Quick answer: SambaPOS works with any ESC/POS printer, and unlike some POS software it can drive printers either as raw ESC/POS or through the Windows driver. That flexibility is useful, but it also means the first question to settle is which printer type you configure — get that wrong and nothing prints, no matter how good the hardware is.
For a restaurant you will usually want two printers: an NBTP-8080 at the counter for customer receipts, and a second one in the kitchen for order tickets. Specify the LAN interface on the kitchen unit — a network printer can be reached from any till, and it saves running USB across a hot, wet room.
Does SambaPOS work with third-party receipt printers?
Yes. SambaPOS is not tied to any printer brand and does not maintain a whitelist. Any printer that accepts standard ESC/POS commands can be used, which covers the overwhelming majority of thermal receipt printers sold today.
What makes SambaPOS different from most POS software is that it gives you several ways to reach the printer, and expects you to choose. That is a strength once you understand it, and a source of confusion before you do.
Printer types: the decision that matters most
When you add a printer in SambaPOS you pick a printer type. This is not a cosmetic label — it determines how the bytes get to the hardware.
Ticket Printer — raw ESC/POS
SambaPOS composes the ticket and sends ESC/POS directly. This is the type most people want for thermal receipt printers. It gives you precise control over formatting, and it is what makes the cash-drawer kick and the auto cutter work reliably.
Windows Printer — through the driver
SambaPOS hands the job to Windows and the printer driver renders it. Useful when you want to print to an A4 laser printer, or when a device only works through its driver. For a thermal receipt printer this is usually the wrong choice: you lose direct control of the cutter and drawer, and layout becomes the driver's business rather than yours.
Port Printer — direct to a COM or LPT port
For serial-connected printers. Straightforward when you have genuine serial hardware.
Demo Printer — prints to the screen
Not a real printer. It shows you what would have printed. This is the single most useful troubleshooting tool SambaPOS gives you, and it is badly underused — see below.
The diagnostic that saves an evening
When nothing prints, the question that splits the problem in half is: did SambaPOS produce the output at all?
Switch the printer to Demo Printer temporarily and trigger the same action.
- Output appears on screen — SambaPOS, your template, your print job and your mapping are all working. The fault is in the connection to the hardware.
- Nothing appears — the ticket never reached the printing stage. The problem is upstream: the print job, the mapping, or the rule that triggers it. The printer is innocent.
Doing this first turns a vague "printing does not work" into one of two much smaller problems. It takes about a minute.
Kitchen printing: the part that is actually restaurant-specific
This is where SambaPOS differs most from retail POS software, and where most of the real configuration effort goes.
A restaurant does not print one document. It prints several, to different places, triggered by different events:
- Customer receipt — at the counter, when the bill is settled
- Kitchen order ticket — in the kitchen, the moment the order is placed
- Bar ticket — drinks only, at the bar
SambaPOS handles this with three pieces that work together: a printer template (what the document looks like), a print job (which template goes to which printer), and a mapping (when it fires and for which items).
The practical consequence for hardware buying: you need one printer per destination, and they do not have to be the same model. A common and sensible layout:
| Location | Suggested model | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Counter | NBTP-8080 (80mm, auto cutter) | Customer-facing receipts, drives the cash drawer |
| Kitchen | NBTP-8040 (80mm, LAN) | Network-connected, reachable from every till |
| Bar | NBTP-5880 (58mm) | Short drink tickets, smaller footprint |
A warning about thermal paper in kitchens
Direct thermal paper darkens with heat. A printer mounted above a grill or pass, or a ticket clipped near a hot surface, will fade or go grey. This is physics, not a fault.
Two practical mitigations: mount the kitchen printer away from direct heat and steam, and accept that kitchen tickets are consumables with a short life — they only need to stay readable for the length of a service.
Character encoding: read this if you are not printing in English
SambaPOS came out of Turkey and is widely used across Europe and the Middle East, so it is unusually likely that you are printing text with accented or non-Latin characters. This is where receipt printers most often disappoint people, and it has nothing to do with build quality.
Thermal printers do not use Unicode. They hold a set of code pages — numbered character tables — and you select one before sending text. If the printer is on the wrong code page, accented characters come out as different characters or as blanks.
The ones that matter by region:
| Code page | Covers |
|---|---|
| CP857 | Turkish |
| CP1252 / CP850 | Western European — French, German, Spanish, Portuguese |
| CP852 | Central European — Polish, Czech, Hungarian |
| CP866 | Cyrillic |
| CP1256 | Arabic |
Before you order, tell your supplier which languages you print in. This is a specification question, not a configuration one — a printer either has the code page in firmware or it does not, and no amount of software setup adds it later. We would rather confirm this for you up front than have you discover it after a container has shipped.
If you are already running hardware and seeing wrong characters, print the printer's self-test page: hold the FEED button while powering on. Most thermal printers list their supported code pages there.
Setting up, start to finish
- Connect the printer. LAN for kitchen units; USB or LAN at the counter.
- Add the printer in SambaPOS and choose the printer type — Ticket Printer for a thermal receipt printer in most cases.
- Point it at the device: the share name or address for a network printer, the port for a serial one.
- Check or create the printer template for the document you are producing. Start from a working default rather than a blank one.
- Test with the Demo Printer first. Confirm the content and layout on screen before involving hardware.
- Switch to the real printer and print a test ticket.
- Check the line width. An 80mm printer at 203dpi gives 48 characters per line in the standard font; 58mm gives 32. If your template assumes a different width, columns will not line up.
- Set up kitchen routing once the counter printer is working. Get one printer right before adding the second.
- Test the cash drawer if one is connected — see the note below.
NETBYE models for SambaPOS
| Model | Paper | Speed | Cutter | Interfaces | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NBTP-8080 | 80mm | 160mm/s | Auto | USB / LAN | Counter receipts |
| NBTP-8040 | 80mm | 200mm/s | Auto | USB / LAN / RS232 / Wi-Fi / BT | Kitchen, network printing |
| NBTP-8050 | 80mm | 200mm/s | Auto | USB / Serial / Ethernet | High-volume counter |
| NBTP-5880 | 58mm | 90mm/s | Manual | USB / Serial / Ethernet / BT | Bar tickets, tight counters |
All are 203dpi direct thermal with ESC/POS command support — 576 dots per line on the 80mm models, 384 on the 58mm. Browse the full range of thermal receipt printers, or narrow to 80mm and 58mm.
Ordering advice for a restaurant: specify LAN on any printer that will live in the kitchen. It costs the same, survives a room where you do not want to run USB, and can be reached from every till without re-cabling when you add a second terminal.
Cash drawers with SambaPOS
Worth stating plainly because it surprises people: the cash drawer does not connect to your computer. It plugs into the receipt printer with an RJ11 cable, and the printer fires a voltage pulse that releases the latch. SambaPOS sends an ESC/POS command to the printer; the printer does the rest.
Two consequences follow. First, the drawer only opens if the printer is configured as a Ticket Printer — the raw ESC/POS route. Second, the drawer's voltage must match what the printer outputs, 12V or 24V.
Our cash drawer guide covers the wiring and failure modes in detail; the hardware side is identical regardless of which POS software you run. See our cash drawers, available in either voltage.
Frequently asked questions
Nothing prints and there is no error. Where do I start?
Switch the printer to Demo Printer and trigger the same action. If output appears on screen, the fault is the hardware connection. If it does not, the ticket never reached the printing stage — check the print job and its mapping.
Should I use Ticket Printer or Windows Printer?
Ticket Printer for thermal receipt printers. Windows Printer is for cases where you genuinely need the driver, such as printing to an A4 laser printer.
Can one printer serve the counter and the kitchen?
Technically yes, but do not. Kitchen staff need the order the moment it is placed, and the counter printer is busy with receipts. Separate printers are the reason SambaPOS has routing at all.
My Turkish or French characters print wrong.
Code page mismatch. The printer needs the right character table in firmware — CP857 for Turkish, CP1252 or CP850 for Western European. Print the self-test page (hold FEED while powering on) to see which ones your printer has.
Receipts print but columns do not line up.
Line width mismatch between the template and the printer. 80mm at 203dpi is 48 characters in the standard font; 58mm is 32.
Can I use a network printer from several tills?
Yes, and for a kitchen printer it is the right answer. That is the main argument for specifying LAN.
A note on this guide. The hardware guidance above — interfaces, code pages, line widths, drawer wiring, kitchen placement — is what we know from the products we supply and we stand behind it. The SambaPOS-side steps describe the structure of its printing system rather than a screen-by-screen walkthrough of a specific version, and menu names move between releases. If a step was wrong or a setting is not where we say it is, tell us and we will correct this page. We would rather publish something accurate than something impressive.
Get pricing
NETBYE supplies distributors, system integrators and restaurant fit-out companies worldwide. Our printers are built by our partner factories in Shenzhen and sold under our own model range — we handle specification, quality control and support, so you deal with one supplier rather than several factories. Direct wholesale pricing, low MOQ on first orders, and OEM/ODM covering branding, packaging and firmware defaults — including shipping units pre-set to the code page for your market.
Tell us which models, what quantity, which country and what languages you print in, and you will get an accurate quote in one reply. Request a quote.
Related guides
These guides form a set. If you are specifying a complete till, the other hardware for SambaPOS is covered here:
- Barcode scanner for SambaPOS
- Cash drawer for SambaPOS
- Label printer for SambaPOS
- POS terminal for SambaPOS
And if you are comparing across POS software, the same hardware for other systems:
- Receipt printer for uniCenta oPOS
- Receipt printer for StoreHub POS
- Receipt printer for Moka POS
- Receipt printer for Nextar POS
- Receipt printer for Qashier POS
- Receipt printer for Odoo POS
- Receipt printer for KORONA POS
- Receipt printer for eHopper POS
- Receipt printer for Hike POS
- Receipt printer for Erply POS