Hi,
I have an thermal printer which I would like to connect to Arduino Uno. Printer has only USB port. As I found on Internet, it is not possible to connect printer directly to USB port of arduino. So what can I do to manage this problem. Is there some additional board that would solve the problem?
Maybe you need one of these:
Never used it myself so can't comment on how easy it is to use.
You would also need to know how to talk to your printer over USB. If you can find a detailed user manual for your printer, then it may have the information you need. However, I suspect that most thermal printer manufacturers point you towards a Windows/Linux driver which won't help in this case.
How does the printer expect to receive the information? If the required printout has to be converted to a raster image first, then you may well find that the UNO doesn't have enough RAM to do this.
I was wondering that I can do something like it is done in this video: Interfacing of Thermal Printer with Arduino Boards. - YouTube
But i don't know if exist some board that would convert USB to TTL.
In this video is shown how to convert printer with RS232 to TTL: How to connect a thermal printer to the Arduino | Small Project - YouTube
So I taught that i can do something similar.
Does the printer work connected to your PC? Do you have documentation for the printer, so you can program talking to it?
That printer is a simple thermal printer controlled over an RS232 link or via TTL serial direct from an UNO. There's documentation around on the commands used to control that printer.
That video seems to show the user connecting a 25-pin to 9-pin serial cable to the printer and then connecting the 9-pin conn to a RS-232 to TTL interface module, which then connects to a USB-Serial module so that they can talk to it via a USB COM port on their PC.
Can you show a photo of you printer - maybe the plate/sticker with the make/model no on it.
It might be worth taking the cover off to see if the USB interface is a simple USB-serial chip. However, a quick look for your model seems to show drivers for Windows & Linux. I suspect you may have difficulty with your particular thermal printer if you want to drive it from an UNO.
Definitely sounds like a job for a Raspberry Pi.
What makes you think you want to use an Arduino?
That tells me you printer prints a graphic image. If you want to print text, as letters and numbers, you need to convert them to pixels of some type and then send the image to the printer.
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