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Tech>Cash Drawer FAQ>Printer Driven

Printer Driven Cash Drawer - Setup Information

• How do I drive the cash drawer from my PC / POS terminal?
• Connections
• Opening the drawer from DOS
• Detecting the drawer status from DOS
• Opening the drawer from Windows

How do I drive the cash drawer from my PC / POS terminal?

• You drive the cash drawer by sending special characters/character strings to the printer. The printer interprets these characters, determines that they are for the drawer and outputs the appropriate signal to the drawer port on the printer.
• If the software you wish to drive the cash drawer with is DOS based then you should use the ESC/POS command string to open the drawer. See Opening the drawer from DOS
• If the software is windows based then you can utilise the Epson windows printer drivers or use OPOS drivers. See Opening the drawer from Windows

Connections

• The cash drawer is supplied fitted with a standard 4-pin RJ11 plug for direct connection to a DK port on the range of Epson printers or on other printers or POS equipment conforming to the Epson standard. These printers have a socket (rather like a small telephone socket) on the body of the printer and usually marked DK (Drawer Kickout).

Opening the drawer from DOS

• In order to open the drawer a sequence of bytes can be sent to the printer (these bytes are a specific command string defined within the Epson ESC/POS guide. The command sequence is:
  ESC p m n1 n2 where
  m = 0
  n1,n2 are between 0 and 255
  This command sends a pulse to the drawer.

  As an example to open a cash drawer from Basic the command string to send to the printer port would be:
  CHR$(27) +CHR$(112) +CHR$(0) +CHR$(25) + CHR$(100)

Detecting the drawer status from DOS

• The drawer status can be detected by sending the following ESC/POS command
  ESC u n (where n is zero)

Opening the drawer from Windows

• In order to use the following method you should install the appropriate printer and operating system driver. Further documentation is included with the Epson drivers.
  Go to Epson driver download
• You should then send to the printer the appropriate character using whatever 'print method' your programming language supports. For example to send a 250ms pulse to cash drawer one:

  printer.print chr$(133)

• Be sure to use an Epson printer font when sending this character - the Epson printer fonts become available in the font listing when the Epson printer is selected.
• Table detailing Epson printer special characters when using Windows drivers