Connecting a plotter to a laptop

[axeltm]

Hello

I have an HP 750c Plus plotter that has an HP Internal Print Server JetDirect Card installed on it. It has an ethernet cable plugged into the JetDirect Card which is my only means of connecting to the plotter. I was able to download the driver for the plotter without issue but am unable to find the program for the network card on the plotter. I have a software disc for Jetadmin but its old and only supports up to Windows NT. It seems that there is no version of Jetadmin for my computer (Windows 7 32bit). My question is, do I need this software to connect to my plotter via the network card or is there another way to get it plotting?

Thanks Axel

P.S. This thread has been moved from Print Servers, Network Storage & Web Jetadmin to Printers - Designjet & Large Format. - Hp Forum Moderator

[davidzuts]

You will need to do 2 things. First you need to assign a ip address to the plotter. You can do this thru the menu on the plotter. You go to the MIO menu and when it says configure card you change no to yes and enter and then go to configure ip and just follow the prompts to enter a manual ip address. You will want to assign one that is compatible with your laptop. I assume the laptop attaches uses wireless to your network or internet. To attach the plotter to the wired port on the laptop you will need to obtain what is called a crossover cable. Once connected to the computer you assign an address to the plotter of lets say 192.168.1.100 and you will want to go into the computer network properties and bring up the wired card and assign it an ip address of 192.168.1.101. You now go to add printer on the computer and choose local printer and uncheck autodetect and go to next and choose create port, standard ip, then next and follow the prompts to enter the ip address you gave the plotter or in my example 192.168.1.100 and then next and when you get to the makers page, choose hp on the left and designjet 750C on the right or you can say you have disk and browse to where you have the downloaded driver files and finish up. Hope this helps.

[axeltm]

Thank you very much for the reply. Sorry mine has taken a few days. I was able to finally pick up the crossover cable tonight. The computer is directly connected to the plotter with the cable. I went into the settings of the plotter and set the ip address. I also have the plotter connection set up in "devices and printers" with the same ip address that I set on the plotter. I am confused when you say go into the network settings and bring up the wired card and assign it an ip address. What do you mean by this? Is the wired card your talking about the one installed in the plotter that I am trying to connect to?

Thanks Axel

[davidzuts]

You have to setup the wired network card of the laptop to the same ip range of the plotter.  Example if you gave the plotter an address of 192.168.1.15 the network card or port on the laptop has to have an address of 192.168.1.xx where xx is any number except 15.

[axeltm]

Thanks again. I believe I have done what you just said. I found this link and followed it step by step but I am still unable to plot. There are four address numbers that you can change under the ip settings in the plotter. The link I found with instructions only has me change three. Could the unlisted one be the problem or maybe some of the config settings need to be enabled or disabled?

Connecting to a plotter with a crossover cable

[davidzuts]

I only gave you the ip address since that is all you need. The other submask and gateway can be setup on both to be the same. The ip address has 4 parts to it as shown in my example so to be honest I do not know what you are doing wrong. You can go to a command prompt and try to ping the ip address of the plotter from the computer to see if you have communication.

[axeltm]

I did do a ping test on it over the weekend and the first time it had a 0% loss and everytime after it was a 25% loss. I will check everything over again and retry the ping test again.