Printer project: can anyone write Windows drivers?

[nigelmercier]

A few years ago I had an idea for a project: to use an old thermal fax machine as a printer:

http://www.dutchforce.com/~eforum/index.php?showtopic=32254
I've got a plan for a project. I've got an thermal fax machine that is no longer used, and I want a cheap and portable printer for very occasional use; poor quality is not a problem. At present I use an inkjet, but as I only use it once a month, I end up buying a new print head almost every time. A thermal printer would be ideal.

I figure that a USB enabled PIC and a bit of software is pretty much all I would need. To save me reinventing the wheel, has anybody seen such a project before?

This didn't go anywhere, but a clip I saw on YouTube of a guy printing on a fax machine using the modem in his computer got me interested again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZPiM4uY8gY Note that this is mostly boring!

It occurred to me that we may have the expertise for this project on this forum, and as an old thermal fax machine can be bought for about £5, it may be of interest to others who want to print stuff on their boat. The general plan is as follows:

Remove printing mechanism from thermal paper fax machine, adapt for 12V if necessary.
Inject signals into print mechanism to drive printer using USB microcontroller board.
Feed USB with scanned line-by-line data from page to be printed.

It is this last requirement that is the tricky bit. It could be done by converting the data into a TIFF and sending serially via terminal software, or via a standalone program, but ideally would be packaged as a printer driver.

Thoughts?

 

[KellysEye]

>At present I use an inkjet, but as I only use it once a month, I end up buying a new print head almost every time.

It sounds like you need to clean the print head, look in the printer manual and it tells you how to do it.

 

[nigelmercier]

>At present I use an inkjet, but as I only use it once a month, I end up buying a new print head almost every time.
It sounds like you need to clean the print head, look in the printer manual and it tells you how to do it.

You think? BTDTGTTS. Please no more discussions about this tangent.

 

[elton]

Not worth the effort. A USB thermal slip printer can be bought for next to nothing off eBay.

 

[coopec]

Not worth the effort. A USB thermal slip printer can be bought for next to nothing off eBay.

Thank you elton. You have just confirmed my thoughts

 

[coopec]

You think? BTDTGTTS. Please no more discussions about this tangent.

Wow!!

(BTDTGTTS - "Been There, Done That, Got The T-Shirt".)

 

[nigelmercier]

Not worth the effort. A USB thermal slip printer can be bought for next to nothing off eBay.

Yes, but not a full width one, these are hundreds of pounds.

 

[prv]

A USB thermal slip printer can be bought for next to nothing off eBay.

That was my thought too, but it's not a complete answer as I assume Nigel wants to print larger images. A weatherfax map for instance is not going to be much use at 1.5" wide.

That said, I agree with the overall sentiment that reverse-engineering the internal protocols of an obsolete fax machine, building custom hardware to interface with them, and packaging the whole lot to appear as a standard printer to Windows is not worth the effort. I'm sure there are devices (either new or obsolete) that are closer to his needs and available ready-made. I used to have an early-90s A4 portable thermal printer intended for mobile sales folk to print invoices etc - it ran off 3 D cells cleverly housed inside the print roller. That would do nicely, and maybe there's still one lurking on eBay. Or how about dot-matrix - no ink jets to dry out, and they were ubiquitous in the past so should be easily available.

(As an aside, if you were doing this on a Mac there'd be no need for a special printer driver. There's an obscure facility on that platform to designate a shell script as a printer; the system write a PDF file to a temp location and then calls your script with the path as an argument. I used this at uni to seamlessly print onto our Computer Science department printers which weren't exposed in any standard way; my script converted to PostScript, scp-ed to a shared Unix server, then used ssh to call our in-house printing commands.)

Pete

 

[nigelmercier]

... I used to have an early-90s A4 portable thermal printer intended for mobile sales folk to print invoices etc - it ran off 3 D cells cleverly housed inside the print roller...

Still available, but look at the price: http://www.brother.co.uk/g3.cfm/s_page/215760/s_level/16860/s_product/PJ663Z1

 

[prv]

Still available, but look at the price: http://www.brother.co.uk/g3.cfm/s_page/215760/s_level/16860/s_product/PJ663Z1

Mine was ten quid at a car boot sale (this was before eBay had really taken off).

Pete

 

[vas]

Nigel,

for this exact reason I scrapped all my inkjets and have bought the smallest cheapest HP b&w laserjet (1000series) for less than 100euro a piece.
Once the refit is complete, one of them goes to the boat, small enough to run off an inverter (not sure about the 100W ones you bought recently though...)

V.

 

[misterg]

The general plan is as follows:

Remove printing mechanism from thermal paper fax machine, adapt for 12V if necessary.
Inject signals into print mechanism to drive printer using USB microcontroller board.
Feed USB with scanned line-by-line data from page to be printed.
...
Thoughts?

Send a fax from Windows(R) to the machine ??

 

[ShinyShoe]

First place I'd be looking would be a Windows Modem connected to the Fax and sending a fax using the windows fax print driver. The only tricky bit would be making sure the fax picked up the call...

A USB Fax Modem will cost about £8.

 

[nigelmercier]

First place I'd be looking would be a Windows Modem connected to the Fax and sending a fax using the windows fax print driver. The only tricky bit would be making sure the fax picked up the call...

That's what the guy in my linked video does, a bit messy. There must be a way to remove the intermediate modems.

Another problem is that Windows 7 Home doesn't have fax capabilities. [Later] Yes it does, it was Vista Home that didn't.

 

[2nd_apprentice]

Thought of this myself but it's quite tricky. In the end I bought a Pentax PocketJet II for £30, no brainer!
Works with Win 3.1 to XP (haven't tried anything more recent) and Linux. Uses regular fax paper. Very decent print quality too and certainly much much better than the Phillips fax I had been playing around with before. Parallel port however. Brother still make them but as you said bit pricey indeed.

 

[fergie_mac66]

linux,cups,foomatic?

I dont know a great deal but from the very little i know about linux.Perhaps it would be simpler under linux using cups /foomatic.Any linux/unix experts out there to comment ?

 

[ShinyShoe]

That's what the guy in my linked video does, a bit messy. There must be a way to remove the intermediate modems.

Another problem is that Windows 7 Home doesn't have fax capabilities.

Actually I didn't think it was that clumsy! Clearly his laptop was a bit of a beast but the link to the fax looked like it was a single off the shelf cable.

Are you sure Win 7 Home doesn't have fax:

Windows 7
In Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Programs and Features.
NOTE In Classic view, double-click Programs and Features.

Click Turn Windows features on or off.
In the Windows Features dialog box, under Print and Document Services, select the Windows Fax and Scan check box.
Click OK.

While Windows says to send a fax you go to the Fax service and send it from there - in my experience (Win XP would have been the last version I think) the fax driver installs as a printer so you can print from any windows application and pick it as a printer.

Only clunkyness I saw was needing to tell the fax to answer.

 

[ShinyShoe]

I dont know a great deal but from the very little i know about linux.Perhaps it would be simpler under linux using cups /foomatic.Any linux/unix experts out there to comment ?

Only advantage I can see is you might be able to butcher something already out there.

Or you are back to using the modem route to do it. If you do that beware that many winmodems don't work in linux.

 

[nigelmercier]

Are you sure Win 7 Home doesn't have fax ...

Apologies, it was Vista Home that didn't. I have Professional at home, so didn't realise.

So that makes it easier, just have an interface that tells Windows it's a fax modem. No need for a driver after all.

 

[GrahamM376]

Another problem is that Windows 7 Home doesn't have fax capabilities. [Later] Yes it does, it was Vista Home that didn't.

According to Microsoft site, all Windows 7 versions have Fax & Scan see - http://winsupersite.com/article/windows-7/windows-7-product-editions-a-comparison-128684

My Windows 7 Home Premium has it - Control panel, Programs & Features, on left hand side "Turn Windows Features On/Off" Open "Print & Document Services" and dropdown should have a tick box for Windows Fax & Scan.