Raspberry Pi BT-100 printer program v0.1 (May 2013)
Usage: bt100-tlc [options] SIGNAL GPIO
-h print help
-D turn debug on OUT_LEFT: 17
-B bidirectional print OUT_RIGHT: 27
-t file input text file OUT_PAPER 25
-g file input bitmap file OUT_DOT: 18
-p n move paper by n microlines IN_PAPER: 24
-f file alternative font file IN_HOME: 22
-i initialize GPIO subsystem only IN_DOTS: 4
-F print chargen font on TESLA BT-100 IN_SYNC: 23
-L print logo (480×72 pixels) on TESLA BT-100
-e examine printer (head right, move maper, head left)
Only PSF2 fonts 6×12 pixels supported actually.
Text printing: 80 characters/row – 60 rows/page.
Graphical printing: only B/W bitmaps supported actually.
Default font is: Terminus ver. 4.38 ISO 8859-2 6×12 pixels.
Use with sudo nice –20 for better signal timing from BT-100.
Do not run any other CPU consumpting processes when printing on BT-100.
Raspberry Pi GPIO to TESLA BT-100 el. interface schematics. (Click to enlarge the image below.)
At the top of the schema are connections to BT-100
At the middle of the schema are conections to RasPi GPIO
OUT singals from BT-100 are +5V TTL logic, so at least simple level dividers made with resistors are needed to convert leves to 3.3V Raspberry PI GPIO logic. They are at right part of the schematics.
IN signals on the BT-100 are +5V TTL logic too, so simple transistor switches are used to ground +5V pull-upped input pins of BT-100. They are at the left part of the schematics.
| Signal | Meaning |
| IN 1 | Head’s motor RIGHT |
| IN 2 | GND |
| IN 4 | Head’s motor LEFT |
| IN 5 | Head pulse (DOT) |
| IN 6 | Paper’s motor |
| OUT 1 | Head is HOME |
| OUT 2 | GND |
| OUT 3 | Paper move sensor |
| OUT 6 | Print sync sensor |
| OUT 7 | Dot print sensor |
Source: Raspberry Pi – TESLA BT-100 printer program using GPIO
