Saving printing power linux X10

Forum regarding Linux Software and Home Automation Domotica.
Post Reply
Kroonen
Member
Member
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:38 pm
Location: Netherlands

Saving printing power linux X10

Post by Kroonen »

This I found on the net, and looks very nice. I going to do this also. I first need to buy an extra appliance.

http://funderburgs.net/linux/x10printer/
User avatar
Snelvuur
Forum Moderator
Forum Moderator
Posts: 3156
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:01 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Saving printing power linux X10

Post by Snelvuur »

Didn't know they take up so much power those printers.. will make me check twice when getting a new printer!

// Erik (binkey.nl)
linuxha
Starting Member
Starting Member
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:17 am
Location: USA
Contact:

Saving printing power linux X10

Post by linuxha »

I wrote a chapter on this in my book, while I can't give out the chapter I can tell you how I did it. My Linux setup is using CUPS as it's printer daemon and I'm using heyu with a CM11A to turn the printer on/off.

I created two scripts, the first x10backend.pl (http://www.linuxha.com/common/x10backend.pl) is the part that issues the heyu commands and calls the second script x10off.sh (http://www.linuxha.com/common/x10off.sh, via the at). When you send a print job it issues the commands to heyu, passes the print job to the normal printer script (CUPS will wait for the printer to be ready) and when done printing issue the correct at command.

Here are the instructions:
<ul><li>Have heyu installed and working</li><li>have 'printer' defined to the correct X10 module in /etc/hey/ux10.conf. For example, <b>ALIAS printer C5 StdAM</b> </li><li>cp /media/disk/chapter13/x10backend.pl /usr/lib/cups/backend/x10</li><li>cp /media/disk/chapter13/x10off.sh /usr/lib/cups/backend/</li><li>chmod a+x /usr/lib/cups/backend/x10*</li><li>Next edit /etc/cups/printers.conf</li><li>Find your printer, say it's <DefaultPrinter bw></li><li>next find the DeviceURI line and prepend the DeviceURI line with x10:// so it looks something like this: DeviceURI x10://parallel:/dev/lp0</li></ul>
I've since replaced my inkjet with a laser printer that falls asleep (turns off the laser and uses very little power) so I don't use the scripts anymore. I also had them setup with my Jetdirect print servers (I had 3 different printers on 3 Jetdirect servers). It worked pretty well and I didn't run into any problems with large print jobs.

Neil Cherry
Linux Home Automation
Author: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
Post Reply

Return to “Linux Forum”