Very cool. I made a Pi thermal printer photobooth almost exactly two years ago that worked on the same principle, although I wasn't crazy enough to try and cram it into a Polaroid shell. What seemed like a simple exercise turned into more research than what I thought I had tolerance for on a side project. IIRC from my experience there were two big problems: 1. versions matter when it comes to printer drivers, OS, and your hardware combo, and 2. the data buffer on thermal printers is not big enough for what you want to do (which is why it spits out random chars and symbols instead of your photo). The printer I was using had a buffer pin but ultimately I was short on time and patience so I opted instead to use imagemagick to convert and compress the photo before sending it to the printer. I used the booth for my nephew's birthday party and it survived real world use pretty well. You got a nice physical souvenir (I also added a "Happy Birthday" + date overlay to each image) and I set up a local server on the Pi that let people browse the digital versions of all the photos with a framework called Sigal. Very fun hardware project and I intended to publish a writeup outlining all the sharp corners I navigated but never got around to it.
Thermal Paper Polaroid
11–20 of 69 posts
Re: Thermal Paper Polaroid
#12I kinda like the concept, too. Beyond just the whole execution, which is really well done. Thermal paper disappears over time. So this in turn means these photos are somewhat ephemeral. I haven't lived long enough to know whether I prefer photos or pure memory, but I have to assume there's something redeeming about relying solely on your memory.
But I also love that my children one day will be able to see perfectly accurate photos of myself in my 20s, whereas photos of my parents + their parents have considerable wear.
Anyway, love this post. Thanks for sharing!
Re: Thermal Paper Polaroid
#13Just a friendly reminder that most common types of thermal paper contain BPA or BPS. You really should be avoiding these endocrine disruptors when possible.
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/green-chemistry/bpa-thermal-pape...
Re: Thermal Paper Polaroid
#14He says in the video you can’t buy one but I recently bought a Polaroid camera as a gift at Urban Outfitters for $100, plus the expensive film ($30 for 8 shots) that goes with it. Is this different in some way?
Re: Thermal Paper Polaroid
#15I built pretty much exactly the same thing, but without the polaroid camera shell, but did not get around to writing about it. A couple suggestions:
1) Apply exposure compensation and dithering to the image. this allows a better fidelity output. Example: [https://i.imgur.com/eCLRs8Q.jpg] you'll have to play around with the exposure depending on the camera you're using.
2) the 3" paper printer would make for a much better output than the 2" one, simple because the former is closer to an actual photo size.
Re: Thermal Paper Polaroid
#16Just a friendly reminder that most common types of thermal paper contain BPA or BPS. You really should be avoiding these endocrine disruptors when possible. https://www.pca.state.mn.us/green-chemistry/bpa-thermal-pape...
[deleted]
Re: Thermal Paper Polaroid
#17Makes for a much more in-depth and capable version of the Game Boy Camera + Printer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Camera an object of gadget lust for me when I was growing up
[deleted]
Re: Thermal Paper Polaroid
#18He says in the video you can’t buy one but I recently bought a Polaroid camera as a gift at Urban Outfitters for $100, plus the expensive film ($30 for 8 shots) that goes with it. Is this different in some way?
Polaroid themselves stopped making the cameras and film. "Polaroid Originals" is a Dutch company that bought Polaroid's instant camera brand and IP. They were previously trying to re-create Polaroid instant film on their own, I think (or they'd bought one of Polaroid's film factories, or something?)
Anyhow, I think they're the ones producing film now, refurbishing old Polaroid cameras, and also selling their own model.
Re: Thermal Paper Polaroid
#19Just a friendly reminder that most common types of thermal paper contain BPA or BPS. You really should be avoiding these endocrine disruptors when possible. https://www.pca.state.mn.us/green-chemistry/bpa-thermal-pape...
Hi! I'm new here!