Is an infrared printer still worth getting?

[BobVA]

(10-10-2021 03:26 PM)John Keith Wrote:  ...I am looking at a recent receipt from a grocery store and the print is nearly as crisp as an ink-jet or laser printer. The thermal paper is 3-1/8" (79mm) wide. I don't know what the power requirements for the printer module are so it may not be practical for portable use. At least it shows what a modern thermal printer is capable of. I recall some threads a few years ago where folks were adapting Casio thermal printer modules for calculator use but I don't know how their print quality compares....

The module I used needs 5 VDC and I'm sure it would work fine from a lithium pack. Seems to be similar to those used in mobile receipt printers. It takes a TTL level serial data stream.

The characters are fully formed and very sharp. It prints an entire horizontal row of dots at once so the only sound the is paper feed (which is very quiet). It's nowhere as fast as a supermarket receipt printer, but it's much faster than the HP82240. The '240 does seem to be more robust regarding placement - I think I may need better electrical or optical shielding of the IR module.

Example print out attached. I mapped the special HP characters to the closest ones in in the printer's native font, but a custom downloaded font would probably be a nicer solution.

So yep - a commercial product incorporating a modern thermal printer would be a nice thing to have. Tacking the HP IR format onto an existing commercial bluetooth mobile receipt printer (like car rental agents use) doesn't seem like it would be huge lift.