ESP8266 Powers This ESC/POS Thermal Printer

You probably interact with thermal printers on a regular basis, receiving receipts from them when you go to a store or restaurant. As sort of the unsung heroes of figuring out just how much your sandwich cost – and if you did indeed order mushrooms – you might not give them much thought. If you’d like to switch things up and generate your own custom receipts, then check out this ESP8266 ESC/POS Smart Thermal Printer from Davide Gironi.

Gironi's device mounts an ESC/POS thermal printer itself on a solid block of wood, with a single interface button and pulsing lighting underneath. As shown in the video below, it can spit out a “receipt” at certain times, or be triggered by the button. The finished wooden housing makes a nice contrast to the printer on top and technology inside, which you can see when turned over.

On the bottom, the wood is strategically hollowed out to hold LED strip lighting, as well as an ESP8266 in an ESP-12 package. There is also a DC-DC converter to properly power everything. The system can connect to a WiFi network upon startup, and if that doesn’t work it goes into AP mode. Text is pulled from a RESTful API or an internal database, while settings are accessible via a generated webpage, allowing you to configure custom headers and footer, what to print, and when to pop out a receipt.