A4PaperDispenser

Project A4PaperDispenser
Dispenses a sheet of A4 paper
Status	Completed
Contact	bertrik, Sebastius
Last Update	2018-11-10

What is it

This thing is basically a button that dispenses one sheet of A4 paper when pressed. You can press it multiple times to get more sheets. The button is mounted near the laser printer.

The hardware consists of a former elevator button (1st floor) and an ESP8266 (Wemos D1 mini) with the button (active low) on pin D1. The software can be found on its github page.

To compile and upload it, install platformio and run the following command

 pio run -t upload

or install the ESP8266 toolchain in the Arduino IDE and open the .ino file. There is some debug output on the serial port at 115200 bps.

See also https://hacking-printers.net/wiki/index.php/Port_9100_printing

Future ideas

• Revspace water mark?
• Date/time header?

See also http://www.frankworsley.com/blog/2011/1/23/printing-directly-to-a-network-printer

graph paper

How about a button that dispenses graph paper (dutch: 'ruitjespapier')?

The printer should be able to understand postscript, basically a programming language for printers to render graphics. Jason pratt wrote graphpaper for producing graph paper, written in postscript.

How to send postscript to a printer: encapsulate it in PJL (printer job language), see http://danieru.com/2013/06/06/what-is-port-9100-how-to-print-to-it/#comment-118801

See here for a bunch of postscript files http://www.trueelena.org/computers/scripts/graph_paper_in_postscript.html

Experimental branch, see https://github.com/bertrik/paperplease/tree/postscript