[ianbicking]

I have wanted to do experiments with a receipt printer hooked up to a Raspberry Pi, with some simple controls... but every time I look up the cost of the printer I balk. It's probably not fair, but I guess in my head it feels like they should be cheaper. Or at least the cost then makes me question how much time I'm really ready to put into stuff like debugging the printer drivers and putting together a case, etc etc.

The thing I actually want to play with is probably some kind of board game that incorporates the printer... ideally with bar/QR codes so the computer can print out money, IOUs, instructions, etc., and have this computer mediation that still gives people physical items to manipulate.

[aschmelyun]

While not an outright solution to the fact that they _are_ expensive, if you don't care about them being second hand or a little older you can score a pretty good deal on sites like eBay.

For instance, TM-T88V printers can do more but cost around 3x as much as the one I got, a TM-T88IV which is the older version. Not perfect, but beats the like $200 price tag brand new.

[7839284023]

I recently bought a thermal ESC/POS printer for 25 Euros on Aliexpress but I saw the sames ones for 30 Euro on Amazon.

I connected it to my linux server and without any drivers I can print with e.g.: `echo "Hello World!" >> /dev/usb/lp0`.

It also supports bar/QR codes.

[leobg]

You have a make/model/link?

[derwiki]

You can pick up a Rongta for $75 brand new