Published December 27, 2022 © GPL3+

Mini Serial TTL Thermal Printer Token Machine

Managing a queue becomes much more difficult when the time taken to serve cannot be predetermined due to various reasons.

IntermediateProtip5 hours588

Mini Serial TTL Thermal Printer Token Machine

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Arduino UNO

Seeed Studio Embedded Thermal Printer

DIYables Jumper Wires

DIYables USB Cable 2.0 Type A/B for Arduino Uno

DIYables Breadboard

Story

Managing a queue becomes much more difficult when the time taken to serve cannot be predetermined due to various reasons. The least that the service seekers expect is to be served on a First Come First Serve basis. To ensure this one of the methods that were traditionally followed was to hand over recycled tokens to the patients walking in and make them meet the concerned consultant upon being called. This manual process is very tedious and prone to human errors, suspicion of tampering, and communication problems among hospital staff. Such problems made it necessary to have an automatic Token Management System in place.

The most important part of this project is as follows.

The power supply
Thermal printer (Download Datasheet)
RTC DS1307
SWITCH

Hardware Requirements:

Arduino UNO
Thermal Printer
Small Bread Board
Connectors
RTC DS1307
12v, 2AMP Power adapter
Variety of connectors

External Power Supply:

Transformer 12-0-12, 2amp – 1no
1N4007 bridge diode – 4nos
1000uF capacitor, 40v – 1no
LM7805 Voltage regulator - 1no
LM7805 Voltage regulator - 1no
5mm RED LED - 1no
1K ohm resistor - 1no

Software Requirements:

Arduino IDE (You can download it from HERE).
Printer Adafruit library (Download link HERE).
Arduino RTC Library (Download it from HERE).
Wire Library (Inbuilt within the IDE)
Software Serial Library (Inbuilt within the IDE)

Circuit diagram: Follow the circuit diagram below the table and make the connection correctly.

you can read more here.

Connection details:

DS1307 RTC module: Please visit this article to know how to interface the DS1307 RTC module with Arduino UNO. As we know the RTC is powered with a built-in button cell which helps to track the real-time. Please refer to the below table or you can follow the tutorial on how to interface RTC.

Thermal Printer: Please visit this article to know how to interface the Thermal printer with Arduino UNO. As we know the printer works on serial communication which makes use of Tx and Rx for communication. Please refer to the below table or you can follow the tutorial on how to interface Thermal Printer.

Switch: The switch is connected to the Arduino UNO pin number A0. And the pin default state of A0 is HIGH through the resistor.

// Date and time functions using a DS1307 RTC connected via I2C and Wire lib
#include <Wire.h>
#include "RTClib.h"
RTC_DS1307 rtc;
char daysOfTheWeek[7][10] = {"SUNDAY", "MONDAY", "TUESDAY", "WEDNESDAY", "THURSDAY", "FRIDAY", "SATURDAY"};
int HOUR=0,MINUT=0,SECOND=0;//Variable to store current time 
void setup(){
   Serial.begin(9600);
   Serial.println("       WELCOME TO    ");
   Serial.println("     RTC SERIAL TEST ");
  if (! rtc.begin()) {
    Serial.println("Couldn't find RTC");
    while (1);
  }

  if (! rtc.isrunning()) {
    Serial.println("RTC is NOT running!");
    // following line sets the RTC to the date & time this sketch was compiled
     rtc.adjust(DateTime(F(__DATE__), F(__TIME__)));
    // This line sets the RTC with an explicit date & time, for example to set
    // January 21, 2014 at 3am you would call:
    // rtc.adjust(DateTime(2018, 4, 27, 23, 40, 0));
  }
}

void loop () {
    //Serial.print(daysOfTheWeek[now.dayOfTheWeek()]);
 DateTime now = rtc.now();
 Serial.print(now.day());
 Serial.print("/");
 Serial.print(now.month());
 Serial.print("/");
 Serial.print(now.year()); 
 Serial.print(" ");
 Serial.print(daysOfTheWeek[now.dayOfTheWeek()]); 
 Serial.print(" "); 
 Serial.print(HOUR=now.hour()); 
 Serial.print(":");
 Serial.print(MINUT=now.minute());
 Serial.print(":");
 Serial.print(SECOND=now.second());
 Serial.print(" ");
 if(HOUR < 12){                  // Adding the AM/PM sufffix
    Serial.print("AM");
    }
   else{
    Serial.print("PM");
   }
 delay(1000);
 Serial.println();
}

#include "Adafruit_Thermal.h"
#include "SoftwareSerial.h"


#define TX_PIN 6 // Arduino transmit  YELLOW WIRE  labeled RX on printer
#define RX_PIN 5 // Arduino receive   GREEN WIRE   labeled TX on printer

SoftwareSerial mySerial(RX_PIN, TX_PIN); // Declare SoftwareSerial obj first
Adafruit_Thermal printer(&mySerial);     // Pass addr to printer constructor
void setup() {
  mySerial.begin(9600);  // Initialize SoftwareSerial
  printer.begin();        // Init printer (same regardless of serial type)
  printer.justify('L');
  printer.println("***  MY ENGINEERING STUFFS  ***\n");
  printer.justify('C');
  printer.setSize('L');        // Set type size, accepts 'S', 'M', 'L'
  printer.println("TOKEN NUMBER");
  printer.boldOn();
  printer.setSize('L');
  printer.println("001\n");
  printer.boldOff();
  printer.justify('C');
  printer.setSize('S');
  printer.println("***  HAVE A NICE DAY  ***");
  printer.justify('C');
  printer.print("DATE:24/01/2018\t");
  printer.println("TIME: 00:07");
  printer.println("TODAY: WEDNESDAY");   
  printer.write(10);
  printer.write(10);
  printer.write(10);
}

void loop() {
}

#include "Adafruit_Thermal.h"
#include "SoftwareSerial.h"
#include <Wire.h>
#include "RTClib.h"
RTC_DS1307 rtc;
char daysOfTheWeek[7][10] = {"SUNDAY", "MONDAY", "TUESDAY", "WEDNESDAY", "THURSDAY", "FRIDAY", "SATURDAY"};
int HOUR=0,MINUT=0,SECOND=0;//Variable to store current time 

#define TX_PIN 6 // Arduino transmit  YELLOW WIRE  labeled RX on printer
#define RX_PIN 5 // Arduino receive   GREEN WIRE   labeled TX on printer

const int buttonPin = A0;     // the number of the pushbutton pin
int buttonState = 0;
int count =0;

String datevalue = "", timevalue = "", counter = "";

SoftwareSerial mySerial(RX_PIN, TX_PIN); // Declare SoftwareSerial obj first
Adafruit_Thermal printer(&mySerial);     // Pass addr to printer constructor

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  mySerial.begin(9600);  // Initialize SoftwareSerial
  pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
  if (! rtc.begin()) {
    Serial.println("Couldn't find RTC");
    while (1);
  }
  if (! rtc.isrunning()) {
    Serial.println("RTC is NOT running!");
    // following line sets the RTC to the date & time this sketch was compiled
     rtc.adjust(DateTime(F(__DATE__), F(__TIME__)));
    // This line sets the RTC with an explicit date & time, for example to set
    // January 21, 2014 at 3am you would call:
    // rtc.adjust(DateTime(2018, 4, 27, 23, 40, 0));
  }
  printer.begin();        // Init printer (same regardless of serial type)
}

void loop() {
 buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin1);
 if (buttonState == HIGH) {
    DateTime now = rtc.now();
    datevalue = "DATE:"+String(now.day())+'/'+String(now.month())+'/'+String(now.year())+"\t";
    timevalue = "TIME:"+String(now.hour())+':'+String(now.minute())+':'+String(now.second());
    //Serial.print(datevalue);
    //Serial.println(timevalue);
    count++;
    if(count < 10){
      counter = "00"+String(count);
    }else if(count < 100){
      counter = "0"+String(count);
    }else{
      counter = String(count);
    }
    //Serial.println(counter);
    printer.justify('L');
    printer.println("***  MY ENGINEERING STUFFS  ***\n");
    printer.justify('C');
    printer.setSize('L');        // Set type size, accepts 'S', 'M', 'L'
    printer.println("TOKEN NUMBER\n");
    printer.boldOn();
    printer.setSize('L');
    printer.println(counter+"\n");
    printer.boldOff();
    printer.justify('C');
    printer.setSize('S');
    printer.println("***  HAVE A NICE DAY  ***");
    printer.justify('C');
    printer.print(datevalue);
    printer.println(timevalue);
    printer.println("TODAY: "+String(daysOfTheWeek[now.dayOfTheWeek()]));   
    printer.write(10);
    printer.write(10);
    printer.write(10);
    delay(1000);
    } else;
}