Trying to build indicator for printer

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I’m trying to create a device that will turn on a light when a print job is received for a few seconds. I’ve made a few devices that will close a contact when motion is detected using a motion sensor and/or a proximity sensor. I’ve never tried to make something that uses a computer input.

I guess i need something that will detect when a job is sent to the printer and be able to close an electrical contact. I have a 24VDC power supply available, plenty of relays, and LEDs. The printer will like be connected via Cat5 cable since it is physically located a few rooms away from the computers printing to it. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

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To do that you need one of two things

a) be able to control it from the computer/server that sends jobs to the printer assuming there’s only one

b) use a printer that provides some type of output when it receives a job.

Alternately, you can build something that sniffs the signals sent to the printer, but at that point we’re talking about a pretty big job.