THERMAL PRINTER:

Thermal printing (or direct thermal printing) is a digital printing process which produces
a printed image by selectively heating coated thermochromic paper, or thermal paper as it is
commonly known, when the paper passes over the thermal print head. The coating turns black in
the areas where it is heated, producing an image. Two-colour direct thermal printers can print
both black and an additional colour (often red) by applying heat at two different temperatures.

A thermal printer comprises these key components:

Thermal head: generates heat; prints on paper

Platen: a rubber roller that feeds paper
Spring: applies pressure to the thermal head, causing it to contact the

thermosensitive paper
Controller boards: for controlling the mechanism

In order to print, thermo-sensitive paper is inserted between the thermal head and the
platen. The printer sends an electrical current to the heating elements of the thermal head, which
generate heat. The heat activates the thermo-sensitive coloring layer of the thermosensitive
paper, which changes color where heated. Such a printing mechanism is known as a thermal
system or direct system. The heating elements are usually arranged as a matrix of small closely
spaced dotsthermal printers are actually dot-matrix printers, though they are not so called.

The paper is impregnated with a solid-state mixture of a dye and a suitable matrix; a
combination of a fluoran leuco dye and an octadecylphosphonic acid is an example. When the
matrix is heated above its melting point, the dye reacts with the acid, shifts to its colored form,
and the changed form is then conserved in metastable state when the matrix solidifies back
quickly enough (a process known as thermochromism).

Controller boards are embedded with firmware to manage the thermal printer
mechanisms. The firmware can manage multiple bar code types, graphics and logos. They enable
the user to choose between different resident fonts (also including Asian fonts) and character
sizes. Controller boards can drive various sensors such as paper low, paper out, door open and so
on, and they are available with a variety of interfaces, such as RS-232, parallel, USB and
wireless. For point of sale application some boards can also control the cash drawer.
Specification :

Support 5V-9V wide power voltage

Low-noise direct thermal printing method
can support Max.39MM (diameter) paper roll
RS-232C/TTL Interface
rich of graphics / curves / characters print function
Easy paper loading structure
outline dimension : 111W*65D*57H mm

APPLICATIONS:
Thermal printers print more quietly and usually faster than impact dot matrix printers.
They are also smaller, lighter and consume less power, making them ideal for portable and retail
applications. Its efficiency can be utilized in retail sectors. Roll-based printers can be rapidly
refilled. Commercial applications of thermal printers include filling station pumps, information
kiosks, point of sale systems, voucher printers in slot machines, print on demand labels for
shipping and products, and for recording live rhythm strips on hospital cardiac monitors.

Many popular microcomputer systems from the late 1970s and early 1980s had first-party
and aftermarket thermal printers available for them - such as the Atari 822 printer for the Atari 8bit systems, the Apple Silentype for the Apple II and the Alphacom 32 for the Sinclair ZX
Spectrum and ZX81. They often used unusually-sized supplies (10CM wide rolls for the
Alphacom 32 for instance) and were often used for making permanent records of information in
the computer (graphics, program listings etc.), rather than for correspondence.

Through the 1990s many fax machines used thermal printing technology. Toward the
beginning of the 21st century, however, thermal wax transfer, laser, and inkjet printing
technology largely supplanted thermal printing technology in fax machines, allowing printing on
plain paper. Thermal Receipt Printer are very efficient and quick. Its efficiency can be utilized in
retail sectors.

Thermal printers are still commonly used in seafloor exploration and engineering geology
due to their portability, speed, and ability to create continuous reels or sheets. Typically, thermal
printers found in offshore applications are used to print realtime records of side scan sonar and
sub-seafloor seismic imagery. In data processing, thermal printers are sometimes used to quickly

create hard copies of continuous seismic or hydrographic records stored in digital SEG Y or XTF
form.

The Game Boy Printer, released in 1998, was a small thermal printer used to print out
certain elements from some Game Boy games.

Early formulations of the thermo-sensitive coating used in thermal paper were sensitive
to incidental heat, abrasion, friction (which can cause heat, thus darkening the paper), light
(which can fade printed images), and water. Later thermal coating formulations are far more
stable; in practice, thermally printed text should remain legible at least 50 days.
In many hospitals in the United Kingdom, many common ultrasound sonogram devices
output the results of the scan onto thermal paper. This can cause problems if the parents wish to
preserve the image by laminating it, as the heat of most laminators will darken the entire page
this can be tested for beforehand on an unimportant thermal print. An option is to make and
laminate a permanent ink duplicate of the image.