Thermal Coding Australia are a steadily growing Australian
company who supplies various printing machinery to the packaging industry.
For some time, they've been importing and maintaining Jaguar thermal transfer
printers from England. The printers are workhorses and perform their function
well for the packaging customers. There has however, always been a problem
with networking multiple printers back to the PC.
In the early days, they were only available with an RS-232 interface.
Later model machines are provided with and RS-485 port as well with the
apparent ability to network back to the PC. This interface has apparently
proved troublesome for Thermal Coding and it's customers.
In analysing the problem, it became apparent that an 'embedded black box'
which could network effectively and communicate via RS-232 would fix the
problem. The software provided by Jaguar must still operate the printers.
For that, the protocol must be understood.
Using an existing and unaltered FlyteCAN RS-232 interface at each printer,
we were able to route printer communication quite effectively.Using a
further FlyteCAN RS-232 interface at the PC with software modified to
route the communication, the system was complete. The application level
software was effected immediately and tested. After initial testing, further
understanding of practical aspects to the protocol were revealed and the
software modified. The system is now working on these machines.
This application is an example of how the FlyteCAN devices can be quickly
customised to solve a problem. CAN is not the best form of communication
for this application due to the small packet size and identifier overhead
with each frame. We know that. But using a higher bit rate, the existing
FlyteCAN devices now provide a bullet proof 'fix' for this problem. Thermal
Coding sees no advantage to developing their own hardware or different
communication medium for this function. They continue to purchase our
FlyteCAN RS-232 interface. They are also making distributors of this printer,
throughout the word aware that there is now an alternative.
Thermal Coding is interested however in discussing wireless communication
with their OEM. Wireless is ultimately the best form of communication
given the environment for these printers. Provided with the FlyteCAN example,
a wireless rather than CAN embedded development is now on the horizon.
The concept of having embedded units between the printers is proven and
the application software completed. The change in communication medium
now presents little risk to the success of the development. In the meantime,
the existing FlyteCAN system is in the field serving the customers and
being tested.