Connecting a printer to an Arduino?

[uberhund]

Has anyone ever done this before?

I'm desperate, so I'd be interested in examples connecting a Diecimila or Duemilanova directly (not through a PC) to a hard copy device through any interface - Serial, USB, TTL, ethernet -I'll take any example the forum might have up its sleeve.

Thanks to all

[sparr]

I have not done it, but I might start here

[eil]

Do you have a plan of action so far? How much are you looking print, how often, and how much physical space are you talking? Those answers will determine the kind of printer you need.

If you're using an Arduino, I would assume the answers would be "not much," "not very," and "little." A serial thermal printer (like the ones that print grocery receipts) would fit the bill and finding a cheap used one in an auction shouldn't be terribly hard. Since the Arduino speaks serial easily, I believe all you'd need (hardware-wise) is something to convert TTL to RS-232, like a MAX232. Depending on the printer, I shouldn't think you'd need to do any extremely crafty coding to talk to it. It ought to be just a serial device.

But I've never done anything like this so someone correct me if I'm wrong. :)

[Entropy]

Depends on the printer. Older parallel printers had a mode where you could pretty much feed them raw ASCII and they would print it. Not sure about modern printers, esp. not modern USB printers.

It will be nearly impossible to interface with a USB printer - AVRs can act as USB devices but not as USB hosts.

Network printer + Ethernet shield might work

[uberhund]

Thanks to sparr, entropy, and eil for your inputs.

I really liked the link,http://www.beyondlogic.org/spp/parallel.htm, sparr. Good find.

These comments have helped me draw a circle around some of the issues - here's the net as I see it so far:

1) USB is electrically practical, but the barrier appears to be the rich, packet-based, USB protocol. Maybe too rich even for the relatively verdant code space budget of a '328. Check it out here: http://www2.rad.com/networks/2000/usb/maintxt.htm

2) TTL has a simpler protocol, but the barrier appears in the number of pins required by the Centronics parallel interface standard. More, by half, than Arduino has available.

3) Ethernet - Appealing, but the barrier is the requirement of an ethernet friendly printer who's IP address would be fixed and known to the Arduino.

[rufruf]

If anyone needs to print with Arduino using an Epson printer or an ESC POS compatible printer then goto my blog site:

you can ask me questions from there.

http://printarduino.blogspot.com/

[Rotzog]

You could also try one of the serial point of sale (pos) printers. The docs are pretty easy to get.

[TheFallen]

Seeing as the FT232 chips on Arduino boards are simply TTL serial to USB as a VCOM you may find the trask of pretending to be a print server a little hard, impossible even.

You could attempt to make use of the VUSB library http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html but this does not work directly with Arduino as far as I know, however Rancid Bacon has a few pages on it:
http://code.rancidbacon.com/LearningAboutArduinoAVRUSB
http://code.rancidbacon.com/ProjectLogArduinoUSB

Assuming you want a "proper" printer aka A4/Letter size, you're best finding a cheap 2nd hand parallel port one, and bit banging that. Or at least that's how I'd go about it.

[uberhund]

You are correct, Fallen. It was impossible. My current solution now is to implement the interface described in the link by rufruf, with fingers crossed.

[raykholo]

Guys, I have seen the PIC 32 bit microcotrollers used as USB hosts. Perhaps look into the Basic Stamp, which uses the pic chip. Personally, I use arduino and i could also appreciate if it could work as a usb host - for example to interface with a usb bluetooth dongle. The ~$60 bluetooth modules are pretty annoying to have to buy... Xbee is good, but bluetooth would also be nice.

[adafruit]

the basic stamp doesnt use pic 32bit controllers and not sure what bluetooth has to do with either since this thread is about printers.

there is a 'usb host' shield for arduino http://www.circuitsathome.com/category/ ... usb-shield
but youd have to figure out the printing protocol which isnt necessarily simple

[raykholo]

the basic stamp doesnt use pic 32bit controllers and not sure what bluetooth has to do with either since this thread is about printers.

there is a 'usb host' shield for arduino http://www.circuitsathome.com/category/ ... usb-shield
but youd have to figure out the printing protocol which isnt necessarily simple

ok, my bad... The basic stamp uses a pic microcontroller so I figured that that would be the best bet for someone that does arduino (without having to learn to program a pic microcontroller (Basic + assembly vs. C)

The bluetooth part of the comment was a bit off topic; I was saying that having arduino as a host would allow me to use a ~$2 usb dongle instead of a ~$60 breakout board for a bluetooth module. Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the usb host shield. I will be sure to take a look.

[charliex]

some printers are bluetooth enabled.

[pstemari]

If you're trying to print to a Centronics-style parallel interface, then a shift register plus 3 or 4 pins ought to do it. Clock the bits into the shift register, strobe the port, and repeat as needed.

[JohnDowdell]

Here's another option:
http://www.vinculum.com/documents/appnotes/AN_106_Interfacing_USB_Printer_using_Vinculum_Host_Controller_FT_000064.pdf

FTDI have a spinoff product/company called Vinculum. At the heart of it is the VN1CL IC that is a USB host controller that can be accessed by serial or SPI with a "simple" ascii text command/reply protocol (there's a binary protocol option too). Vinculum provide a few different firmwares that can be loaded into it for supporting such things as usb flash drives (which i have used it for before) and in the above app note, printers.

I was looking around for my VDIP module that is the VN1CL IC on a small breakout board to see if i could prove if it works for printers but i havn't found it yet. The doc's may take a little reading and FTDI don't seem to write manuals/datasheets the way you'd want to read them

John Dowdell