Is it possible to print to a thermal printer from a Gadgeteer board via USB? Specifically, will be working with a Brother QL-700.
welcome to the forum.
Interfacing printers requires knowledge of the way to control the device. A quick search of the internet hasn’t shown me anyone who has deconstructed this for the QL range of printers. If you can find anyone else interfacing one with a microcontroller, you can be pretty sure there’s a way to move that to a netmf device (one that has USB Host feature) but the bit that’s missing is any evidence that it’s been done before.
Here is someone who created a Linux driver that works with the QL-700 : GitHub - sudomesh/ql570: Linux program for thermal sticker printing using the Brother QL-570 and QL-700 printers. (only 309 lines of code)
Whether you can build on that success is unclear, but at least you have some documentation of the protocol there. If you don’t have that, then you have a potentially impractical mountain to climb, but it seems that someone has already figured at least this part out for you.
Another question you might consider asking the forum is : which label printers have successfully been interfaced to NETMF? (unless, of course, you are forced to use the QL-700 due to some design consideration in your project).
Thank you for the replies! Due to the 8-hour delay imposed on new forum posters, I could not respond in a more timely fashion.
@ mcalsyn - I am stuck with the QL-700 for now, and will ask the general question to the forum - now!
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I found this: GitHub - yukimizake/ThermalDotNet: .Net (Mono-compatible) lightweight library for ESC POS thermal printers (like the Sparkfun's Thermal Printer COM-10438) and using the information found by @ mcalsyn will work to code something while awaiting a response from Brother development support.
Thanks again and will post usable insights.
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