You can use a budget battery-powered Bluetooth thermal printer using standard 58mm paper roll. You can find number of options on Amazon. Variants of those devices been successfully used at matches, but test them before buying whole bunch:
If you have good experience with other printing apps, please let us know.
With these apps you will need to pair Android tablet with your Bluetooth printer using regular Bluetooth system settings on your tablet or use USB-OTG cable.
After launching “POS Printer” app select Bluetooth connection option, then select paired printer from the list of Bluetooth devices. Once that is done you can do a test printer to verify connection and printing works. At this point you are ready to print stage results.
On the Review Scores screen in the PractiScore Android app tap “Share” button at the top of the screen. It will offer several sharing options available on a given device. You can select “POS Printer Driver” to send scores to printer and if you want this to be a default action select “Always” from the options below. If everything works you’ll have your scores immediately printed. There is also an option in the match setting to enable automatic printing upon tapping “Approve” button.
For devices without Google Play Services you may need to install them in order to get POS Printer app to work. These instructions worked for Amazon Fire devices or you can also use the Fire Toolbox software to install them. In the future we might be able to get this to work without this additional step.
In case you accidentally selected a wrong option under the Share and made it default, note the app that is opened when you tap Share (you can also see it in the recent app lists), e.g. “Bluetooth”. Then go to the system settings:
For Fire devices – “Apps & Games”, “Manage All Applications”, “All”, find the app you selected as default, e.g. “Bluetooth Share”, scroll down to the “Launch by default” and tap the “Clear Defaults” button
For all Android devices – “Apps and Notifications”, “All Apps” and then select “Show system” from the menu on top right, then find the app you selected as default, e.g. “Bluetooth” and expand the “Advanced” section, tap “Open by default” and then “Clear defaults” button
I see and have used the option to print upon hitting the “Approve” button for the shooter’s copy. Is there a way to print all shooters in a squad’s detailed results all at once (for a stats backup copy) without going into each shooter on the squad and “sharing/printing” again?
No such option. The printing of scores verification is to share them with a shooter. The stats have access to the whole match and there are better options than printing receipts.
If you really want ALL verifications printed, you can print the scores verification report from the results section (though it has less details about penalties and DQs).
But if you need a backup of all shooters - just save/email the match export file *.psc. It has the whole match data and you can restore match from a saved file.
I bought a Bluetooth printer from Amazon. Came with 2 rechargeable batteries, USB charger and Micro USB Cable. There’s a small roll of paper to get you started.
Easy to pair. Code 0000.
I copied the 4 APK files required to run the Google Play store. Then found the POS PRINTER DRIVER ESC/POS as indicated and installed it.
I set the match to print the score receipt… and it worked!
I restarted the printer and couldn’t get it to work without pairing it again… Well this was a stupid mistake. I had paired it with my phone yesterday. When I power cycled the printer, it re-connected to my phone.
I unpaired it from my phone and power cycled it… it worked.
I have purchased a few printers and successfully connected them to some of the Fire tablets that we have. It works great for the Fire 7 9th gen, and no problems. I have had a small issue with some of our older tablets, Fire 7 7th gen. I am able to print to the printer, however I always get the option of which service to share to - normally I select ‘share with print’ and select always. The problem is that the older devices always give me the ‘just once’ and ‘always’ popup. Selecting always each time does not seem to actually take effect. Am I missing something simple?
Our devices have been debloated with Fire toolbox and I am currently running Practiscore 1.7.16 and RawBT 5.52.0.
This was not a clear defaults issue, the default was not able to be set in the first place. I did some more digging and found out it had to do with the Fire Toolbox de-bloating procedure that I used. I restored (re-bloated) all apps and it was able to function correctly even for the Fire 7 gen 7 devices. After some work on removing excess apps again, I found that there is some issue tied to removing the email app. If the email app was removed, there was no way to make the print preference persistent with the ‘always’ popup option. Once email was restored everything works correctly and the ‘just once’ and ‘always’ does not keep coming up. Not sure why this fixes the problem but it did for me on multiple devices.
My recommendation would be if someone is having issues like this - try restoring the apps and see if it helps.
Maybe you had only one applicabble app left on device and it needed a more than one… In any case it is good idea to keep email working on the same device. Even as a backup for any sync issues.
2 questions -
First - I have seen Practiscore setup with a delay when printing 2 scoring sheets from the printer so that there is time to tear one off before the printer prints the other. Can you tell me where that option is?
Second, I just setup 5 Fires and the first one did not work. I uninstalled the apps and deleted the 4 files and then re-downloaded them. there is a possibility that on that one a beta version got loaded. I can reload the 4 files but the 3rd one to be installed “com.google.android.gms” fails to install. I’ve tried deleting everything, reloading, uninstall, and rebooting and keep getting the same result. Can you offer any help?
Thanks for the quick response. Yes I edited the match editing page and set the number of copies to 2. I am wondering if there is a way to set a time delay between the 2 copies. I have seen a delay at other matches but I can not find a setting. Maybe one does not exist and the delay is not settable within the PS software.
Regarding the second question, I should have gone into more detail, sorry. I followed the instructions at the start of this thread to get our Kindle Fires loaded with Google Play Store and then the POS Printer Driver. One of the Kindles I could not get to run the Printer.
I Uninstalled the Printer and Google Play software and removed the 4 Google files as mentioned in the directions above. I then reload the 4 files and tried to install them. I installed them in the order as described in the instructions and the third one, COM.GOOGLE.ANDROID.GMS would not install. The previous 2 did install without issue. So my question is do you have any idea why it would not install? It is possible that the previous installations may have been a beta version for the GMS file. Could that be the reason that the new GMS file will not install? Do you know or have a suggestion on what to try to fix the installation of the GMS file.
Nothing like that is available in the PractiScore app. Though some printing apps may allow to specify custom ESC printer command before/after printed text. You will have to check the printing app docs as well as documentation on your printer.
Unfortunately I can’t suggest anything on that other than trying Fire Toolbx.
Also, you can try to ask on some forums that are specializing on tweaking Android, e.g. XDA.
Scott,
We ran printers at our sectional and everything worked out great. Also, I have worked other matches and USPSA Nats where printers have been used. Most of the matches have used RawBT from the Google Play store. Basically, you set Practiscore to print one copy and use RawBT to print two copies. RawBT does not have a settable delay, but the delay is just right for tearing off the first copy. Here is a link to how the Nats devices were setup: https://nroi.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Printers-at-USPSA-Matches_One-Way-to-Do-It.pdf
Our club uses Fire devices.
Thanks Warren,
We’ve used them too and just getting to the point of putting them on our local clubs Fires. We may change to RawBT in the future but until I can solve or find someone to solve the issue with getting Google Play on the one Fire that fails to load all the software for it, I have bigger problems with the sectional a few weeks away. Thanks for the tip on the RawBT app however.
Scott,
When I set mine up, I used the Fire Toolbox. The interface makes it pretty easy to install the Google Play store. At one point I was debloating some of the software and removed something that was important to being able to print via Bluetooth. It took a while to figure out what it was, but eventually I did. In the process, I did a factory reset of the tablet to get back to a clean starting point. In your responses above, I noticed that you rebooted - but I did not see that you tried a factory reset. If something failed, it might be worth a try at the full reset. That process takes a few steps, but it is not overly time consuming - maybe give it a try and see if it fixes the problem.
Thanks Warren - I have not gotten to the point of doing a factory reset. Been trying to avoid that as I am not the one that initially setup the Fires and don’t what one of the 5 to end up setup differently that the others … but I am getting to that point. I will look into the Fire Toolbox. Is that resident on the Kindles or is it an App I need to download? Thanks Scott
Scott,
Fire toolbox is a software package you download to a PC and interface to the tablet via USB. Eugene has a link to it in the top post of this thread. It is probably worth a try before factory resetting.
