Adafruit thermal printer prints weak I am currently hooking up my arduino to an adafruit mini thermal printer. When a button is pressed, some code is executed which then sends some information to the thermal printer.

Everything works fine except the thermal printer print is very weak and can barely be seen as soon as the printer needs to print more than 3-5 chars. Any ideas why? Both, the arduino and the thermal printer are hooked up to 9V batteries.

Here is the code 

#include "Adafruit_Thermal.h"

// Here's the new syntax when using SoftwareSerial (e.g. Arduino Uno) ----
// If using hardware serial instead, comment out or remove these lines:

#include "SoftwareSerial.h"
#define TX_PIN 6 // Arduino transmit  YELLOW WIRE  labeled RX on printer
#define RX_PIN 5 // Arduino receive   GREEN WIRE   labeled TX on printer

SoftwareSerial mySerial(RX_PIN, TX_PIN); // Declare SoftwareSerial obj first
Adafruit_Thermal printer(&amp;mySerial);     // Pass addr to printer constructor

int buttonIn = 8;
int val = 0;

void setup() {
  pinMode(7, OUTPUT); 
  digitalWrite(7, LOW);

  pinMode(buttonIn, INPUT);

   mySerial.begin(19200);  // Initialize SoftwareSerial
   //Serial.begin(19200); // Use this instead if using hardware serial
   printer.begin();        // Init printer (same regardless of serial type)
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
     val = digitalRead(buttonIn);
     if(val == HIGH)
     {
        printer.println("test");
        printer.sleep();      // Tell printer to sleep
        delay(3000L);         // Sleep for 3 seconds
        printer.wake();       // MUST wake() before printing again, even if reset
        printer.setDefault();

     }   
}


Did I set up anything false? Is the power supply not enough?
The adafruit was sent with a selftest from the seller where everything seemed to be fine.

Left, seller test, second from left, my selftest, third and fourth from left are example printer and charset tests. 



And here you can see how everything is wired together.



Thank you very much!
The datasheet states:
Requires 5-9VDC @ 1.5Amp power supply during print.

In my experience this printer provides best results when operated at its upper limit. I am using a 9V 2A power supply for that. A bettery is definitiverly not enough.