Print to Modbus gateway

groov EPIC
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We have a system that has a parallel printer port for status. Going through boxes of paper. Each status message is no longer that one line on the paper (up to 80 characters). Does a gateway exist that could convert that to Modbus and send either RTU or TCP to an EPIC system?

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So… Your looking for a ‘digital input’ bus that emulates a parallel printer and turns said port into strings in a controller?

I think I just said the same thing as you did, but just trying to wrap my head around parallel printer emulation…

Something like this? https://www.retroprinter.com/
But not a Pi, something more industrial.

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Yes - sounds the same. I have a Silent Hawk by JAD Tech that captures printer output and sends via Ethernet TCP/UDP to an application on a PC. This device was installed years ago to eliminate the boxes of printout.
I am installing a new SCADA system using EPIC which can interface with a Modbus device. I would like to be able to input those status messages to Ignition/Vision.

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If you still have the Silent Hawk, node-red has Both TCP and UDP nodes and could, I believe, listen for the Silent Hawks transmissions then forward to where ever you need

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Certainly, worth a try.
Existing control for the Silent Hawk is a Windows 95 machine. I could get a new control package that would run on a Windows 10/11 machine and have captured data sent to the EPIC.
Thanks gchase.
Jim

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I think so yes.
Terry and I have used Node-RED to listen to (sniff) communication streams from a few different Ethernet devices.
The hard part is finding what port number the device is sending the data out on. At times we have had to use wireshark or similar to find the port.

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I got away from this subject because I thought I had a solution. However KISS got in the way. Your retroprinter suggestion is closer to what I need but am looking for something that could interface with the EPIC/Node-RED.
If each line from the printer could just format a Modbus message, seems like that should do it. I want to be able to display an alert and save the message in SQL.

I will reach out to the retroprinter guys…