Robot driver

[chrispenycate]

All right, this is a personal problem, but it just might carry over to someone else, so I'll ask selfishly.

I've got a robot here that's basically a DVD burner, combined with a printer, and a mechanical arm that picks up blank discs and puts them into the burner, waits till they're cooked and transfers them to the printer drawer, then, when printed, puts them into the "finished" hopper (or spits them into the "reject" folder if they fail to achieve required standards.

At least, it used to work like this. We had some people a couple of years back who stopped the computer communicating with the world (its security was apparently inadequate – now, the thing pathetically requests I update its virus protection every time I turn it on) and did some other mods, including moving another printer to its USB connector instead of the ethernet, and the final result is the burner still works (so the USB is still working) but the robot no longer talks to the computer. Probably an address conflict, or something, but I'm pretty ignorant about computer matters, and don't know how to disable possible conflictswithout deinstalling them completely.

For the time being. I make an acceptable robot emulator.

 

[Lenny]

So it burns them, and prints them (?), but you've got to move them?

Does it actually require an internet connection?

 

[chrispenycate]

So it burns them, and prints them (?), but you've got to move them?

Does it actually require an internet connection?

In theory, not at all. The only convenience of it was downloading upgrades. And using the printer is far too complicated without the robot; I've got a Canon next to it (yes, I know; burn them, print them and shoot them)
As I can't see what else was changed (apart from cutting its ethernet connection) I assume it was moving the second printer to the USB port that confused it, but that could be completely wrong.
The manufacturers (Primera Technologies) are less than 100% cooperative.
Oh, it's a http://www.primera.com/bravoII_disc_publisher.html

 

[Lenny]

So there are two printers hooked up?

Out of interest, which one is set to the default printer? If you go into the Start Menu, there should be "Printer" somewhere. Click it, and a window will appear with all the printers connected to the computer in it. The default one will have a green circle with a tick in it next to it. If you can't find it on the Start Menu, open up something like Word, and click Print in the File menu. The default printer will be the one that it's selected to print to.

I'm just thinking that if the unit is connected as a printer, it might need to be the default to work properly. I'm not completely sure, though, so don't quote me on that!