roland cx-300 with FelxiSign 8.1 64 bit - solved

Pretpik said:

HI,
I am a signwriter, but posting here as this is where I found the best help!
I recently got a Roland CX-300 plotter for free from my boss to use at home.
My problem 1: I run Win 7 64-bit and Roland doesn't give a driver to support that for this plotter (only later models).
I have found many forum threads, here and elsewhere, saying to use the later version (GX series) drivers. Which I tried, but I couldn't get to work with FlexiSign 8.1, which I use. (Most posts were for use with other software) Last night, after a good 5-6 hours of trying and testing different settings/combinations, I finally got it to communicate with my plotter. It seemed Flexi caused a secondary problem.
Problem 2: Flexi's production manager has it's own printer set-up. You don't just choose from a list of installed printers, but from a list of supported ones and it applies it's own drivers etc.


Solution: What I did in the end to make it work:

1. Download the GX-300 driver (or whatever later model matches your machine size).
2. Install this.
3. Hook up the plotter and switch on (I hooked up USB-USB since I don't have a parrallel port on my comp and couldn't get it to work with the USB-Parallel cable. Didn't try again after I did get it to work through USB).
4. Windows starts to search for and install drivers. You might as well stop this as it won't find them anyway.
5. It will say that the USB Printing Support (or what ever) installed, but the Roland CX-300 didn't. Close this.
6. Go to the Device manager. (Through Control panel or the computer's properties)
7. The Roland will be visible under the heading "Other". Right-click it and go to Properties and/or select Update Driver.
8. When the window appears, click "Browse my computer..."
9. In the next window, do NOT search for the location, but click on "Let me pick from a list..." instead.
10. As the computer doesn't recognise what type of device your Roland is, this will take you to a list of all drivers on your computer.
11. Scroll down and select Printers.
12. Here you should now have the Roland GX-series driver you installed earlier. Select this one to use.
13. Your Roland should now have disappeared fron Others and show-up in your Printers and Devices window (accessed from the Start menu).
14. Now start Flexi.
15. Just draw a shape and send it to Cut (ctrl+L)
16. This starts up the Production Manager where you need to set-up a device to use. Select to Roland CX-300 with the RolandUSB001 port.
17. Now when you send this, it should work.
18. You will notice in your Printers and Devices that another printer appeared: Printer for RolandUSB001. LEAVE THIS SIT HERE! I tried "tidying up" and lost my communication... Had to start all over.

Hopes this helps out anyone still wrestling with this issue.

Patrick

Click to expand...

I'm an IT consultant in a rural area of Pennsylvania. The other day I got a call from someone who couldn't give me much specific information, except that some application wasn't installing. The application he was using (which wasn't FlexiSign, I don't even remember what it was called) was installing fine. It was his CX-300 that he couldn't get installed under Windows 7 64-bit.

After about an hour of trying different tricks of my own, and running in to roadblocks, I decided to see if anybody else had a similar issue and started searching the web. This thread came up, and it solved our issue as well. It was sort of a "well, duh" answer! I had considered it, but not knowing the differences between the models, I didn't even bother trying it since I thought the GX-300 driver might just be TOO different!

I registered on this website SPECIFICALLY so that I could say THANK YOU to Pretpik and CONFIRM that this solution does in fact work.

Thanks for the tip!!