Printer Types Lesson 005: Thermal Printers Part 1

Thermal Printer

Uses heat to create images or text on paper rather than spraying ink or putting toner on the page.

How is heat used to create images on paper?

By using special thermal paper or by transferring ink from a thermal ribbon onto a regular piece of paper.

What are the different types of thermal printers?

Receipt printers and thermal ribbon printers.

How do receipt thermal printers work?

Using thermal paper that reacts to heat from the printer’s printhead to form the texts and images on the thermal paper.

What is the benefit of thermal receipt printers?

They are fast and reliable.

What is the caveat of thermal receipt printers?

They don’t produce high-quality images.

What are thermal receipt printers unsuitable for?

Printing things like photographs.

Thermal Ribbons

Used by specialized thermal printers to create very high-quality images, including photographs, using colored ribbons (usually CMYK).

What is the best typr of printer to use for achieving photorealistic quality images?

Thermal ribbon printers.

What are thermal printers commonly used for?

Small scale printing tasks like printing labels, barcodes, or receipts.

Why are thermal printers used for small scale printing for things like labels and receipts?

Because they don’t require high resolution or full page printing capabilities.

How is the speed of thermal printers measured?

By the inches or centimeters of paper they can print per second.

Why are thermal printers not usually used for full page document printing?

Because they are smaller and more specialized than Inkjet or laser printers.

What use case are thermal printers the best option for?

For tasks that require small printouts like receipts and labels.

What are the key components of a thermal printer?

Feed assembly, heating element, and thermal paper or ribbon.

Thermal Printer Feed Assembly

A friction based mechanism that pulls the paper under the printhead through the printer.

Heating Element

Located in the printhead that heats up specific areas of the paper (or thermal ribbon) to create the image.

What does DPI stand for?

Dots Per Inch.

What does the quality of the printout depend on in a thermal printer?

The amount of heating pins inside of the printhead, measured in DPI.

What does more heating pins in a thermal printer result in?

Higher resolution images.

What are the common resolutions in a thermal printer?

100 to 300 DPI.

What are the common resolutions in a laser printer?

600 to 1200 DPI.

Thermal Paper

Paper itself reacts to heat to form the image.

Thermal Ribbon

Heat transfers the color from the ribbon onto the paper.