Comments on: Making a GoFreeRange internet printer with a Raspberry Pi

By: blogmywiki

blogmywiki — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 16:55:06 +0000

Many thanks – my printer sprang back to life recently, so that may well explain it. Very grateful to you.

By: j

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 16:42:26 +0000

Hi,

Don’t know if it’s helpful but if you still have the ‘CP437′ error… I had a similar problem, and found that it was that the printer wasn’t getting enough power.

By: Lars

Lars — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 23:48:15 +0000

Thanks for your help! Seems like the hype is over though. No one on the whole interwebs is trying to make this work with the B+.

But I’m still having fun with the test print page!

By: blogmywiki

blogmywiki — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 11:16:56 +0000

Hi Lars - I'm afraid my code is out of date. The way the back-end of the GoFreeRange printer works has changed - the URL is different. Sadly because my own thermal printer has broken (it just prints out 'CP437' and nothing else) I haven't updated the code. Have a look at http://exciting.io/printer/ for more recent info, or try the Google Group for the printer.

By: Lars

Lars — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:33:02 +0000

Hello! I can’t get the printer to work with my Raspberry Pi B+ using your instructions. Simply does not print, and giving no error messages. Do you have to make some special configuration for the B+?

By: dan

dan — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:39:51 +0000

Awesome guide! Thanks for doing the write-up! I’ve had the thermal printer staring me in the face for ages now, and after finding this, I now have it up and running and a few ideas as to how to make it do awesome things. I also had trouble with the update-rc.d method of setting up the printer as a daemon. Linux isn’t my forte, but I would be curious to know why this didn’t work. But thank you so much for putting in that little bit about how you got it to load on boot!

-dan

By: blogmywiki

blogmywiki — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:26:29 +0000

It really is simple to connect an Adafruit-type thermal printer to a Pi - I've done it slightly different ways depending on the application. The simplest way was for my Little Box of Poems: http://www.suppertime.co.uk/blogmywiki/2012/12/pi-poems/ - you just need to be really careful not to connect any pins back to the RX pin on the printer, as the Pi runs at 5v and may fry your printer.

By: blogmywiki

blogmywiki — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:22:50 +0000

I’m afraid I can’t help with that – the little thermal printer I use is connected directly by serial pins, nothing like a USB printer on a network.

By: Javed

Javed — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:04:10 +0000

So my Pi just arrived!

Am I right in saying that I just need to connect the GND and RX pins from the printer to the Pi, and nothing more?

Would be awesome to get LEDs or something.

Thanks mate.

By: charles keller

charles keller — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:54:19 +0000

I,m a beginner so please take this in conncideration. Please