Thermal printers can come in two flavours: direct thermal and thermal transfer. They are similar in the following ways:

• They both use continuous (as opposed to sheeted) label or tag material that comes on a roll or is fanfolded.
• They both employ thermal printheads to create the printed images.
• In the short term, both direct thermal and thermal transfer costs about the same to operate from a media standpoint. In the longer term, thermal transfer printing is more economical.
• Both are available with options such as an automatic label peeler/ejector, rewinder, or cutter.
• Available printhead resolutions for both types are currently 152, 203, 300, 400 and 600 DPI (dots-per-inch) and they produce bar code symbols of the highest quality.
• They’re capable of printing graphics, lines and boxes, and decent quality text.
• They both come in a wide variety of sizes, capacities, and duty cycles.

Direct thermal printing technology puts the thermal printhead directly in contact with thermally-sensitive paper or other material. (Think older fax machines or receipts from fast food restaurants, ATMs, or credit card machines.) This material turns black in places where it’s exposed to heat and pressure — that is, from the tiny "heat dots" on the thermal printhead. Direct thermal printers print great short-term labels or tags and you don’t have to worry about ink, or toner, or any other extra consumable supply. Just load your labels and go!

Thermal transfer printers, on the other hand, introduce TTR (thermal transfer ribbon) from which a melting ink is transferred from the back of the TTR to the face of the label or tag — using those same heat dots on the thermal printhead. While this introduces another consumable media to be concerned about, the TTR actually contributes to the printhead's life, enabling it to last two to three times longer by insulating it from the abrasiveness of the face of the label or tag! It also provides a long lasting (up to 20 years), high quality, and very resilient image.

From an application standpoint, thermal transfer imprinted labels could be to identify library books, video shop videos, retail products (UPC), boxes in a warehouse, laboratory samples, or most any other identifiable item that requires a long-term label.

Looking at things from an application environment standpoint, we can supply labels that will endure extreme temperatures, water and solvents, outdoor and other harsh conditions, as well as specialty labels for specialized applications (e.g. identifying and tracking ceramics, glassware, printed circuit boards).

I wish to submit an enquiry specifically for Label & Tag Printers and Software.