Printing while tent-camping

My life is taking a radical new direction; soon will be semi-permanently a "grey nomad'. Not in a RV though; just car and tent.

Will be leaving my apartment, and want only to keep what will fit in the car. This is radical; heaps of gear and furniture has already gone. Advertising things, getting rid of it day by day.

Currently reduced to two laptops and one desktop system. The latter includes a Brother HL2040 laser printer and UPS. Decided to give it to the Lion's Club. They give computers to poor people, both in Australia and third-world countries.

But, still want to be able to print sometimes. There are places to go, such as OfficeWorks, that offer low cost printing. But, still, would be nice to have my own printer.

There are really tiny A4 thermal printers, and cheap, such as this one at Kmart; however, they require thermal paper, that fades. One requirement is that I will be doing online booking at some campsites that require the booking confirmation to be left on the car dashboard so the park ranger can see it. A printout on thermal paper, in sunlight, will very quickly turn completely black. Even out of the light, in a warm car, will quickly turn black. I read that even keeping the printout in a relatively cool house, it will only last 6 months.

There is another possibility, what is called a "thermal transfer" printer, that has a ribbon. These print onto normal paper, and the result is permanent. They are very small. So, have ordered one, a Phomemo P831:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/126202984702?var=427216256520

A good thing about this printer, is there is a Linux driver:

https://pages.phomemo.com/#/p831

There is one downside; the ribbon is only good for about 45 pages. I bought two spare ribbons, at AU$10 each; that works out to 22 cents (15 US cents) per page. That's OK. I don't do much printing, maybe 20 - 30 pages per year.

Another thing, while on the road; although I don't use optical media at all, not for the last several years, there may still be a need to test with EasyOS. Neither of my laptops have builtin cd/dvd drives, so ordered this:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/397758162064

So, in the tent will have a small collection of computer hardware, enough to continue with EasyOS development.  

Tags: nomad