Home Forums Vinyl Cutter Discussions Roland Cutters need help please setting up roland camm1?

  • need help please setting up roland camm1?

    Posted by colin h on 28 June 2005 at 14:28

    hi all,ive just purchased a roland camm1 pnc 960,i have connected to the pc via serial cable.whils the pc is turnedoff the plotter will switch on,but when the pc is on there is no power to the plotter. 🙁 .anyone else had this problem?ive just tied myself in knots reading about dip switches etc and now my brains stopped functioning lol.

    help if you can please

    Col

    (ps. the man i bought it from has kindly said he would help me if needed,but id rather try and set it up myself for future reference,although he may be getting a call sooner than he expected lol)

    colin h replied 20 years, 3 months ago 7 Members · 15 Replies
  • 15 Replies
  • Chris Wool

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 15:02

    HI Col

    the serial cable must be wired as your manual something is different from a modem cable.

    in windows it must be set to hard wear handshaking if i remember 9600 rate

    it does work very well and easyer on the parall even if you put extra ports in the pc.

    chris

  • colin h

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 15:23

    yeah thanx mrsticker,i have the settings set the same as my comm1 port settings and still nowt,i think i have a spare serial cable in the loft,ill try that,meanwhile if anybody has any ideas…?

    time for a long cold stella i think 😀

  • Russell Huffer

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 16:30

    My Roland refused point blank to work via serial, after a couple of days trying everthing I could think of changing pin outs joining pins, I gave up and connected four parrallel leads together to reach it as lead length needed to be 15 metres, worked first time and still works perfectly today, even though max lead length should be half of what it is.
    My advice is if your Roland plotter wont play ball with a serial connection, forget it and use the parrellel.

    Regards

    Russell.

  • Iain Gordon

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 16:37

    I had the same problem setting up my Graphtec plotter..
    Tried USB, Serial, even a Null Modem, all with no joy…
    Easy solution….used a parallel cable and its not missed a beat since

    Iain

  • colin h

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 16:46

    com 1 settings

    bits per second-9600 = off position on dip switch
    databits-8 = off

    parity none = off
    stop bits -1 = off
    flow control – hardware = off

    i have no parallel port on pc
    :headbang2:
    ah well,another stella lol

    thanx for replies,its sort of reassuring to know its not just me lol

    i could be way off the mark but are there serial to paralel convertors?
    if not looks like im taking the serial out and slapping a parallel back in

  • storeinet

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 16:57

    The Cam 1 will not work with a standard serial lead, you will need to buy one or make one yourself.

    As for sticking four parallel leads together not a good idea also.

    All the best

    Dan

  • Frank Droog

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 17:17

    All Roland cutters use a basic plain jane store bought NULL MODEM cable for serial connection. Make sure you are not using an extender cable as they are not NULL MODEM.
    Anybody at a computer store should know what a NULL modem cable is.

    Is it like the 950 with the SETUP button that lights up when On line.
    Are you saying that the Setup light come on only when the computer is OFF? That sounds like bad cable or port on the computer. Sounds like a short circuit.

    Frank at Cadlink

  • colin h

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 17:40

    crackd it :funky: .it WAS an extender cable…upon rooting in the attic i found a parallel cable …which fits what i thought was a serial port on pc 😳

    thank you all for your valuable time
    seems like frank had the answer as i stumbled upon it.

    right…how do i work the bloody thing lol

  • colin h

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 19:31

    nah,i give up for tonight lol,i cant get them talking to each other((pc and camm1).ill try tomorrow with a little less stella in me hehehe.
    no wonder im in the glass trade lol

  • Nicola McIntosh

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 19:33

    have you installed the correct driver? just a thought 😀

    nik

  • colin h

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 20:10

    i have thank you nik,although i did check after you said lol,im getting the error,plotter is unavailable or busy.

  • Frank Droog

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 20:11

    If it helps.
    I have found that Rolands have trouble on Parallel Ports set to ECP or EPP. 95% of the time you need to set you parallel port to STANDARD mode in the computers BIOS.
    Thats why i prefer hooking them up serial.

    Not really sure what happens when you connect a device with a Regular Speed parallel port up to a computer with a Parallel port set to High Speed. Is the High Speed port supposed to slow down?

    frank at Cadlink.

  • colin h

    Member
    28 June 2005 at 20:45

    yeh you could be right again frank,it is set as ecp lpt1 port,i dunno how to go about changing it ,it can be my tomorrow nights project…..
    im sure its just the configuration,i will not be beat lol
    thanx
    Col

  • colin h

    Member
    29 June 2005 at 15:54

    i have now changed the lpt port to standard (SPP) in bios and they still do not communicate,any ideas?
    i reckon im gonna have to get someone out to it,are roland engineers expensive?are these the people i should ring?

  • colin h

    Member
    29 June 2005 at 16:55

    😀 .after changing the parallel port to standard,and then re install the driver it is all systems go.

    absolutely fantastic Frank mate.
    thank you
    Col

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