Mini Thermal Printer printing only what it sees fit.

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fullsized
 
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Mini Thermal Printer printing only what it sees fit.

Post by fullsized »

Hi! I purchased the Mini Thermal Receipt Printer Starter Pack a few weeks back for a project. The printer seems to be glitching in a few weird but consistent places. It has never once completed the diagnostic test and the first couple lines often come out as a series of dots instead of words (even in printing the printing test from your library). All of the parts I'm using are from your starter pack, outside of the Arduino and the headers. The Arduino works fine in other situations. I've tested the printer on another computer with the same results. I've even had someone more knowledgable about these things look at it and be lost for solutions.

I'm including images of the print outs and the set up. Please please please let me know if there is something else I can try!
printerproblems.jpg
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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: Mini Thermal Printer printing only what it sees fit.

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

Do you have a different power supply you can try> The one you're using may be underpowering the printer

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Re: Mini Thermal Printer printing only what it sees fit.

Post by pburgess »

The 'glitchy' sections -- are those supposed to be text or graphics? Also, have you tried the test sketch included with the printer library? Is your code using our library, or are you issuing data directly to the printer (via SoftwareSerial)?

The test page looks really sharp, so I think it's less likely to be a paper feed or power supply problem.

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Re: Mini Thermal Printer printing only what it sees fit.

Post by fullsized »

It's all supposed to be text. I've just been using your libraries and I've tried your test sketch included in the library with the exact same issues. It only printed the top half of "double height" and other commands. "Inverse on" showed no difference than any other text on there, too. It printed that way every single time.

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Re: Mini Thermal Printer printing only what it sees fit.

Post by pburgess »

Let's try one change. In printernest.pde, in the setup function:

Code: Select all

  printer.begin(80);
This should reduce the heat a bit, making the printer less likely to jam up (dark printing makes it 'sticky' for some reason). The fact that the test page prints (but the example code doesn't) makes me think the library's default heat setting (200) is too much. Every printer and batch of receipt paper is a little different, sometimes we need to do this.

If that works, we can narrow in on a value that balances darkness & not jamming. Or if it still doesn't work, try even smaller values (40, 20, etc.). If that still refuses to cooperate, we'll swap it out.

As for inverse printing, I think the firmware on the latest batch of printers no longer supports this mode.

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fullsized
 
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Re: Mini Thermal Printer printing only what it sees fit.

Post by fullsized »

Okay, I finally got a minute to test it out. The change in the number just moved the problem spot on the print out to a different place each time. Weird. I never found a number where everything came out the way it should be- both on the printertest and my own text.
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Let me know what I can do about swapping it.

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Re: Mini Thermal Printer printing only what it sees fit.

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

Please email [email protected] with a link to this thread for a replacement printer

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