The main consumables for thermal transfer printers are the print head, which is also a relatively high-consumption consumable.
How can we protect the print head and reduce the loss?
1. Machine parameter optimization:
1. Blackness
The higher the darkness, the higher the energy required for the print head. Under the premise of ensuring print quality, reduce the blackness to improve the life of the print head.
2. Contrast
Like blackness, the higher the contrast/enhancement level, the higher the energy required by the print head. Try to ensure that these settings are close to the default values.
3. Black level adjustment
This parameter only applies to the operation mode of the sub-machine. Increasing this setting will also increase the energy supply of the print head, which may cause the print head to malfunction earlier than expected. It is recommended to set this parameter to the default value 0 for the operation mode of non-slave machine.
4. Starting boundary
Increasing this setting will also increase the amount of print head wear, which may cause the print head to malfunction earlier than expected. Under the premise of ensuring print quality, reduce the value of this parameter as much as possible.
5. End the boundary
Increasing this setting will also increase the amount of print head wear, which may cause the print head to malfunction earlier than expected. Under the premise of ensuring print quality, reduce the value of this parameter as much as possible.
2. Installation and debugging:
1. Air pressure
High air pressure will cause high loss of the print head. Reduce the air pressure as much as possible while ensuring the print quality.
2. Installation alignment
Poor print head alignment is usually compensated by increasing the black level, as described in Black level.
3. Ribbon model
The higher the ribbon resin requires more energy to release the ink, it is better to keep the ribbon with a lower resin content if possible.
4. Rubber pad / rubber roller
The higher the hardness of the rubber pad/roller, the greater the wear on the print head. It is recommended to use the MI standard rubber pad/roller. The rubber pad / rubber roller material is silica gel, the standard hardness is Shore A (Shore A / Shore A) -40 degrees.
5. Image design
Generally speaking, the larger the image, the faster the print head wears. Therefore, to optimize the life of the print head, this factor should be considered.
3. Maintenance:
1. Static electricity hazards
The static electricity on the packaging film will impact the print head during printing, damage the heating resistance, and seriously affect the life of the print head. So do everything possible to remove static electricity to optimize the life of the print head.
2. The print head is contaminated
When the print head is contaminated, the heat on the hot spot cannot be transferred to the packaging material. This will also reduce the print quality, which is usually compensated by increasing the blackness on site.
3. No operating rules for regular cleaning of the print head
Irregular cleaning will often cause the print head to be contaminated. For users, Bangxin has launched a special wipe cloth. In business, it adopts the program of buying ribbons and giving wipes to promote customers to clean the print head regularly in accordance with the operating procedures to extend Print head life.
Fourth, production applications, etc.
1. Rough surface of packaging film
Some packaging materials are rougher than conventional ones. Although such cases have not been successful, it is worth discussing with customers to use smoother packaging materials.
2. Non-MI ribbon
It is well known that this will significantly reduce the life of the print head, and the development of the machine is carried out simultaneously with the matching use of the color belt.
3. Thermal paper
The design of the ribbon is to treat the print head as gently as possible. The packaging material or more often used labels will not heat up, but the thermal paper will generate high temperature, which is why thermal paper is sometimes called the print head killer.
