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Thermal Receipt Printer Introduction

The thermal printer works by mounting a semiconductor heating element on the printhead. The printhead heats up and print the desired pattern on thermal paper. The principle is similar to thermal fax machine. The image is generated by heating to produce a chemical reaction in the film. This thermal printer chemical reaction is carried out at a certain temperature. High temperatures accelerate this chemical reaction. When the temperature is lower than 60 ° C, the paper needs to go through a relatively long time, even for several years to become dark; when the temperature is 200 ° C, the reaction will be completed in a few microseconds.
Principle mobile printer

The principle of a thermal printer is to apply a transparent film on a light-colored material (usually paper), which is heated to a dark color (usually black and blue). The image is generated by heating to produce a chemical reaction in the film. This chemical reaction is carried out at a certain temperature. High temperatures accelerate this chemical reaction. When the temperature is lower than 60 ° C, the film needs to go through a relatively long time, even for several years to become dark; and when the temperature is 200 ° C, this reflection will be completed in a few microseconds.
The thermal printer selectively heats the determined position of the thermal paper, thereby producing a corresponding pattern. Heating is provided by a small electronic heater on the printhead that is in contact with the heat sensitive material. The heaters are arranged in the form of square dots or strips that are logically controlled by the printer, and when driven, produce a pattern corresponding to the heating elements on the thermal paper. The same logic that controls the heating elements, while also controlling the paper feed, allows the graphic to be printed on the entire label or paper.
The most common thermal printer uses a fixed printhead with a heated dot matrix with 320 square dots, each at 0.25 mm x 0.25 mm. With this dot matrix, the printer can print dots anywhere on the thermal paper. This technology has been used on paper printers and label printers.
Thermal Paper
Thermal paper is a special coated paper that looks similar to ordinary white paper. The surface of the thermal paper is smooth, which is made of ordinary paper as a paper base, coated with a layer of thermal coloring layer, which is coated on the surface of the ordinary paper. The coloring layer is made of adhesive, color developer and leuco dye (or The composition of the leuco dye is not separated by microcapsules, and the chemical reaction is in a "latent" state. When the thermal paper encounters a hot print head, the developer and the leuco dye at the place where the print head is printed are chemically reacted and discolored to form a graphic image.
When the thermal paper is placed in an environment above 70 ° C, the heat-sensitive coating begins to change color. The reason for its discoloration is also to talk about its ingredients. There are two main types of heat sensitive materials in thermal paper coatings: one is a leuco dye or a leuco dye; the other is a color developer. This type of thermal paper is also referred to as a two-component chemical type thermal recording paper.
Commonly used as leuco dyes are: crystal violet lactone (CVL), fluoran system, colorless benzoylmethylene blue (BLMB) or spiropyran system of triphenylmethyl phenyl hydrazine system. Commonly used as a color developer are: para-hydroxybenzoic acid and its esters (PHBB, PHB), salicylic acid, 2,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid or aromatic sulfone.
When the thermal paper is heated, the leuco dye reacts with the developer to produce a color. Therefore, when using thermal paper to receive signal printing on a fax machine or directly printing it with a thermal printer, the graphic is displayed. Since there are many kinds of varieties used as leuco dyes, the color of the written characters is different, and there are blue, magenta, black, and the like.
Application
The thermal printing technology was first used in fax machines. The basic principle is to convert the data received by the printer into a dot matrix signal to control the heating of the thermal unit, and to heat and develop the thermal coating on the thermal paper. Thermal printers have been widely used in pos terminal systems, banking systems, medical instruments and other fields.
Thermal printers can only use special thermal paper. The thermal paper is coated with a coating that reacts with heat when it is heated. It is similar to photographic film, but this coating will change color when heated. This characteristic of heat-sensitive coatings has led to thermal printing technology.
The essential
The key to thermal printing technology is the heating element. The thermal printer core has a row of tiny semiconductor components. These components are arranged in a dense range, from 200 dpi to 600 dpi. These components will quickly generate high temperatures when passing a certain current. When the thermal paper is coated with these components, the temperature will rise in a very short period of time, and the coating on the thermal paper will chemically react and the color will appear. touch screen

After receiving the print data, the thermal printer converts the print data into bitmap data, and then controls the heating element on the printer core to pass the current according to the point of the bitmap data, thus changing the print data into the print content on the printing paper.
Advantages and disadvantages
Compared with the dot matrix printer, the thermal printing speed is fast, the noise is low, the printing is clear, and the use is convenient. However, thermal printer cannot directly print duplexes. The printed documents cannot be permanently stored. If the best thermal paper is used, it can be stored for ten years in a state of good light. Needle printing can print double, and if you use a good ribbon, the printed document can be stored for a long time, but the dot matrix printer prints slowly, the noise is loud, the print is rough, and the ribbon needs to be changed frequently. If the user needs to print an invoice, it is recommended to use pin printing. Others recommend using thermal printing when printing other documents.
Classification
Thermal printers can be classified into Thermal Line Dot System and Thermal Serial Dot System according to the arrangement of their thermal elements. Columnar thermal is an early product and is mainly used in some applications where printing speed is not high. It has been used by domestic authors in its products. Line heat is a technology of the 1990s, and its printing speed is much faster than that of column heat, and the fastest speed has reached 230mm / sec. To achieve high-speed thermal printing, in addition to the high-speed thermal print head, there must be a corresponding control board to match it.

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