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Printing in OS X

 

Setting the IP of a plotter with a JetDirect 300X print server

Since I am the first to try PowerCADD 6 and Gimp-Print, I thought I would jot down a few notes of my experience.

I had an old beige JetDirect EX, which I don't think can be set permanently to work with a static IP, (someone said he could set his but had to leave it on) so I bought a JetDirect 300X on eBay for about $100.00.

 

Hewlett-Packard JetDirect 300X

The JetDirect 300X is a print server. It connects almost any parallel-port printer/plotter to ethernet. It is the current model being manufactured and it connects to a ethernet with a RJ-45 port (10/100Base-TX). Full details can be found at the H-P website (www.hp.com).

 

My JetDirect 300X did not come with a manual, but I quickly found one in PDF format at H-P website, where I searched for 'JetDirect 300X'.

Since mine was used, I reset it to the factory settings (Unplug the power cord from the print server, then while holding down the Test button on the print server, plug the power module into the print server and continue to hold down the Test button for five seconds.)

I printed out a test sheet on the plotter. You press the Test button on the print server (not the plotter), then feed two pieces of paper into the plotter. This gave me the following information (I'll skip things that don't matter)

TCP/IP Status: READY

HOST NAME: NP12C67E2 (I have no idea what this means)
CONFIG BY: DHCP (This means it's automatic. I want to change this so we have a static IP)
IP ADDRESS: 192.168.1.103 (My router is 192.168.1.1 and I will reset this to 192.168.1.200)
SUBNET MASK: 255.255.255.0 (This is okay)
DEF. GATEWAY: 192.168.1.1 (This is okay, same as the router address I see in my TCP/IP panel)
SYSLOG SERVER: NOT SPECIFIED
IDLE TIMEOUT (SECONDS): 90
BOOT/DHCP SERVER: 192.168.1.1 (Again this is okay)
CONFIG FILE: NOT SPECIFIED

This told me that the IP address of the JetDirect Box. Above, I've shown two things I definitely want to change in red.

So to change the settings I downloaded BetterTelnet from http://www.cstone.net/~rbraun/mac/telnet/
and then with a mild feeling of trepidation, I fired up the program and selected Open Connection:

I typed the IP address of the plotter, and clicked on Connect.

Then, in accordance with the instructions it showed, I types "?" followed by <Carriage Return> or <Enter> (you do this after typing all commands in Telnet).

This showed the following instruction sheet on how to communicate with the JetDirect 300EX. As you can see, its pretty simple.

David Ross suggested using an IP 192.168.1.200 for the plotter, and he told me what to change, so I typed the following commands, each followed by <Carriage Return> or <Enter> :

ip:192.168.1.200
dhcp-config:0
dlc/llc:0
ethertalk:1
banner: 0
quit

Please note that you actually have to type 'quit' at the end. You definitely want to turn DHCP off so your IP for the plotter will be static. I don't know what the other things mean.

Then to see the current settings, I typed "/" and got this:

And that was all there was to it, and I quit the Telnet program.

Alfred Scott
alfred@seqair.com