thermal printer fast blink failure

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cdj
 
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thermal printer fast blink failure

Post by cdj »

I have an Adafruit Mini Thermal Printer that I purchased a few years ago. It worked fine the last time I used it, about a year ago. However, when I plugged it in today it does not work.

I am using a 7.5 VDC, 1.5A, center positive power supply. When power is applied, the green light on top blinks 2 times and then goes to a continuous fast blink – about 5 blinks per second. I tried printing a test page (hold the eject button down when powering up). That has the same result: blink 2 times, then fast blink forever.

If I remove the paper it blinks 3 times, then pause, then 3 times. I’m not sure but I think that the 3 blinks + pause means that it is out of paper. But when the paper is inserted it returns to fast blink forever.

In desperation I connected it to my Arduino and attempted to print, but that didn’t work either.
I reread the printer documentation and searched the forums, but I have not been able to find anything that matches this problem.

Does anyone have some idea of what the fast blink means, and how to fix it

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mikeysklar
 
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Re: thermal printer fast blink failure

Post by mikeysklar »

This is normally a power supply problem.

Can you post a photo of your connections for power? Does a multimeter read the same voltage you are expecting to see? Do you have another power supply you can use?

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cdj
 
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Re: thermal printer fast blink failure

Post by cdj »

Thank you very much for your reply.

I have several wall wort power supplies. I have tested the output of all of these with my VOM, and in all cases the measured voltage output is as claimed on the data plate.

When the printer failed when using my 7.5 V, 1.5A supply, I tried a different one. It was 12 V, 1.5A. The printer still failed, so I assumed that it was a printer problem, not a supply problem.

With your advice, I ratted through my box of wall worts and found two 5V, 1.2A supplies. The printer works just fine with both of these!

Thanks again for your comments.

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mikeysklar
 
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Re: thermal printer fast blink failure

Post by mikeysklar »

Interesting results. Good thing you had a box of power wall warts to try.

The 12V would have been a problem (voltage too high). This printer is rated for 5 - 9v @ 1.5A.

Glad to hear the 5v @ 1.2A did the trick.

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