How to send Ascii commands to TRITON 60 SERIES 60 mm MINI-KIOSK Printer using C#

Question

I need to send Ascii commands to TRITON 60 SERIES 60 mm MINI-KIOSK and want to get status using C# code

Eg: "DLE EOT SOH" this is the ascii code for getting the printers real time status, How can i send this command to printer using C# and get the status of the printer.

How is the printer connected to the computer? Serial port, parallel port, USB? — Steven Rands, Jan 13 '15 at 09:49

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 13 '15 at 11:54

According to an Axiohm TRITON 60 data sheet I found online, this printer is compatible with the ESC/POS command set over either USB or RS232.

A guy called Nicholas Piasecki has a blog where he talks about sending data to a printer that supports this command set. From a blog entry of his is this code (see "Sending the document to the printer" near the end):

private static void Print(string printerName, byte[] document)
{
    NativeMethods.DOC_INFO_1 documentInfo;
    IntPtr printerHandle;

    documentInfo = new NativeMethods.DOC_INFO_1();
    documentInfo.pDataType = "RAW";
    documentInfo.pDocName = "Bit Image Test";

    printerHandle = new IntPtr(0);

    if (NativeMethods.OpenPrinter(printerName.Normalize(), out printerHandle, IntPtr.Zero))
    {
        if (NativeMethods.StartDocPrinter(printerHandle, 1, documentInfo))
        {
            int bytesWritten;
            byte[] managedData;
            IntPtr unmanagedData;

            managedData = document;
            unmanagedData = Marshal.AllocCoTaskMem(managedData.Length);
            Marshal.Copy(managedData, 0, unmanagedData, managedData.Length);

            if (NativeMethods.StartPagePrinter(printerHandle))
            {
                NativeMethods.WritePrinter(
                    printerHandle,
                    unmanagedData,
                    managedData.Length,
                    out bytesWritten);
                NativeMethods.EndPagePrinter(printerHandle);
            }
            else
            {
                throw new Win32Exception();
            }

            Marshal.FreeCoTaskMem(unmanagedData);

            NativeMethods.EndDocPrinter(printerHandle);
        }
        else
        {
            throw new Win32Exception();
        }

        NativeMethods.ClosePrinter(printerHandle);
    }
    else
    {
        throw new Win32Exception();
    }
}

It's basically a bunch of P/Invoke calls (he provides a link to sample code in his blog article) that let you send the raw data to a named printer (presumably over USB if that's how the printer is connected). I know the printer model is different to yours but hopefully the communication technique is similar.

I would suggest reading his article and downloading and examining his sample code to see if there's anything there that might help you. In particular he has links to the ESC/POS command and programming guides which might prove useful if you don't already have them.

From this method we can only write commands to the printer, we cannot get the status returned — Vishnu, Jan 13 '15 at 12:59
@Vish: OK, the answers to this SO question [(Reading status from Zebra Printer)](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1846340/reading-status-from-zebra-printer) might help. It uses the CreateFile/WriteFile/ReadFile API to communicate with the printer instead of using a spooled print job. — Steven Rands, Jan 13 '15 at 13:37
@Vish: Alternatively, there's an email address for Nicholas Piasecki on his blog, you could try emailing him and asking if he has any ideas. [He's also on SO](http://stackoverflow.com/users/32187/nicholas-piasecki) — Steven Rands, Jan 13 '15 at 13:39

How to send Ascii commands to TRITON 60 SERIES 60 mm MINI-KIOSK Printer using C#

1 Answers1