Saturday, November 03, 2007

DK bongos triggering the printer


The Donkey Konga Bongos are triggering the dot matrix printer. Kira the cat seems to find the outcome entertaining.

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSRyhGUb3ks

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have commented before about the printer control work you have done with Arduino. Do you know of any tutorials on how to interface printers with Arduinos? I use SuperCollider mostly, but there is a SMS control that is in use to connect SuperCollider with Arduino. Anyway, I am just wondering if there is any information out there that someone new to Physical computing would be able to access that gives some detail into how one would connect printers to Arduino.

Thanks,
Carl

Sebastian Tomczak said...

Carl,
I have added a bit of information regarding your question here:

http://little-scale.blogspot.com/2007/11/arduino-printer-how.html


Cheers,
sebastian tomczak

Anonymous said...

Hey Sebastian,

I am currently doing a project using dot matrix printers (epson fx-1170). We are trying to print from a mac operating system (OS X 10.4), we cant seem to find drivers for the printer and are quite confused about CUPS. I noticed in your video you had a mac hooked to the printer, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Please look at our blog for further details.

Thanks,

Houman

Sebastian Tomczak said...

Hi Houman,
So the way I connected the printer was I used a BAS120 module connected to an Arduino. Then I had a Max/MSP patch running on the Mac. This Max/MSP patch had a serial port open connected to the Arduino (the Arduino has an FTDI chip in it that allows for a USB serial connection). Then Max/MSP could send data to the Arduino, which then passes the data in turn directly to the printer. It's a very simple setup but it might seem a little strange to you, I don't know. It just suited my needs at the time :)

www.muebles-en-alcorcon.com said...

The chap is definitely just, and there is no doubt.