“Consumables” for your inkjet printer at home include paper and ink cartridges. Consumables for a dedicated bar code printer (such as the Zebra ZM600 or RP4T and Datamax O’Neil I-series) include rolls of labels and ribbons. Bar code printers are thermal, meaning the printhead is heated to make an image.

In a direct thermal printer there is no ribbon; instead the labels are coated with a heat sensitive material and the printhead ‘burns’ an image into the coating. In a thermal transfer printer the heated printhead melts a carbon film ribbon producing a bar code symbol. Thermal transfer ribbons are only god for one pass and must be replaced with each roll of labels.

Another consumable item with a bar code printer is the thermal printhead. With good preventive maintenance the printhead will last a long time. However when not cleaned and adjusted regularly, or when using low quality labels, the printhead will burn out elements thereby degrading the quality of the bar code symbol. ADC Integrated Systems can provide you with bar code media solutions for any type of printer application.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 11:12 am and is filed under bar code, General & Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.