Basic Guide to Thermal Printers
Thermal printers use heat to move an image onto paper. These printers are either thermal wax transfer printers or direct thermal printers. The prints created by both kinds of thermal printer depend on the specific printer brand, the ribbons, the printhead, the temperature and the humidity that the printer was exposed to while printing out the pages. The paper of the thermal printer contains a mixture of a dye and a matrix.
Thermal wax transfer printers use a wax-based ink contained on a transfer ribbon. The wax ink eventually cools and becomes permanent. The images on these printers are printed as dots. Therefore, the images created by the printers are generated through dithering, which is when each dot represents a different shade, with the varying shades coming together to form the image. Since the images are comprised of dots, they are not fully photo-realistic, though more so than direct thermal. Owners can use either monochrome or color thermal transfer ribbons. After changing the ribbon on the printhead, owners should clean out the printhead with a cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol.
The direct thermal printers burns dots onto a coated paper as this paper passes over heating elements. Heated pins burn these dots onto paper designed to be heat sensitive. These printers tend to cost less and print very fast. The individual pins heated during the printing process are determined by a microprocessor. Businesses often use thermal printers to print bar codes, price tags and labels on products.