Help with Summa S140 T set up

[White Haus]

So I got a used Summa S140 T yesterday. Put her all together and booted it up fined.

Seller mentioned USB port was damaged/not working, so they would include a serial/usb adapter. This was forgotten so I went out and bought one. (For the record I had to get a female/female serial adapter, serial to usb cable, and a usb extension cable - could this be the problem?)

I can't get any form of communication between the plotter and the computer. I've downloaded Summa Cutter Control, installed Summa USB driver, Installed driver for the serial/usb adapter, tried installing the plotter in Onyx - nothing.

Is there a specific type of serial/usb adapter I need to use to play well with a Summa? I know our Gerber equipment is very fussy when it comes to 3rd party cables so I'm wondering if this is the case now too.

I do have a straight serial cable that I'm going to try on an older computer to see if it will communicate, but this won't work long term as our RIP computer with ONYX doesn't have a serial port.

Is there any down side to just using a serial cable with the Summa? It's OPOS and not OPOS-CAM if that makes a difference. If I can just get a serial port added to the computer that might be an option.

I guess I naively thought I could throw this thing together and put it into production same day.....go figure!

I would be extremely grateful for any tips or tricks before I get on the phone with Summa support and/or bring a tech in.

 

[AF]

One option is to get a serial pci card and just use the serial cable with no adapters. Other option is to replace the faulty USB socket on the Summa with a new socket (soldering alert).

 

[White Haus]

One option is to get a serial pci card and just use the serial cable with no adapters. Other option is to replace the faulty USB socket on the Summa with a new socket (soldering alert).

I'll definitely consider both those options, thank you. Just about to try the serial cable with no adapters on a different computer and see what happens. Will report back.

 

[White Haus]

Tried straight serial cable - and still no luck. I thought for a second it was trying to connect from the computer but just got the usual error.

Tried installing plotter through Winplot, Summa Cutter Control, Onyx Cut server, and nothing.

Any ideas? Bueller?

 

[Joe House]

You probably need a null modem adapter for the serial cable. Most cables that you buy will not work with plotters.
Try something like this:

Good Luck.

 

[White Haus]

You probably need a null modem adapter for the serial cable. Most cables that you buy will not work with plotters.
Try something like this:

Good Luck.

Thanks Joe, I will look into this. Spoke to the seller last night and he's going to send me to adapter they were using with success, so I'm putting this on the back burner until I get that part.

 

[LilMissTrouble]

You probably need a null modem adapter for the serial cable. Most cables that you buy will not work with plotters.
Try something like this:

Good Luck.

Hi Joe! I was wondering if that would maybe help me too? I have an OLD DuraSign T140 plotter. I thought I finally had gotten all the pieces together, windows 7 Ultimate computer and it came with the parallel port and serial port even, but after installing stuff i found on airmarks page and still it's not registering. It doesn't even see it as hardware and ask to install it. I'm pretty much at the end of my rope with this plotter. I just don't even know where to go from here. thanks