Ap890 and Ap892 User Guide Page 3 of 12
2.2
SLEEP AND WAKING MODES
The Ap890 enters sleep mode automatically after a factory-set inactivity timeout period, normally
approximately 30 seconds. The printer will not go to sleep with a charger connected.
The printer may be woken by:
§
pressing the paper feed button
§
sending data from the host
§
connecting the charger unit
To wake the printer by a data stream from the host, a certain period of logical '0' bits is required,
typically a string of 50 NUL characters at 9,600 Baud is sufficient. These characters will be lost.
When the printer awakes, there is a delay of up to 100 ms before the serial output lines are fully
established and the printer is ready to accept data. The printer transmits an XON character, and
de-asserts the Busy output, when it has fully woken up and is ready to receive data.
When the Ap890 is used with either the direct mains powered PSU or the direct vehicle adaptor, no
external charger is required. However, making a connection from a PC handshaking output (DTR or
CSR) to the ‘Charger’ input may be used to force the Ap890 to wake and sleep under PC control.
2.3
PAPER FEED BUTTON
As the Ap890 has no external power switch, additional functions have been assigned to the paper
feed button.
§
In Idle Mode, the feed button advances paper at the Fast Feed rate
§
In Printing Mode, the feed button is ignored
§
In Sleep Mode,
⇒
A single press and release of the button wakes up the printer into idle mode
⇒
If the button is held for more than 3 seconds after waking, the printer produces a
Self Test print which includes the firmware version and the full character set. This
print continues as long as the button is pressed.
2.4
PRINTING METHOD
The Ap890 and Ap892 have the following characteristics:
Printer
Type
Mech
Chars
per Line
Dots
Per Line
Dot
Width
Dot
Height
Speed
Fast Feed
Speed
Ap890
M-190
24
144
0.33 mm
0.37 mm
2.5 Line/s
6.0 mm/s
Ap892
M-192
40
240
0.20 mm
0.37 mm
1.5 Line/s
3.6 mm/s
Characters are 5 dots wide with a 1 dot space between adjacent characters, and most are 7 dots
high. A few (e.g. ‘p’ or ‘q’) contain descenders and are 8 dots high. To optimise throughput the 8
th
dot
line is skipped if no descenders are present in a text line. Every text line is followed by a 3 dotline
space. Text lines may be printed in double width, double height, or inverted.
During printing the paper is automatically fed by one dot line (0.37mm) each head cycle. The
mechanism can also advance the paper by three dot lines (1.11 mm) in a single head cycle. This
Fast Feeding is used between text lines, for the Fast Feed command, and when the paper feed button
is pressed.
It is not possible to print partial lines in isolation: if such a line remains in the buffer, it will not be
printed until flushed out by a line terminator or some following data. Any following data will be printed
on the next line. The paper may only be fed through the printer in the forward direction.
The character set is the standard International IBM
®
character set (Code Page 437), except that it
includes the Euro symbol (‘€’) at position 80H (128 Decimal), in place of the usual capital C with
cedilla (‘Ç’).
