Question Linux and thermal receipt printers

[Red Squirrel]

Working on a website that will accept online orders and one thing I'll want to do is have it print to a thermal printer in the kitchen. I'll have it connected to a Raspberry Pi and it will just poll the site through an authenticated link and anytime there is something to print it will print it. Probably just write the app in C++.

What I wonder is, is there anything specific I should know or look for when buying a printer? If I make sure it has EOS/POS am I pretty much guaranteed it will work, like is it standard the way these show up to the OS? I'm assuming I get a /dev/ entry that I send the commands straight to?

Never worked with these before so just looking for any info that may be useful before I buy one. They arn't cheap. Probably going to stick with Epson or Zebra as they seem to be the big names for these and probably more likely to have good support.

They currently use Chownow and have a blutooth one but no idea how you'd interface with that without a mobile device and I know nothing about mobile development so want to keep this more "pc compatible". Though a RPI is Arm... guess that should not matter too much though as the OS will handle mostly everything and the environment is basically the same.

 

[mxnerd]

Don't know if this helps.

https://python-forum.io/Thread-printing-a-text-file-by-python-and-thermal-printer

https://github.com/search?q=epson+printer

https://github.com/mike42/escpos-php

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https://www.zebra.com/us/en/support...cles/zpl-command-information-and-details.html

https://github.com/topics/zebra-printer

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zpl-printer/phoidlklenidapnijkabnfdgmadlcmjo?hl=en-US

http://labelary.com/viewer.html

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** Thermal printers usually only accepts simple control code and text, they don't accept complex language like Adobe Postscript or HP PCL.

https://www.zebra.com/us/en/support...re-not-pcl-or-postscript-file-compatible.html

** Well, I could be wrong about other brands, haven't deal with thermal printers for a long time.

** And I'm a Windows guy.

===

Seems the bluetooth thermal printer you mentioned probably is Star Micronics SM-T300i , it should have EPSON ESC/POS compatibility mode and has a serial RS-232C port.

https://www.starmicronics.com/Support/Mannualfolder/sm-t300i_hm_en.pdf

http://www.starmicronics.com/support/SDKDocumentation.aspx

https://www.starmicronics.com/support/Mannualfolder/mobile_pm_en.pdf

Using Star Micronics WebPRNT tech for mobile device

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.starmicronics.starwebprntpaid&hl=en_US
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-webprnt-browser/id854408228?mt=8


Let's say if SM-T300i does not have Linux driver, you should still be able to use EPSON compatible printer driver to make it work.

 

[mxnerd]

Well, you probably don't even need printer driver if you can connect the printer using com port. You shoud be able to use C++ / C/ Python to write ESC/POS command to compatible printers through com port (/dev/ttyS0, etc.)

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah that's kind of what I'm thinking too. So when I plug one of those in, it just automatically connects a /dev device then? I'd more likely go USB though as the plan is to plug it in to a RPI. Will USB ones just still act as a serial device?

 

[mxnerd]

My Windows experience is that some USB / Bluetooth devices will create virtual COM port. It probably all depends on each vendor's ddevice implementation. I don't have experience with Linux connecting these devices. All current Linux knowledge I have now comes from my UNIX knowledge way back while I was student + reading articles on the net.

email vendor's tech support or read the tech manual if you decides on which printer you will get/use.

thermal receipt printer is very simple device, all you need is a slow COM port and a few printer commands in order to print those little data. I used to deal with Zebra thermal printer in the past to print shipping labels for company's products and all it need is com port or parallel port.

 

[mxnerd]

Raspberry Pi Printer Setup using CUPS printing system. (one of the ways to print)

I think you just have to find out exactly what the device is named after printer is connected.

or

Thermal printer USB on Raspberry Pi
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47786

==

You can use printer's command language to change fonts/sizes or even download fonts to it's memory and then print the stuff.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Good to know. From what I did read I think you don't even need CUPS. Some support images too I think, think you output each pixel, but the command language is mostly text and looks fairly simple. Just got approval to buy one so going to go ahead and get one and experiment from there.

 

[mxnerd]

think you output each pixel, but the command language is mostly text and looks fairly simple

Yeah, you shouldn't need CUPS.

And no, you don't send pixels to thermal printer in most cases unless you want to print fancy graphics.

Receipt is just receipt. No need to make it complex. Good luck.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I was thinking if I want to put like a little company logo or something, is that doable? Not a big deal if not, but it's an option I can play with if the client wants to do something fancy.

But yeah need to finish up the rest of the site before I get to this part. It's good to know that they are fairly simple devices though so I will order one once I get to that part of the site.

 

[mxnerd]

I was thinking if I want to put like a little company logo or something.

Guess the following PHP library will help and make the job much easier.

https://github.com/mike42/escpos-php
https://github.com/receipt-print-hq/escpos-tools
https://github.com/receipt-print-hq/escpos-printer-db

https://mike42.me/blog/tag/escpos-php
https://mike42.me/escpos-printer-db/