Swinging Bridges . . .

I spent the morning fighting with our backup UPS label printer. As I mentioned the other day, after I successfully replaced the thermal printhead on our main printer, I discovered a second printer squirreled away that had the same problem.




So, since the new printhead came in yesterday, and I’d already done one, I thought I’d wrap this one up pretty quickly.

Wrong.

On the first printer the two data cables that feed the printhead didn’t have a lot of slack, but enough to get the cables connected with a little fiddling. But this one, a slightly different model, didn’t have any slack. The only thing I could figure is that the entire head mechanism was put in place and then the case was assembled and riveted around it.

But rather than try to drill out the small rivets, I just cut a couple of slots into the plastic case to give me the slack I needed. The slots are on the inside of the case and can’t be seen once the head bracket is reinstalled.

Once that was done and it was all back together, I plugged in in place of the other one. and checked it out. Even though both printers are 2844’s, the main one is a CTP and spare is an LP, so they require two different drivers. But switching over, the new one worked just fine. So reinstalling the original one, I was done.

At least until the office manager tried to print a label. Turns out the bottom part of the two piece label wasn’t printing out.

UPS Label

The bottom part is peeled off and stuck on our copy of the customer invoice so we have a copy of the tracking number and the other relevant order information.

So now I got on the phone with UPS Tech Support, which was obviously not located in the US. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have a guy doing tech support for your Fortune 50 company who’s lack of English and heavy accent make him pretty much unintelligible And he had no idea what I was talking about..

Since it was time for me to head home, I decided to do some research on my own tonight. And it only took me about 15 minutes to Google what I needed to know. It’s called the Extended Area or Document Area and required a different setting in the printer driver setup.

So I was able to remote in to the Shipping computer and set it from here at home. Of course I can’t be sure it now works, but it should.

I love Google.

I finally heard back from the Swinging Bridges RV Park outside Jackson, MS and was able to make the last reservation for our upcoming trip, so that’s out of the way.

Tomorrow I’ll make another run at power washing the rig. We’ll see how that goes.




Thought for the Day:
 

Welcome to my mind . . .

Please fasten your seatbelts and keep your arms and legs inside at all times. Don’t feed the animals, drink the water, or talk to the voices.

Enjoy the ride!

gsdfgs