Star Printer - OPOS - Open Drawer WIthout a Receipt

Posted by Scott @ Shuffle & Cut Games on March 5, 2006, 7:38 pm

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Okay, I am generally very computer literate and can figure out most
things, but I am going absolutely crazy on this one. Here is what I
*think* I know to be true:

#1 - To be able to open the drawer without printing a receipt, you must
be using OPOS drivers.

Okay...well, I guess #1 is as far as it goes.

I have a Star SP500 printer. If someone has the patience of telling me
what the step-by-step is for installing the OPOS drivers (I *think* I
have this right, but I don't wanna find out I screwed up this step too)
and then how to program the thing to ask if I want to print a receipt,
and on a cash transaction, if I say no, make it still pop the cash
drawer.

Right now I have to keep the key in the cash drawer so employees can
get into it - obviously not the most secure thing in the world.

Thanks guys!

Scott Gerhardt
Shuffle & Cut Games

Posted by Jason on March 6, 2006, 8:40 am

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I had the same strange problem, Scott. I *swear* it was working while just
plugged into the serial port of the computer. Then I changed my OPOS scanner
and it stopped working.

I beat my head against the wall for a while, and then remembered that I had
previously gone to DOS and successfully sent a text string to the drawer to
pop it (something like ECHO "asdf" >COM3). I [wrongly] concluded that the
serial port was bad.

Then I decided to plug the phone connector into the computer's modem, and
voila, it worked. This may be unrelated to your problem, but I thought I'd
give the whole story in case it helps someone out there...

Now, to answer your question, I downloaded the the OPOS drivers from Star.
The SP500 does not appear in the list of printers, so I selected SP542MC. It
seems like this works fine.

Use the same name you created in the OPOS driver in the
Database/Registers/Register List, select the properties for the correct
register,Cash Drawer 1 tab.

The drawer should pop before the POS asks you to print a receipt.

Hope this helps! Jason

"Scott @ Shuffle & Cut Games" wrote:

> Okay, I am generally very computer literate and can figure out most

> things, but I am going absolutely crazy on this one. Here is what I

> *think* I know to be true:

> #1 - To be able to open the drawer without printing a receipt, you must

> be using OPOS drivers.

> Okay...well, I guess #1 is as far as it goes.

> I have a Star SP500 printer. If someone has the patience of telling me

> what the step-by-step is for installing the OPOS drivers (I *think* I

> have this right, but I don't wanna find out I screwed up this step too)

> and then how to program the thing to ask if I want to print a receipt,

> and on a cash transaction, if I say no, make it still pop the cash

> drawer.

> Right now I have to keep the key in the cash drawer so employees can

> get into it - obviously not the most secure thing in the world.

> Thanks guys!

> Scott Gerhardt

> Shuffle & Cut Games

Posted by Scott @ Shuffle & Cut Games on March 6, 2006, 6:05 pm

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I wonder if it is with the cable. I have the Star receipt printer, but
the end of my cable says Epson - seems wrong to me. :( When it's on
Windows mode, the drawer will pop when I print a receipt and not when I
don't. When I put it in OPOS mode, I can't get the drawer to pop at
all. Would this be indicitive of me having the wrong cable? Would it
pop in Windows mode and NOT OPOS?

Thanks!

Scott

Posted by Jeff on March 6, 2006, 8:01 pm

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Scott,

To setup an OPOS cash drawer using Star's drivers, go into the folder that
was created after you installed the OPOS driver and go into the Cash drawer
setup in the Cash drawer folder.

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I wonder if it is with the cable. I have the Star receipt printer, but
the end of my cable says Epson - seems wrong to me. :( When it's on
Windows mode, the drawer will pop when I print a receipt and not when I
don't. When I put it in OPOS mode, I can't get the drawer to pop at
all. Would this be indicitive of me having the wrong cable? Would it
pop in Windows mode and NOT OPOS?

Thanks!

Scott

Posted by BlazingFox on March 8, 2006, 9:33 pm

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If it opens in Windows mode then it probably isn't the cable. A drawer
that has a bad cable will typically not open at all (or at least will
not be able to report open/close status back correctly). As far as
opening the drawer and NOT printing a receipt, this is probably not
going to work in OPOS if it doesn't work in Windows mode. I don't know
for sure but it sounds like the application just assumes that if you
print a receipt you also want to pop the drawer. And if you don't print
a receipt it probably won't pop the drawer regardless of how you
configure it (OPOS or Windows mode).

The big question is: why wouldn't you want to print a receipt when the
drawer is opened? On many other POS systems I've worked with the system
will not only force a receipt to be printed if the drawer is opened
with the key, but it will also void a transaction in progress and
automatically ring a no-sale. It is considered to be a major loss
prevention issue to allow the draw to be opened with nothing to show
for it. But that's just my two cents.