> Has anyone on the list worked through this before?

Yes but it was long long ago and my memory grows weak. One
thing that I do recall is that if you are using a micro that has ports
that can be configured as an external memory bus at reset, don't
forget to consider a watchdog situation. This lesson was learnt at a
product demo in front of the company top brass - thermal printer
with rubber roller can make much smoke.

> Am I walking into a deep hole here?

I was thinking mountains and mole hills. As long as you are within
the pull-in torque range of the stepper motor, you don't need to
worry about acceleration/deceleration - a step is a step.
It would suprise me if the printer manufacturer expects you to run
outside the pull-in range.

It is usual for a thermal printer to slow down when printing large
solid areas. There's not much you can do about thermal delays.
I don't remember the actual numbers, but I do recall having the
discussion about looking ahead. In the case of text, there isn't
much to be gained as each dotline has a similar number of dots
and dot/gap ratio. If you are driving lots of dots for graphics, then
the thermal constraints slow the printing down anyway, so you
have little to gain from looking ahead.


Steve.

======================================================
Steve Baldwin                Electronic Product Design
TLA Microsystems Ltd         Microcontroller Specialists
PO Box 15-680, New Lynn      http://www.tla.co.nz
Auckland, New Zealand        ph  +64 9 820-2221
email: steveb@tla.co.nz      fax +64 9 820-1929
======================================================

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads