PrinterPrinter

Description

PrinterPrinter is a standalone/companion project for connecting a raspberrypi zero attached thermal printer via socket.io to an exisiting nodejs environment

Installation

Client

Build

• Instructions for building the physical client coming soon ...

Install

• Follow the instruction in the link below to set up your raspberry pi
  Install RaspberryPi

• Add a empty file namedssh to the /boot directory of the SD Card

• Add a wpa_supplicant.conf to the /boot directory of the SD Card with the following content:

country=DE
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
    ssid="<YOUR_WIFI_SSID>"
    scan_ssid=1
    psk="<YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD>"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

• Run this command to install and configure the client

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/florianporada/printerprinter/master/scripts/install_client.sh | bash

• (Optional) Add $GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN=<gist-enabled-access-token> scripts/post_ip_gist.sh to run during boot to get the ip of the printer (headless)

Usage

Automatic

If you use the install script above, the client will install all necessary packages and configure the service to run on startup. You can go to http://<ip-of-client>:8080/ to configure printerprinter client.

Manual

You can either use a .env file to configure the printer or use a lowdb file for get/set the configuration. Set PRINTER_CONFIG_MODE to db or env to switch between the two modes.

PRINTER_CONFIG_MODE='<db|env>' # mode for handling the config
PRINTER_SOCKET_URL='http://socketurl:3030/' # URL to the service
PRINTER_WEBSERVER_PORT=8080 # Port for the web ui
PRINTER_NAME='Printy McPrintface'
PRINTER_UID=0 # Identifier for the service when sending a job
PRINTER_BAUDRATE=9600 # Baudrate of the printer
PRINTER_SERIALPORT='/dev/ttyS0' # Port where printer is connected
PRINTER_LED=12 # Pin of the info LED

• Install printerprinter via npm

npm i printerprinter

• Initialize the client component in your codebase.

import { PrinterClient } from "printerprinter";

const printer = new PrinterClient({
  url: "http://socketurl:3030", // points to the socketserver explained below
  name: "Printy McPrintface",
  uid: 0,
  baudrate: 9600,
  serialport: "/dev/ttyS0",
  ledpin: 12,
});

printer.init();

Server

Install

• Install printerprinter via npm

npm i printerprinter

• If the prepare script is not executed try:

cd node_modules/printerprinter
npm install && npm run build

Usage

Initialize the service

import { PrinterService } from "printerprinter";

const printerService = new PrinterService({
  port: 3030, // defines the port for the socket service
});

printerService.init();

To send something to the printer:

printerService
  .print({
    message: {
      text: "foo",
      image: "<base64 encoded image>",
      sender: "bar",
    },
    printerUid: 0,
  })
  .then((res) => console.log(res))
  .catch((err) => console.log(err));

Troubleshooting / Additional Notes

• ...

Credits

• Adafruit - Python Thermal Printer