Developer Sam Hillier has created a great wireless solution for his USB label printer using our favorite SBC, the Raspberry Pi. His USB label printer is now compatible with Apple’s wireless printing service Air-Print with this setup.
Some of the best Raspberry Pi projects we’ve come across this year feature the latest boards, including the Raspberry Pi Pico or, in this case, the Raspberry Pi 2 Zero W. That said, a regular Pi Zero W would work for this project as it’s not very resource-intensive.
Hillier connected the Pi Zero 2 W to his USB printer. The Raspberry Pi can recognize the printer using a driver from Rollo. Instead of communicating with the printer, the Air-Print software communicates wirelessly with the Pi.
The Pi Zero 2 W is running Raspberry Pi OS along with an application called CUPS, allowing the printer to be accessed by almost any device using WiFi. In addition, we have a guide on creating your own Raspberry Pi print server if you’d like to take a closer look at the setup and configuration process.
In the meantime, check out the original thread shared to Reddit by Sam Hillier and check out the wireless label printer project in action.
