1. Usb Serial Adapter

I really need your help. I've been trying for a number of days now to get an Epson TM-U950 receipt printer to work with a Windows 7 X86 Ent Machine. The problem lies with the use of a USB to Serial cable. I've installed all the software from Epson's website and also the USB drivers specific to Epson but I get no activity from the printer. I get a Code 10 in device manager and cannot add any printer via a USB connection. Does anyone have any step by step notes on how to get one of these printers to work with a USB connection?

Thanks in advance. Are you using a RS-232 (25 M) to USB A cable? Or something similar to one of these cables with an adapter to convert the 9 pin connector to USB? What is the source of the cable and/or adapters being used - Epson? What Epson link did you use to download the USB drivers? The question is that although you can make the physical connection between the printer and hosting device (computer?) the necessary handshake and communication signals may not actually be there. Could be that a proprietary cable is needed.

However there seems to be a a variety of DIP switches on the printer that are used to configure the printer's communications. So perhaps some communication can be established. Is there some reason for not using the native cable: e.g., no serial port on the host device? I have been looking at the various User Manuals/Guides and finding (or rather not finding) any real information regarding connecting/installing the printer. I.e., 'Take serial cable A and plug into computer port B.' Instructions or diagrams. Not noting anything with respect to any cable connections - proprietary or not.

Basically I have not been able to convince myself that the desired USB connectivity is possible. If USB physical connectivity is viable the drivers must configure the USB port to emulate the necessary RS-232 connections. Which could be some proprietary configuration as well. Or some combination of the dip switch settings being involved to provide fine tuning.

Manufacturers are often very coy about statements or information regarding what will not work. You may get the impression that something should work and, sometimes rightfully, expect it to work. Not so sure in this situation. Found this link: Seems to me that if the desired USB connectivity was possible, Epson would be quite happy to be promoting and openly stating that to be the case. Some many years back serial connections were often problematic and many techs had a drawer full of various adapters and connectors. We even soldered up some of our own adapter via Radio Shack plugs and pins to emulate proprietary cables.

(Which could be quite expensive.) The cable you purchased may be generic with respect to the pinouts. Phyiscally both ends fit in but the actual wire connections may not be what the printer requires. Is it possible for you to at least set up the printer using the designated serial ports and ensure that the printer works? Get the USB variable out of the mix?

EPSON UB-U02III - Searching Windows Update EPSON USB Controller For TM/BA/EU Printers - Ready to use​At this point the printer is shown in Devices and Printers under Unspecified with the name UB-U02III (which it looks like is the model designation for the USB adapter board on the back of the printer). The installed printer (installed via APD driver) EPSON TM-U220 Receipt printer is showing up as Not available in its status. What am I doing wrong?? The driver is downloaded directly from Epson on their product page for the U220. Incidently I get an identical result trying the above on a Windows XP machine.

I hope this is concise and not to waffly! DIP Switches are set all to off except DSW2, 2, Which is on: DSW1: 1 OFF Data Receive Error Prints '?' 2 OFF Receive buffer capacity 4KB 3 OFF Handshaking DTR/DSR 4 OFF Word Length 8bits 5 OFF Parity Check No 6 OFF Parity selection Odd 7 OFF Transmission Speed 9600bps 8 OFF BUSY Condition Receive buffer full or offline DSW2: 1 OFF Print Column 40/33 2 ON For internal use only (autocutter) Enabled 3 OFF undefined - 4 OFF Serial Interface Selection DIP switch 5 OFF undefined - 6 OFF For internal use only (flash memory rewriting) Disabled 7 OFF Pin 6 reset signal Not used 8 OFF Pin 25 reset signal Not used.

Right well the TMCOMUSB driver is now known as the TMVirtualPortDriver which I have tried, despite the fact there is no documentation on the Epson website for it (even though this is where I downloaded it from). As for the UB-U02III driver, it sounds as though this is part of the APD although this could be untrue. PS Have been on the phone to epson support for over a week, Initially I was told that the engineer would find a printer and try and install it himself on win 7 64 bit, no one got back to me, then i was told he had trouble getting hold of that model but would do it asap, no one got back to me, then I was told this guy had been moved from this team but the problem had been sent to Level 2 support, no one got back to me, then i was told that another customer was having the same problem and theyve sent in their printer so Epson can diagnose the problem. They literally are the worst customer service center I've ever had the misfortune to have to deal with. WHY CANT THEY JUST BE HONEST!?

1) Deleting all the software as you describes is not enough, it still leaves bits and pieces throughout your system 2)Can I just ask first, is there any chance that you connected your printer to your computer BEFORE you installed all the drivers and software, the first time? I suspect that is what you have done. If so, you will get exactly the behaviour that you are talking about here. 3)further to '1)' above, if you have done '2)' or if you want to remove your software completely, you need to also search the Window registry after you have removed the software and remove anything it has put in there. Make sure you make a backup of your registry first. 4) yes windows is retarded, so compare this to Linux, To get almost any USB printer to work on Kubuntu Linux you just. No driver, no software, they just plugin and auto configure and in a few second just work!

HP make a good effort to fully support all their printers on Linux, so all things being equal, always buy a HP. Most other brand common usb printers also just plug in and work as well, but HP makes the most effort, hence deserves preferential treatment at purchase. Your problem is almost certainly that you physically plugged in your printer BEFORE you installed the software THE FIRST TIME. If you did, then you will get the behaviour that you are describing here.

So I have rewritten my post with more 'how fix it' information. Important notes - 1) Deleting all the software in the way you describe does NOT remove it all, it still leaves behind 'stuff' in your system. You also have to search your registry and delete the appropriate entries. If you do anything with your registry, back it up first!!!! 2) Yes, Windows really is so retarded that it will give you these results. Your solution is FIRST PHYSICALLY DISCONNECT YOUR PRINTER AND LEAVE IT DISCONNECTED!

1) UN-install all the printer software, and any other software you may have tried to install to fix this problem. 2)workout what windows put in your registry when you first physically connected your printer, and delete it. Almost certainly since it didn't have the printer driver installed first, stupid windows thought it was a UB-U02III. Now stupid windows has associated your USB-id number to UB-U02III, rather than the printer. 3) so almost certainly you need to go into the registry and delete the references to UB-U02III 4) now re-install your printer driver software WITHOUT CONNECTING THE PRINTER!!!!! 5)Plug in the printer WHEN THE DRIVERSOFTWARE INSTALLATION TELLS YOU TO, OR IF IT DOESN'T THEN AT THE END ONCE IT IS ALL INSTALLED, PLUG IN YOUR PRINTER. Windows try's to mitigate some of it retardedness by automatically saving 'restore' points when you install hardware, you may well be able to achieve my manual instruction better by restoring to a restore point, if the system made one at a convenient point in time, which I think it would have.

BIG WARNING THOUGH, you need a restore point BEFORE you physically connected your printer, NOT ONLY BEFORE YOU INSTALLED THE PRINTER DRIVER SOFTWARE. Now for my fee for my time giving this advice. You have to read my Linux advice! To install a printer in Kubuntu Linux (or any other modern desktop Linux) you follow this procedure. Just plug the stupid printer in, wait 5 seconds for Linux to automatically configure it and.that's it.

UYES, Linux really is that clever, /U no installing drivers and software, it is all included and automatic. Just plug almost any printer in and it just works!!!! HP makes the most effort to fully support Linux, so if all other aspects are equal, always buy a HP printer. Happy New Year!!! Yeah sure, search for 1)printer brand name, Epson, printer model name, TM-U220B 2)name of the USB device that windows thinks the printer is e.g. UB-U02III, TMCOMUSB, TMVirtualPortDriver I don't think it will work but you could try this first just in case, since you may find it easier. Go to the control pannel, system, device manager, find the item that Windows thinks is there when you connect your printer and force it to use the driver for your printer.

But when I had to fix this same problem once a few years ago, with a different USB printer that someone had also plugged in before loading the software, I am sure it did not work. I know that in that case I definitely had to go to the registry, so I imagine that this is still the case. Just make sure you you do the back up first, promise?

1)back up your registry before you start stuffing around with it. VERY important! 2)Un-install all the printer software BEFORE you search the registry. 3)Make sure your printer is, and remains DISCONNECTED through out the registry searching/deleting process and remains so until you AFTER you have re-installed the software from your CD that came with the printer/software downloaded from Epson.

Usually the installation process will ask you to connect your printer at some point during the software/driver installation, if/when it does, that's when to connect the printer, otherwise just wait until after all software is installed. 4) reboot the computer after you have edited the registry BUT before you have re-installed the printer software. This reboot is how you unload the old registry and load up the newly edited registry. If you don't reboot you will still have the old wrong unedited registry in memory despite your edits to the registry on the HDD. I think from memory there will only be a couple of things to delete, and make sure you don't delete something that you need. Be conservative, delete one or two thing that seem obvious and then try it.

Now for my fee more rant: -) If you are running something that needs to be reliable like a website, or a POS system, you should be on Open source software, there are open source pos applications out there as well as Linux o/s. Nothing much is 100% true in the IT world, but in 99% of cases this is accurate advise. You will find there is a lot of Windows centric IT advise out there of dubious quality, mostly it is just poor quality IT staff that really don't know what they are on about, they have usually only used Windows.

Good night and good luck, P.S. Please tell me how you go. PROBLEM SOLVED The solution was to roll back windows to a state before the first time ever the printer was plugged in (I reverted to original factory install). Then I had to install the driver BEFORE plugging in the device. The problem was the very first time I plugged the printer in, the Epson APD driver wasnt installed.

Windows therefore assigned the most relevent driver and created registry keys associated to the physical hardware ID of the printer. Even when the windows chosen driver was uninstalled and so too was the Epson software, the keys created by windows associated with the printer ID remained. So the keys had to be deleted (or a system restore to a point where the reg keys never existed).

In short NEVER EVER EVER ring Epson customer support because they are crap. Their many solutions were mostly fob offs or time extenders for them. Their final one was send them the printer. Which wouldnt have resolved this problem even if I had done it. Finally, in one form or another, the problem always always lies with the drivers. (Unless your hardware is in more than 34 pieces, in which case its probably smashed!).

Spothedfix: You were completely spot on. I briefly tried deleting the registry keys but I spent all of about 10mins on it.

It wasnt a problem to roll back to factory install because basically the computer is new anyway and I knew this would sort out any registry issues, but I'm 100% positive the problem lay with the reg keys. Your advice was invaluable and you have solved umpteen hours of work on this. I cant thank you enough. Click to expand.

OK that's good, sort of, but now I am a little worried, see below. Your description of the problem is correct I didn't tell you all of that detail in advance because, well I had already written an essay! I just recently purchased a really cheap 3-in-one HP printer for my mother.

It had stickers with large red writing saying in capitals 'DO NOT PLUG IN BEFORE INSTALLING SOFTWARE' or something like that, over the cable and printer plug. How stupid is Epson if they didn't instantly work out what the problem was!! I saw what the problem was instantly, I was only doubtful because I thought surely Epson would have thought of this first thing and asked you about it.

You say 'don't call Epson support', better to say 'don't buy an Epson in the first place' if their support is so stunningly incompetent! Now the concerns. What you have said brings up all sorts of questions and doubts in my mind. Particularly reading between the lines. 1)what do you mean 'roll back to factory install'? There is a Windows roll back feature which rolls back to 'restore points' one of which would be original install.

But I think you might mean you re-installed the whole system software back to original factory? Either way, make sure you now go back and immediately do all of the windows updates and ALL the updates for all applications immediately, most particularly urgent if this system has any access to the Internet.

2) what security software and anti-virus software are you running? 3) is the pos system connected to either the Internet? Or a network in which any other device is connected to the Internet? 4) written in VB6!!! It is extremely unlikely that you need a special purpose application, and it is not very likely (but I guess not impossible) that your application is any good if it is written in VB6! 5) I could be wrong, but I would bet that you are being taken advantage of (ripped off). It sounds like it, anyway.

I think you need some independent advice. 6) Have they written in VB6 because they are linking you into MS applications?

If so that is also a concern, then you have to pay for an MS application that you don't otherwise need and you are open to all the vulnerabilities in that MS application as well. 7)open source does not HAVE to mean free of charge, it just means that they have to show anyone the source code. They could still sell you the service of providing you a working POS set up using open source software. They could even still sell you the software still if they wanted to.

Usb Serial Adapter

8) in general terms one of the main reasons companies/people don't want to let there code go 'open source' is that they know that then anyone can read it and thus all their crappy workmanship will be obvious. I know that sounds like an extraordinary statement to make, but I think you would be surprised at how true it is. Without knowing a lot about your business, obviously my advice is very general and may not even apply to your business, but my experiences makes this seem doubtful.

Remember that you own your data, don't let unethical companies tie your data up in formats and applications that restrict your access to your data and tie you to their products. If their product is good, works well etc. Then why would anyone bother to go to all the effort and risk in moving to any other software? So why do they tie you in with artificial difficulties? Answer, because they know their software is crap and you can get better elsewhere cheaper or for free. You say it wouldn't be prudent to use opensource, I strongly suggest that what would not be prudent would be to continue with that external company!

Anyway I am happy that you fixed your problem so easily, good luck and happy new year!