Print Heads

Our Thermal Printhead vs the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Thermal Printhead.

• Abrasive life of 100 kilometers for our printhead. Abrasive life of an OEM printhead may only be 10 kilometers.

• Thermal life of 100 million pulses for our printhead. Stated pulse life of OEM print head is 50 million pulses.

• Independent lab testing showed the resistance in our thermal printhead will began to change after 330,000 inches. An OEM printhead tested in identical lab conditions showed  resistance change at 30,000 inches.

• Our printhead is built for a 100% dot duty cycle. OEM stated duty cycle is 90%. Our printhead duty cycle provides you with the highest clarity, print accuracy, and reproduction available in a printhead.

• Dot density up to 300 dpi (12 dpmm)
  

• Print speed up to 12 inches (305mm) per second
  
• Resistor line location (edge, near edge, etc.) Allows you to print at the edge of your media.
  
• Direct thermal or thermal transfer printhead.

How do we achieve these results?

• Our Printhead is built using a protective diamond like carbon (DLC) coating. Our Diamond like coating provides a surface hardness equivalent to Rockwell 85 to 90. The Diamond like coating will protect the printhead when used in bar coding, ticket printing, thermal printing, printing against ribbons, and printing using other abrasive media. The OEM printhead does not use a protective coating.

• Our Thermal Print head uses Thick film technology. The OEM will use Thin Film. Thick Film printheads use gold, insulating and resistive pastes which are screen printed onto a ceramic substrate. The OEM printhead will use a pressure contact between the printed circuit board and ceramic substrate. The thick film technology allows for a reduction in resistance versus pressure contact technology. As a printhead wears the value of resistance changes. A 15% change in the value of resistance results in a printhead unable to function and print the required dot density.  

• Our thermal printhead will use Gold wire bond between the printed circuit board and ceramic substrate. We believe the gold wire bond provides for greater signal integrity and a longer life of the printhead. An OEM printhead will just use pressure contact and eliminate the gold wire bond. Gold is an expensive conductor we believe works best in an abrasive print head environment.

• Our thermal printhead uses a hard black epoxy and silicon glass clear coating to protect the gold wire bonds and sensitive electronic circuitry against moisture and harsh environments. The OEM printhead will use pressure contact without a coating.

• Our thermal printhead incorporates the use of positive temperature coefficient (PTC) and negative temperature coefficient (NTC) thermistors for regulating temperature in the printhead. The PTC thermistor is used to quickly bring the printhead up to operating temperature, increasing your first time print cycle, and conserving energy. The NTC thermistor is used to regulate the heat output which conserves energy and prolongs the life of the printhead. Typically, the OEM printhead will not use the NTC and PTC thermistors. This combination thermometer and resistor device is expensive.

• Our printhead will use Dot history control (DHC) for consistent print quality at high speed