What is thermal printing ?
Thermal printing is a printing technology method that involves the printer’s thermal element comes into direct contact with the print paper.
A thermal printer seems to be a form of printer that utilizes a heating thermal print head placed against a material to generate black images or text.
According to the type of thermal printer, the heated printer either awakens special chemical processed paper (named thermal paper) or transports solid ink from one string and adheres it to the medium.They are frequently utilized in the situations of labels, receipts, barcodes, ID badges, and many more applications among various kinds of industries.
Since the thermal paper is not resilient to sunshine or extreme heat, the printings on the paper will have a limited lifetime.
What is direct thermal printing ?
Direct thermal printer requires no ribbons, inks, or toners. Furthermore, the printhead physically exerts temperature and pressure towards the top of heat-sensitive thermal paper.Thermal paper responds to the warmth of the printhead by darkening and creating an image or text when heated.
Even though no ink or toner is involved, direct thermal printers have lower maintenance fees especially compared to other types of printers. Yet, just like previously noted,while thermal paper is extremely sensitive to temperature and light, your printed items may fade as time passes. Due to their being printed on thermal paper, anachronistic receipts may fade with time. Moreover, since the printed materials affects the colour, you could only print with one kind of color at the moment while using the direct thermal printer.
What is thermal transfer printing ?
Instead of printing immediately it onto the surface of the printed medium, as used in direct thermal printing, the printhead of a thermal transfer printer presses a wax-coated ink ribbon (or ribbons) onto the printing materials.The wax is being melted, revealing the ink, which will be transferred to the print medium and remains there.
The major benefit of this variety of thermal thransfer printer than a direct thermal printer is that drawings on the papers are far less prone to disappear over time, so you could print contents with numerous colours at once (if your printer has multiple ribbons).
Furthermore, with the installation of the ribbons, which needs to be refreshed, long-term maintenance charges may be increased. Combined with much more moving components, the TT printers may be considerably more sensitive to operation problems, but they are still durable and robust in working business.
