a 6 wide 10 hi gh matri x. the standard letter is 5 wi de 7 high, this provides for a one dot space betw een ea ch charact er, a dot line for descenders and a dot line above and below each character line. the number of characters required to fill a dot line varies according to the printer mechanis m. 69.5mm 0.25mm 0.33mm 0.4 lines/second 40 characters per line m-170 57.5mm 0.20mm 0.33mm 0.4 lines/second 40 chara cters per line m-164 57.5mm 0.25mm 0. 33 mm 0.5 lines/second 32 cha ra cters per line m-163 57.5mm 0.33mm 0.33mm 0.7 lines /s econd 24 chara cters per l ine m-160 44.5mm 0.35mm 0.35mm 1 line/second 16 chara cters per line m-150 paper width hori zont al dot pitch vertical dot pitch character l ines per second charac ters per line mech . t he a sc ii c hara cters 32 to 255 (32 to 127 if using a ba c kwar ds compa t ible 7 bit chara cter set ) are in the printable range. any cha ra cter below chara cter 32 is ignored unless it is one of the control codes (section 5. 8 ). 5.7 graphics printing th e product is programmed to take advantage of th e gra phics printing capa bility of the mecha n isms. gr aphics are rec eived as the least significant 6 bits of ea ch byte. t he same number of gra p hics bytes are required to terminate a line as the number of cha ra cters required to print a comple te line . t he g raphics mode is reset at the end of every dot line and hence the grap hi cs command, <02 > , must be entered at the st art of every dot line . graphics patterns are built up as a succ e ssion of dot lines across the paper. large areas of sol id dots are not recommended as they may cause over heating and sh orten the ribbon life. heavy gra p hics printing may also require a higher current power suppl y. a typ i cal graphics line for the a 104b wo uld be: control code data (24 bytes for the m-160 printer mechan ism ) <02 > < 00 > < 00 > < 0 1 >< 0 2 > < 0 3> <04> < 05 > etc. a 104b users? guide page 7 of 11
5 .8 control codes 9 character sets which may be selected for backwa rds compat ib ility . the default character set is the 8 bit ibm 224-character set. previous versions of the a 160b family have been supplied programmed with 7 bit cha ra c ter set s, uk, french, german, ?scandinavian?, danish/norwegian, swedish, japanese and spanish character variations (often to special order). the a 104b contains all these variants, which may be so ftware selec ted for backwards com pa tib ilit y. 8 bit data is selected when using the 8 bit ibm character set, otherwise the 8th data bit is ignored. t he structure of the command is as follows: <12 7 >< n > wh e re n is a byte of t h e form [ x , x , x , x , b 3 , b 2 , b1 , b0 ] (x = don ? t care) country selection: 0 0 0 1 spanish 1 1 1 0 japanese 0 1 1 0 swedish 1 0 1 0 danish 0 0 1 0 scandinavian 1 1 0 0 german 0 1 0 0 french 1 0 0 0 uk 0 0 0 0 full 8 bit ibm (default) b0 b1 b2 b3 character set esc> ( if buffer is not empty, print buffer contents and) set print mode . note: n is a byte of t h e form [ 0,0,0, 0 , b 3 , b 2 , b1 , b0 ] (all except the lower 4 bits must be zero, to avoid conflict with other escape codes). mode selection: x x x 1 double height mode x x 1 x double width mode x 1 x x graphics mode 1 x x x inverted (reversed) 0 0 0 0 default b0 b1 b2 b3 print mode any combination of modes is permissible . the com ma n d <126> s tor es the cur r ent character set and print mode (double height, etc . ) in the eep rom and these will be the default setting the next time the printer is powered on or reset . if this code is not receive d the a 104b reverts to prev ious default values on the next power up. < esc> (print any buffer contents, and) print self test message. < 127 > ( p rint any buffer contents, and) select country character set. <126> ( print any buffer contents, and) store country character set and print mode in eeprom. <125 > ( p rint any buffer contents, and ) c lear the eeprom. print any buffer contents (line terminator). treat as . print any buffer contents (line terminator). treat as . print any buffer contents (line terminator). treat as single . a 104b users? guide page 8 of 11
print any buffer contents (line terminator). treat as single . a character l ine is automatically terminated and printed if it reaches the full line width for a given mechanism and print mode setting. not e that i f any of the above 4 line te rmi n ator codes is rec eived imme diately after a character which completes a printable line, it will be ignored. this treatment differs from the a 160b family but will generally be an improvement. print any buffer contents, and feed 30 dot lines . if the print quality deteriorates due to dot lines being displaced, the eeprom can be cleared and the chip forced to re p e a t the fi rst-time ini tialisation by sending the code <125>. a ppendices following page: emc directive 89/336/ec discl aimer next page : a104 b pcb component layout (drawing number: l4984203-3) final page : a104b pcb schematic diagram (drawing number: s3990301-4) a 104b users? guide page 9 of 11
emc directive 89/336/ec (disclaimer) please note that the item to which the enclosed application data refer is designed to be used as a component in another finished good, and is not intended to be placed on the market or brought into service independently. the system integrator using this item must assume responsibility for electro-magnetic compatibility (emc) between this item and its environment, both for emissions and immunity/susceptibility. particular attention should be paid to the wiring connections between the item and the power supply, data source and other parts of the user's system in case special shielding and/or cable layout is required to meet applicable emc criteria. a 104b series printer controller boards ? to assist oem customers, we have carried out traceable pre-compliance tests on our most popular ap24 printer, which indicate that the printer itself is unlikely to prevent emc compliance of the customer's equipment, as follows: ? since the a104b is dc powered and will only be electrically connected within an oem equipment, conducted emissions and immunity are not relevant, and we consider that the a104b falls outside the scope of the regulations in these regards. ? when fitted in an earthed steel case and connected to an internal data source and power supply, the a104b may be expected to comply with the requirements of the emc directive in respect of radiated emissions and immunity; ? when fitted with an earthing wire to the mechanism, the a 104b may also be expected to comply with the requirements in respect of electrostatic discharge (esd). a 104b users? guide page 10 of 11
a 104b users? guide page 11 of 11
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