Hook Arduino up with thermal printer and power both externally

Question

Disclaimer: I have no connection to adafruit.

A friend and me want to build a little project. We want to connect an arduino to a thermal printer and then print out little fortune-cookie like messages, when a button is pressed. The whole setup should not be stationary and thus we need external, mobile power like batteries.

Since this is our first time using an arduino as well as a thermal printer and we have no clue about electronics, I am asking for help to set everything up without frying the arduino or the thermal printer.

We are using a standart arduino uno rev3 and the Adafruit Tiny Thermal Reciept Printer.

First question: Setting up the power supplies

So the idea was to power the arduino via a 9v battery pack to it's 2.1mm DC port. I think this should work, right?

What I am confused about is the Adafruit Tiny printer. It says it takes 5-9 V, 1.5-2A. Can I just hook up a 9V battery packand clip the caples to the printer? Or what setup do I need so that the printer will recieve enough amperes when printing?

And how would I connect both tools to a single ( larger ?) battery pack? So that we can turn the power off easily?

Second question: Finding a good button compatible with an arduino and setting it up in the project.

So we have a gerneal idea of how things should work. Somehow we need to connect the button to the arduino which then can register a click via one of it's pins. This click I can then register with my code and from there on things get easy for me. But getting to this point is hard for us.

We don't know which buttons will work and neither how to connect it to the right pin. Which pin should we adress? Digital? Analog? Does the button need an external power supply as well? Since otherwise the arduino would not register a change of current on a pin, right? Or do we need to connect the button to the whole circuit?

I do a lot of high language engineering and have no real idea about circuits and electronics and my friend is more of a craftsmen so we really appreciate your ideas, setups and help in general!

I am not sure if this is too much to ask but a sketch of the whole setup with a single power source and button would be awesome! Thanks. Really!

Answer 1

Setting up the power supplies

As Gerben already stated in the comments, a 9V block battery isn't capable of supplying enough current for the thermal printer, so you cannot simply use one of them (these are meant for low power applications, like a smoke alarm). There are many different types of batteries, that you can use for this. Probably some kind of LiPo or LiIon pack would be suitable. (I'm sure you can find information about pros and cons of different battery types on the web). But the easiest way for you would be an USB power bank, that can supply at least 2.5A. A power bank incorporates mostly a LiIon pack and also already the mandatory smart charging electronics (to charge and discharge correctly and also to monitor the charge level), and - every important - a 5V voltage regulator. You can supply the 5V from the USB power bank directly to the Arduino and thermal printer in parallel. If you need to switch them on and off together (and the power bank doesn't already incorporate some kind of switch), you can use a simple switch between the positive lead from the power banks USB port and the positive leads for Arduino and printer.

Finding a good button compatible with an arduino

Every normal button is compatible with Arduino. A button is nothing more as a switch, that automatically opens again, if you are not pressing it. Just two pieces of conductive material, that get's pressed together, if you press the button. A normal button has 2 pins (you might see more pins on the button, but mostly some of these are electrically connected together, so that you effectively have only 2 pins). Connect one pin to ground and the other to a digital input pin of the Arduino. Then in your sketch use pinMode(pin_number, INPUT_PULLUP); in your setup() function. This will enable the Arduinos internal pullup resistor, which pulls the pin to HIGH, if the button isn't pressed. If you press the button, the pin will be pulled to LOW. Keep this inverted logic in mind (LOW means pressed, HIGH not pressed).

There are also many button examples for Arduino on the web, since using a button is the second thing to learn with Arduinos (after blinking an LED). Button example code via digitalRead() is also incorporated into the Arduino IDE (look for examples in the menu).

a sketch of the whole setup

Even, if someone wanted to write the code for you (and this is not a free coding service, so you cannot expect someone to simply do it), you haven't given us enough information, what behavior you want. But please don't add that here, to get this free code. What you are asking (single power source and button) is not difficult. Surely - currently you don't know much about this stuff, but it's not rocket science and there are many many Arduino tutorials on the web to help you. About the code for the thermal printer: Adafruit always provides dedicated guides for the devices they sell. There you can find a description, how the device works and is connected and used. They also provide example code and in most cases complete Arduino libraries, that hide most of the complexity of a task.

You should start by connection the Arduino to the power bank. Then you should go on and get the button going (you can write a sketch to turn the onboard LED on and off with it to learn how it works). Then you can connect the printer. Try adafruits example code. If it works, you can extend your sketch with the printers code.

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Note: Some power banks turn of the power completely, if only a small current is flowing out of if. With such a power bank your Arduino might turn of as the power bank cuts the power. It normally does not draw enough current for the power bank. I think this shouldn't happen, when the printer is connected, but this depends on the current, that it draws (considering the minimal current, that it draws while idling), and the current, that is the minimal limit for your specific power bank.