Dot matrix receipt printers compatibility

Question

I'm developing something and I need to work with a raspberry pi 4, the project involves the need of a dot matrix receipt printer.

What I have on hand is an Epson TM-U220 but they don't have drivers for ARM processors, tried making it work with random drivers made by others such as epsonsimplecups but no luck, I got the printer detected by rpi4 using CUPS but when I print something it's just printing random characters.

Can someone recommend a printer that just works with the rpi4? Or if you have any suggestions I can try to make this work it would also be very welcome.

Answer 1

If you're looking for something similar I ended up using RAW print queue to print to the printer. And sending commands to the printer like echo "Hello World" >> /dev/usb/lp0, see this blog for more info https://mike42.me/blog/2015-03-getting-a-usb-receipt-printer-working-on-linux

I won't mark this as the answer since I was really looking for something that has full support on ARM architecture.

Answer 2

I downloaded the "TM Series Printer Driver for Linux Version 3.0.0 (for Impact Receipt: TM-U220)" from the "TM Series Printer Driver for Linux" here:

https://download.epson-biz.com/modules/pos/index.php?page=single_soft&cid=6408&scat=32&pcat=3

From the directory after unzipping tmx-cups-src-ImpactReceipt-3.0.0.0.tar.gz run:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake
sudo ./build.sh
sudo ./install.sh

Choose the "EPSON TM Impact Receipt (en, en) " when installing. I used default option of Media Size "Roll paper 76 x 200 mm" and "Paper Reduction" as "None" and "Buzzer/ Cash Drawer" as "Not used" and "Paper Cut" as "No cut"