Going mobile with a printer?

[Brett_Tabke]

Any printers work with Palms in any way? Use the smartcard slots? Mabay use the sync cradle? (eg: something without a laptop and luggable printer).

I've found one, but it is a thermal 40 col battery job. (only prints 100 recipts before you need new batteries):
[idwarehouse.com...]

[mivox]

I know you can get irDA receivers for most printers that plug into the parallel port, and can "talk" to the Palm, but it requires software on the Palm and hardware on the printer.

I haven't seen a truly usable "portable" printer yet... but maybe if you found a small printer (maybe one of those "snapshot" printers they're making for digital cameras?) and combined it with an irDA add-on package, you'd have a pretty compact printing solution...

You have a color Palm right? Get a plug-in digital camera for the PDA while you're at it, and you could be Mr. Do-it-Yourself Digi-Polaroid!

[lazerzubb]

You can print via bluetooth no problem, there is all kinds of adapters, there is already printers on the market which have Bluetooth inbuilt, and then you only need a bluetooth card for your palm (i know $$$).

[Brett_Tabke]

That was my next option I guess. If I went that route, I'd need a mobile printer too - something that runs off car battery.

[mivox]

Small inverter. Cig. lighter plug on the input, three prong outlet for the output. They're relatively inexpensive, if your printer runs under 400W power draw...

[ggrot]

>> Small inverter. Cig. lighter plug on the input, three prong outlet for the output. They're relatively inexpensive, if your printer runs under 400W power draw...

Maybe not such an issue for a printer, but be sure to get something with some surge protection schema on this. Car power supplies are quite prone to spikes from what I hear.

[mivox]

An inverter is it's own surge supressor. It takes DC electricity (from a battery) and converts it to clean, regulated AC power...

Those fancy UPS boxes for "surge protecting" entire networks = an inverter hooked up to a backup power battery. In the case of the cig. lighter inverters I'm talking about, your car would just be providing the backup power battery.

Assuming you're not using it on a super high-end laser printer (and since we're talking portable here, I'd assume you're not), a small modified sine wave inverter *should* work just fine.