Python-Thermal-Printer Module

Python3 port of the original Adafruit Python-Thermal-Printer library.

Getting Started

Install Raspbian Buster and Wire the printer according to this. I powered the printer with the GPIO pins as well.

Run a test to see if the printer is working by punching in these commands into the terminal.

stty -F /dev/serial0 19200
echo -e "This is a test.\\n\\n\\n" > /dev/serial0

Installing

1. Enable the serial port.

   sudo raspi-config

   

   

   

   

   

2. Update the system and install perquisites.

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install git cups wiringpi build-essential libcups2-dev libcupsimage2-dev python-serial python-pil python-unidecode
   

3. Install the printer driver. Don't worry about the warnings that g++ gives.

   git clone https://github.com/adafruit/zj-58
   cd zj-58
   make
   sudo ./install
   

4. Make the printer the default printer. This is useful if you are going to be doing other things with it.

   sudo lpadmin -p ZJ-58 -E -v "serial:/dev/serial0?baud=19200" -m zjiang/ZJ-58.ppd
   sudo lpoptions -d ZJ-58
   

5. Install the Python dependencies:

   sudo apt-get install --yes python3-pip
   pip3 install --user \
       Pillow \
       pyserial

6. Restart the system. Clone this repository and try to run printertest.py.

   git clone https://github.com/galacticfan/Python-Thermal-Printer/
   cd Python-Thermal-Printer
   python3 printertest.py
   

7. Use cron to run the management script on startup by adding the following line to your crontab (crontab -e):

   @reboot /usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/Projects/Python-Thermal-Printer/main.py
   

   You will need to update the path to main.py depending on where you cloned the repository.