Guide for installing Opticon Demo software on a Batch terminal

All of Opticon's batch terminals are delivered with the firmware factory installed, but some models come without any pre-installed scanning application. However Opticon offers a 'Demo Application' to showcase it's capabilities for almost all of their batch terminals. In a some scenarios the demo application fits the exact needs for your scanning process and would suffice to do the job.

This guide will show you all steps necessary to install a demo application from scratch.
In this guide we will use the OPH-1005 as a sample model. Your model could be different so when following instructions that specifically involve the OPH-1005 you should adapt these instructions to your terminal model.

FIRST: download all software, do not install anything yet
1) Go to the product page of your batch terminal model, for the OPH-1005 this will be:
    https://opticon.com/product/oph-1005/
2) scroll down and select the TAB called 'DOWNLOADS'

3) Click on 'SOFTWARE' to open this section:
4) Download 'Appload' (PC application; identical for all batch terminals)
5) Download the 'USB Drivers' (PC drivers; identical for all batch terminals)
6) Download OseComm (PC application; identical for all batch terminals)
7) Click on 'FIRMWARE' to open this section:

8) Download  'OPH-1005 Firmware' (or the firmware for your terminal model)
Mind that if there is NO separate download for the 'Scan/Demo Application' shown, this normally means that the demo application is included in the ZIP-file together with the firmware. This can only be checked by downloading the ZIP-file to verify this.

SECOND: installation of the downloaded software
Steps overview:
1)  -> Install USB driver
2)  -> Install Appload
3)  -> Install OseComm
4)  -> Install Demo Application

1) Installing the USB driver
The USB driver needs to be installed only once on your PC for your Opticon device.
The driver is necessary so the PC and connected Opticon device can 'talk' with each other. This can be either the terminal directly connected via an USB cable or the cradle that is connected with an USB cable where the terminal is placed to charge and communicate with the PC).

Go to your download location and double-click on 'USB Drivers Installer.exe' to start the driver installation.

Option 1) activate this if you're installing the driver for a CRD-9723RU cradle 
- where you will ' dock/insert' your OPL-9815 or PX-36

Option 2) activate this is you're installing the driver for an OPH-3001^(*1), OPN-2001^(*1), OPN-2006^(*1), OPN-2500^(*2) or OPN-6000^(*2)

(*1) the driver is always necessary (all Windows versions)
(*2) For Windows 10 and higher you have two options; either use the generic driver from Windows, or install the Opticon driver. The main difference between these two is that with the generic driver the scanner will be assigned a generic name like 'Serial USB device' whilst with the Opticon driver the scanner will be named 'Opticon USB Code Reader (COMxx)' (where xx is the assigned virtual COM-port). Also to use the Opticon scanner with the default driver they must be set to function in USB CDC via OptiConfigure. More info will soon follow in a separate article on this matter.

Option 3) activate this option if you want to install the driver for the ATEN USB converter (Article 10060 [DISCONTINUED])

Option 4) activate this option if you want to install the driver for your CRD-1006 cradle (extra info can be found in this article here).

The driver(s) are now installed, you can now connect the USB cable from the CRD-1006 cradle (or CRD-9723RU in case you have a OPL-9815 or PX-36) to the PC. If you have an OPH-3001 the cable will go directly from the terminal to the PC, or alternatively if you have bought the CLK-1 dock you can connect the CLK-1 to the PC. 

When connecting the terminal or cradle's USB port to the PC it will assign a new VCP-number (VCP = Virtual Com Port) to the connection.

Remember that if you change the USB cable over to another USB-port (on the same PC/laptop) this will create a new VCP-number.

Now let's go on to the next step.

2) Installing AppLoad
Opticon's PC application AppLoad is short for 'Application Loader' and is used to upload (or 'Flash') Firmware or an Application onto an Opticon device. This means you will only need to do this once to flash (newer) firmware and/or an (new) application on the batch terminal. The firmware and application will stay installed on the terminal, even if the battery would be completely empty or taken out (for instance, to change with another battery).

Go to your download location and double-click on 'Appload Setup.exe' to start the installation.
Follow the setup wizard. Leave all options to the suggested values to install AppLoad with default options (recommended). Only change default options when this is necessary and you know what the results of these changes are (normally done by system/IT administrators).

AppLoad is now installed, on to the next step.

3) Installing OseComm
Opticon's PC application OseComm is an application that can perform various kinds of communication tasks between the PC and batch terminal. 'Ose' is short for 'Opticon Sensors Europe' and 'Comm' stands for ' Communication'.

Go to your download location and double-click on 'SetupOseComm32.exe' to start the installation.
Follow the setup wizard. Leave all options to the suggested values to install OseComm with default options (recommended). Only change default options when this is necessary and you know what the results of these changes are (normally done by system/IT administrators).

4) Installing the Demo Application
Unpack the downloaded ZIP-file with either the Firmware and Demo Application in one, or the separate Demo Application. For the OPH-1005 the ZIP file contain both the Firmware and Demo Application and the contents look like this:

Open the ' Scanner Demo Application' folder:

At the time of writing the current Demo Application Version is XFP3092M, it can be that your current download is a newer/higher version. For other terminal models the filename has a different letter/number combination, but always end with the extension ' .hex'. With AppLoad installed you can also recognize the file by the round blue AppLoad icon.

The additional PDF document is a functional description of the supplied demo program.

Open AppLoad. First we have to set which COM-port we will use to send the Demo Application to the terminal.

Go to 'Setings', 'Port' and select your Opticon device. In this example it is the ' Opticon USB Serial Port (COM10)'. Your portnumber can differ. Also the description depends on the cradle/terminal-model connected.
After selecting the correct COM-port choose 'File' and then 'Download'. Now navigate to the folder where the demo hex-file is located and select this file.

The file will be uploaded (or 'flashed') to the terminals internal memory.
Wait patiently until the process has finished and the ' Download successfully completed' message is shown.

Press 'OK' and close AppLoad.

Great, you have now installed the new demo application on your terminal!

You can now test the various menu functions and perform some test scans to see how the process flow of the demo program behaves.
At some point you might want to transfer the scanned datafile from the terminal to PC.
For this you can use OseComm. An in depth article on how to configure OseComm will follow shortly.

As always you can contact us in case you have any questions.