Print Driver Setup For Mac & Parallel Users Not Communicating ... ?

[chris szlachetka]

We're having issues with our MacBookPro (running parallels 9 & XP) & Epilog Mini 24 communicating. Trying to print from Corel 6x and selecting everything as instructed, no job appears on the Epilog screen... I'm not sure if anyone here has a similar setup to what we're running but could use a little help. Ever pic & 65% of the text in our manual doesn't match what we're seeing. This might seems like an overload of info. but is the step by step process of what we did.


We've setup the print driver as best as we could and seems to show up in the print drivers folder & Corel draw. Here's how we set it up


Start - My Computer - Epilog Drivers (D)- Adobe Flash Player 11 screen pops up with Epilog Laser System Driver and Software Install Files (welcome screen)

Clicked on option Mini 18 / Mini 24 / Helix

We installed the 32bit Job Manager 1.2.0 first (when clicking on the Epilog Job Manager Shortcut we get an error, Epilog Job Manager.exe is not a valid Win32 application) IDK ?

Next we proceeded with installing the Mini / Helix Dashboard Driver 9.02 - WinZip clicked Unzip to folder C:/minihelix_driver - Add printer Wizard screen - Local printer attached to this computer - Use the following port (we've tried everything and not one of these printers worked, so we added a port called USB Epilog (Local Port) - Install Printer Screen clicked Have Disk - Browse Epilog Drivers (D) - Driver folder Mini-helix-902 - EpilogWinAll - Name your printer screen clicked Yes to use as Default printer - Test page No - Completing the Add Printer Wizard finish

[Kit Dumph]

I'm interested with this also. I'll be running VMware, Windows 8.1, CorelDrawX7 on my mac. Are all the drives 32bit? I installed the 64bit version of win 8.1...

[chris szlachetka]

Hi Kit On the phone with Epilog now, I'll report back in a few.

[chris szlachetka]

Turns out a mac can't run a mini 24 from parallels 9, XP ... Really sucks but at least we got the machine up and going. I'll report back if we find a way.

[Chris J Anderson]

I use Win 8.1 with VMware Fusion on a Macbook Pro, all works fine.

I don't use the Epilog Job control though, just their standard driver.

TIP - GOOGLE THIS - You might want to disable 'driver signature signing' before installing the drivers.

Also - When you first run anything in Windows, right click and 'run as administrator'.

Cheers,
Chris

[Scott Shepherd]

They have a print driver for the Mac, why not just send it from the Mac and not mess with the Windows side of things?

[Chris J Anderson]

Hi Scott,

Not sure how you would do this when Corel is in Windows, and you want to print thru the Mac ?

Nice theory though, I'd like to know if it can be done...

Maybe through Fusion printer sharing ?

cheers,
Chris

[Scott Shepherd]

You don't have any Mac graphics programs? I'm saying use a mac friendly graphics program and print directly from the mac.

[Kit Dumph]

Steve, I think I'm going to try it both ways. Either way I'm learning a new program, Corel Draw for windows or illustrator on the mac. Though I'm much more versed in adobe products, Corel Draw seems pretty intuitive thus far.

[Chris J Anderson]

Hi Scott,
Cool, (and simple now that you say it that way).

What Mac friendly programs are out there that you know of, which would happily import a corel created file for printing to Epilog Laser ?

Cheers,
Chris

[Scott Shepherd]

What Mac friendly programs are out there that you know of, which would happily import a corel created file for printing to Epilog Laser ?


None that I know of. I guessed you were starting out with it, but if you are married to CorelDraw, then there's no other choice but Windows. If you want to use Illustrator, then you can just do it all straight from the Mac. You could export out of Corel as eps and import that into Illustrator, but if you're going to do all that, it's probably not worth the effort. I will say that I design a lot of stuff in Illustrator on a Mac and I save the file as an eps file and bring that into Corel on the windows machines that run our lasers (it's all on a network drive, accessible by all computers), and I run the job from there, saving a Corel file before closing for future reference. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

[Kit Dumph]

Steve, so I'm taking it illustrator is easier for you to use?

[Scott Shepherd]

Steve, so I'm taking it illustrator is easier for you to use?

I wouldn't say it's easier. I think I'm a lot more fluent in CorelDraw than I am in Illustrator, but we deal with a lot of people that are graphic designers or printers so we use Illustrator because people are sending us Illustrator files and we're sending them Illustrator files back in many cases. I do think I can more easily communicate the actual look of things in Illustrator than I can in Corel, but that's probably due to lack of trying (plus I hate opening up Windows and then CorelDraw on the mac). My smart mouse doesn't play well with Parallels so in general, it just makes for a more frustrating experience, so I do it the easy way :)

[chris szlachetka]

Ok so here's what we did to be able to run a mac + Epilog Mini 24 40w setup. Bought Windows 8.1, ran Bootcamp and installed all of the drivers at a later point.


Install Bootcamp
Install Windows 8.1 64bit
install Bootcamp 5.0.5033 to a USB stick on Mac side
Restart & hold down Option before chime
Now select Windows drive
Plug the USB stick in with the Bootcamp 5.0.5033 (locate Boot Camp Setup file and install)
Restart & hold down Option again
Select Windows
Done (all ports, devices, etc.. all work with no problems)


Now on to installing the damn PIA Epilog driver... Hold on
Pop in the Epilog CD
Install Epilog Job Manager 64bit
Unzip the 905 folder and install per Epilog instructions
I also Unzipped a 905 folder to my desktop (step is optional)
Open up your control panel, view device and printers
Turn off driver signature (Google windows 8.1 disable driver signature)
Plug your Epilog USB Mini in and turn on the power
You should see an Unspecified USB device called Epilog laser or something like that (looks like a white tower raid type image)
Double click it and select properties - hardware properties - Change Settings - Driver Disable
Restart back in to Windows and the driver should load

Open up Notepad and type whatever, click print, select the Epilog 64 print driver and click ok. You should see the untitled file name pop up in your Epilog job window screen.


I could be missing a few steps, and don't wanna go back through this again. If I do, I'll update the thread. Thought I'd share hoping to help others out.

[chris szlachetka]

Thanks to all for the replies, sorry I didn't reply back sooner... I've had my head in this computer for the last week. :)