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Microcom Ticket Printers

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Artsman's Exclusive Thermal Ticket Printer Provider - Microcom

Artsman is proud to partner with Microcom to provide thermal ticket printing solutions, which are optimized for the ticketing market. Their heavy duty metal design and reliable mechanics will provide years of continuous, low maintenance printing. For more information and current pricing, please contact Artsman Sales.

First Time Setup For Microcom Printers

Theatre Manager only connects to Microcom Thermal Ticket Printers via an Ethernet cable. This is designed so that all Theatre Manager users can connect to the ticket printer when on the same network.
Microcom printers support QR codes on ticket faces

Unbox and Setup Printer

Unbox and setup the printer as per the steps below. You should only need to:

  • Step 1
  • Step 2 - the placement of the port will differ depending on your printer model, see below.
  • Step 3
  • Step 5
Step 4 (adding drivers or USB FGL support) are not required.
Connect Ethernet Cable You will need to connect an ethernet cable to the back of your printer as per the diagram to the right.

The port should be labelled Ethernet - but it might be called Aux.

Using the other ports like Parallel and Serial shoaled work - and will require support for those ports in your computer. Ethernet is the recommended and supported option.

Find Ethernet Address from Test Ticket Use the instructions to print a test ticket and determine the printers current ethernet address. It will be required when setting up the device in Theatre Manager.
Enter Device Communication Settings Add the MicroCom printer to the device table using device setup so that is it similar to the image to the right.

You will need to enter the IP address of the printer into this field. If it is not on the same subnet, you might have to make up a mini network and manually assign your computer an address to match the printers subnet in order to continue this process.

If using serial or parallel printing, adjust the TM setup accordingly.

Connect to the Printer Status Page On the set-up page, if you enter an IP address, you can click the 'globe' icon to connect to the printer's status page. If you have the right ethernet address and are on the same subnet, you should see a page similar to the one on the right.

Of particular interest are:

  • Firmware Version - which should be at least version 01.00.22.2 or later. This firmware has compatible support for the Practical Automation status command which allows the printer to talk back to the computer sending tickets.
  • FGL Settings - to make sure the printer supports the Boca FGL language and settings are appropriate
  • Ethernet Settings - to ensure ethernet is set up and that you are communicating on the standard port for ticket printing.
  • Wifi Settings - if your printer supports wifi, you may wish to have it join to your network. If you do that, you could print over wifi, perhaps when at remote sites.
  • Other settings - come into play if using the machine via serial or parallel ports. USB is not supported
Configure Printer Click the Configuration Page button to change any settings you need for your network or FLG compatibility.

For ethernet setup:

  • Make sure it is enabled
  • Host Name - is a name you can give to the printer and is used for DHCP setup. You probably will not change this.
  • IP Address - provide a static IP address for the printer. Note that Theatre Manager could print to a DNS Address and if you set up your domain name servers with a record for the printer, you might choose DHCP setup. If you want that, please tal to your IT person.
  • Port - we suggest the default of 9100
  • Subnet - set it as per the image unless otherwise advised by your IT staff
  • Gateway - set it as advised by your IT staff
  • DHCP Enabled - seems to be ignored if a static address is provided.
Configure Printer (Wifi) Lower on the Configuration Page are settings for enabling wifi. We generally recommend against wifi on your ticket sales network as that could create an exploitable part within your network and should be documented as per PCI compliance requirements.

If you wish to use wifi for connecting to the ticket printer, you can. It takes two approaches:

  • You can join your printer to your hardwired network (the better approach). If you do this, you specify the IP address of the printer and the WPA encryption keys required to allow the printer to join the network. -or-
  • it looks like you can set the printer up as a wifi point and access it directly. Any passphrase support would come from the operating system. Talk to your IT people if you really need to implement this option as they would be the people to support you.
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