This article reviews some of the unexpected behaviors you may observe in the USB communication between your computer and your Mimaki printer (particularly for recent ones), as well as the recommendations and solutions we have at your disposal.

How to identify an unexpected behavior on my Mimaki device?

In most cases, our HelpDesk knowledge base already has a solution at your disposal if your device is having an issue. But, when you don't know what to look for or can't find the solution, you must know what type of behavior is causing the issue before contacting support.

Printer cases

If there is a problem during the print process, usually the printer will produce a beep sound and show an error code and message. If this is the case, this error should be written to be communicated in the bug report. It will also be important to note in the report if the problem seems to be the printer, but this does not present any beep sound.

CalderaRIP cases

These may be due to a software bug in all of our drivers, or visual errors in the printed job (such as visual artifacts or transparency/color problems).

Driver cases

Unexpected behavior in the driver can occur directly when opening the driver, when trying to refresh the status, or when printing. Some of the examples are:

• The job crashed just before starting: beep sound + error code displayed on the printer panel.
• The driver displays SIGSEGV or driver error (no sounds from the printer).
• The behavior is not what was expected (parameters have no effect, layers are inverted, etc.).

Communication cases

You might encounter these before or in the middle of the printing process. Some of the examples are:

• The printer is not detected (no status displayed), even with the good configuration in the Server Admin.
• The printer is detected but won't print.
• The job crashed in the middle of the printing process (already started to print) and an error is displayed in the spooler.
• The job is blocked in the middle of the printing process (Spooler >0%)
• The following message appears: "The printer is detected but not accepting print data. Possible printer network connection issue."
• The following message appears: "Job aborted on printer" (but it’s not).

Communication issues: best practices and known cases

All Mimaki devices support USB communication. This type of communication involves some additional factors that you should be aware of to avoid any issues.

USB Cables

Mimaki officially suggests using a single armored USB cable with a gold-plated connection. As for the length of the cable, it can be up to 5 meters (16 feet) long but it is more reliable to use a cable less than 3 meters (10 feet) long. The longer the cable, the most likely there will be parasites and errors occurring during communication.

USB repeaters

Some users deploy USB repeaters, sometimes self-powered or externally powered, to boost the signal and allow multiple USB cables to be connected at the same time.

While this installation may seem effective at the beginning, adding connections, peripherals, and cables between the RIP station and the printer increases the chances of communication problems. Some equipment may age and produce problems over time. These repeaters are not officially recommended or supported by Caldera.

USB hubs

If you have a lot of devices (printers, mouse, keyboards, USB keys, etc.) to connect via USB to the RIP station, you may need USB hubs.

Be careful with these hubs: they should only be used if they have an external power supply and, even then, they can also cause communication problems.

USB to ethernet

When the printer and the RIP station are far apart, you might consider using a USB to RJ45 adapter (to use the Ethernet cable to bring the data to the printer), and then use an RJ45 to USB adapter (to connect to the printer). These adapters are not officially supported by Caldera, so we recommend that you avoid this workaround.

To conclude this article, we share with you an abstract from a Mimaki manual that covers some of these USB communication situations in depth.