Build an Instant Camera with a Receipt Printer and Raspberry Pi

Looking for a weekend project and have some hardware and software skills? Try building yourself an instant camera using Rapsberry Pi and a thermal receipt printer.

Things you’ll need include a Raspberry Pi with a camera module, a microSD card, a thermal receipt printer, thermal receipt paper rolls, a battery holder and on/off switch, and a custom camera enclosure.

After putting all the pieces together and getting the components to talk to one another, you’ll need to install software that handles the shutter button and transfers photos captured by the camera over to the receipt printer.

The result is a simple camera that snaps a photo when a shutter button is pressed, then instantly transfers the photo to the receipt printer, which spits out the image as a lo-fi receipt print. Unlike other instant photography setups out there, each print with this camera costs pennies.

Here’s a downloadable/printable PDF with the step-by-step instructions, which can also be found on this Adafruit page:

(via Adafruit via Lifehacker)