POS printing

There are a few ways that these printers can communicate with the POS. With older Point of Sales Systems they have used USB connections. Ironically it's making a comeback with Android tablets since they have USB ports. The good thing about this type of connection is that it's very stable, the downside is you are limited to distance from POS to printer. For receipt printers that is normally not a concern but for a remote kitchen printer that could cause issues. Another positive is there is no need for an internet connection. One other downside is not all tablets have USB ports. iPads for example don’t so it could limit which type of communication you can use with that platform. The most popular means of communication is probably a network connection. This could come in the form of a wired ethernet connection or a wireless Wifi connection. For the wired ethernet connection, it is pretty stable, and you will not need the internet for it to work. You will need the Local Area Network(LAN) to be up and running. The downside of ethernet is you have to run the wires to where you want the printers to be. Sometimes this could be difficult or cost inhibitive. Wifi solves that problem but adds a new one. Unfortunately Wifi is not the most stable connection. Although it works most times when you send orders to the kitchen you want to be completely sure it will arrive to the cooks.

Sometimes with a thermal print it will look like it's working but nothing is coming out but blank paper. This could be because thermal paper is one sided. It should feed from bottom up, not feeding from the top out of the printer. Simply opening the paper door and flipping the paper around should solve the problem. Sometimes the print just doesn’t look right, there could be debris in the printer. Opening up the printer door, removing paper, and looking for any obstructions. It could also help to flip the printer upside down and bang lightly on the bottom of the printer, sometimes this could loosen or cause the debris to fall loose. One of the most common issues is that the printer just stops printing, maybe it has a red error light showing. One helpful trick is to turn off the printer, hold down the feed button, while keeping the feed button depressed turn the printer back on. When the printer starts printing or making some noise you can release the feed button. This will restart the printer and hopefully clear the error. There is a reset button on most printers on the back that needs to be pushed in with a paper clip or other small object. This reset button is not a simple reset and not to be confused with the reset described above but a factory reset. Unlike the simple reset above this factory reset will reset all system settings of the printer. To do a factory reset you push and hold in the reset button on the back of the printer and turn off the printer. While the printer is turned off and the reset button is still depressed, turn the printer back on. Once the printer starts to print or make noise you can release the reset button. I would caution to use this fix only at last resort.

First I like to make sure the printer is on the same network as the POS. To see what the IP address of the printer is, depends on the printer. Two common ways are either pressing and holding the button next to the network port, which you can release when you hear it print.(Do NOT turn the printer off performing this!) The other common way is to hold the feed button down while you turn off the printer and turn it back on. Now with the IP address of the printer you can compare it with the IP address of the POS. Something to be aware of is that some POS need the printers to be set with a static IP address, meaning it does not change. While other POS’s can search your network and find the networked printers. By default most printers will come out of the box set to DHCP meaning they will pick up an IP supplied by the router managing the LAN. If you know the IP address of the printer you can view its setting and make changes to the settings by going to a browser that is on the same network and typing in the IP address in the address bar. You will need to know the username and password but once logged in you will be able to see the configuration of the printer and make your desired changes. Some printers also have an App that you can connect to the printer and see the configuration as well.