Interfacing with a printer, is it possible?

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2015-07-23 by Bennr

Hello,

I have no idea if this is possible or not, but would there be any way that the pico could interface with a printer? Specifically, one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Polaroid-Digital-Photo-Printer-Technology/dp/B001APNVTQ

I want to make a standalone internet connected printer in a really small package. What do you think?

The printer supports bluetooth as well, so maybe if not a USB connection then a bluetooth module would work?

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2015-07-23 by @gfwilliams

I'm afraid it probably wouldn't interface with it - Espruino can't be a USB host (writing/including drivers for everything would be a nightmare). You're unlikely to have much luck with Bluetooth either, as the bluetooth modules like HC-05 are generally setup to be serial ports (and if I recall - I actually have one of those printers - they expect to be 'beamed' an image file, which requires a different Bluetooth implementation).

Your best bet is either:

• Use a basic printer with a more basic interface - for example the black and white thermal printers that are generally used in tills. Adafruit sells one here but I think you can get them smaller. To be honest most of the size of that one is a roll of paper though. On the plus side, paper is a lot cheaper - the Zink printer paper was quite pricey last time I checked, and the printer only holds 10 sheets or so :)
• Use a different board - probably a full linux one. There are a load out there, like the Carambola 2 that are relatively small, but that have WiFi and a full operating system with USB host support built in. Stuff like the Intel Edison has full bluetooth too. Only problem with all those is they'll chomp through a battery quite quickly.

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2015-07-23 by Bennr

Ah, I thought it was possibly too much. The printer has a built in battery but I don't think it lasts all that long in reality although maybe the Espruino could be used to 'wake up' the printer and linux board to try and conserve battery a bit.

The idea was that the Espruino would handle a request made from a web page (it would be listening to changes in an API or something, I haven't figured that out yet) then pass the location of the image/page to print to the thing that controls the printer.

I have a raspberry pi laying around so maybe I could experiment with that first.

Thanks for the response!