Could some one point me in the right direction to select components and interface a receipt printer mechanism (the small printers that come on POS terminals etc,) and a 8bit micro like the AVR.
Are there any printers that support a serial interface ????
Guys ... I have designed printers for long time .. one thing you need to know is "THERE IS NO STANDARD .. so if you need to download a FONT .. well some printers may support that and others NOT! ..
To design a printer is very easy ..(at least it was to ME ..when i switched to TRISCEND chips .. they're gone now ..SORRY ME !) .Most printers have some sort of ASIC that has fixed FONTS .. in particuliar the SEIKO .
I can't support any particuliar brand .. But i will be more than willing to help my ELEKTRODA brothers to design one . Tell me what you need a Thermal or other ..
Thanks for the comments. I did some research and found that several companies ship a small printer mechanism that can be used for portable applications.
I am looking at a dot matrix impact type printer to keep consumable costs low.
Is anybody familiar with this and the kind of interfacing required from a micro ?
Small printers in POS are thermal or (less frequently) impact printers. All these have a serial interface, so no problem to drive it whit a microcontroller. If you want some unusual character set then you must deal whit a graphical-like printing using ASCII special characters to drive the printer line-by-line at a required resolution. This is a long and dirty job, but work whit virtually all printer of the kind you want to use.
Companines like E**pson and Ci**tizen provide the basec printer mechanism but the interface (serial or parallel) is available as a seperate board.
The printer mechanims has a wire out for the data, motor control etc, and if the controller is not used then the motors and solenoids need to be controlled from the MCU.