Thermal Printers and Print Mechanisms
Printed receipts and documents play an integral role in our daily lives. BVM offers a range of thermal printers, including mechanisms for ticketing, vending machines, lottery terminals, and ATMs. They also provide panel and kiosk printers, receipt printers for retail, label printers, and battery or vehicle-powered portable printers for A4-width printing on the go.
Thermal printers, dating back to the 1970s, have evolved significantly. Initially seen with ZX Spectrum or Atari home computers and early fax machines, their fundamental technology remains: heat-reactive paper, a thermal print head with resistive elements (“dots”), and a rubber roller feeding the paper. Advancements in processing speeds and motor accuracy have boosted reaction times of the paper and print speeds, now at about 350mm per second.
Thermal printers are highly reliable due to few moving parts and only require paper as a consumable, with no need for ink, cartridges, toner or ribbons.
Each print maintains consistent quality.
What is Thermal Printing?
Thermal printing involves a heat transferred from a thermal print head to a chemically treated thermal paper. As the heating elements form text and graphics, a thermochemical reaction takes place, so the text and graphics can be seen. Because there are only a few moving parts, thermal printers offer years of reliability, minimal maintenance and consistent operation. One of the most distinctive benefits is its inherently quiet operation.
A thermal printer comprises these key components:
- Thermal Head: the print head generates heat which causes a thermochemical reaction and prints on the paper
- Platen: the platen is a rubber roller that feeds paper
- Spring: the spring applies pressure to the thermal head, keeping it in contact with the thermosensitive paper
Applications
Thermal printers and thermal print mechanisms are small, light and consume little power, making them ideal for portable and retail applications. Commercial applications of thermal printers include petrol station pump receipts, information kiosks, point-of-sale systems, voucher printers, ticket machines, hospital cardiac monitors and more.
Thermal Printers
Embedded Thermal Printer Mechanisms
Compact and reliable low-voltage thermal printer mechanisms are perfect for portable printing applications due to their low power consumption, which extends battery life. Their small footprint designs save critical design space.
New low voltage LTPD and CAPD series mechanisms address the need for smaller, faster, and more reliable mobile devices, offering exceptional design flexibility and reliability.
The CAPM series is ideal for high-performance, heavy-duty embedded applications with a print speed of 300 mm/second and a service life of up to 200 km and 2 million cuts. These units support an extended operating temperature range and thick paper, suitable for outdoor ticket printing.
Thermal print mechanisms are small, lightweight, and consume little power, making them ideal for applications like petrol station receipts, kiosks, point-of-sale systems, ticket machines, hospital monitors, and more.
Thermal Kiosk Printers
The Seiko Thermal Kiosk Printer Series “Edito” are the perfect solution for your individual needs. Fast, reliable and variable: These are the core statements which define these high-quality manufactured Thermal Kiosk Printers. In addition to the base model there is an output control model with a push and pull detection function available. A presenter model including a presenter control module and a presenter/retractor model with internal printing function is completing this advanced printer series.
For easy setup and control of the printer a sophisticated firmware is provided. Many internal fonts have already been embedded, additional fonts can be downloaded for character sizes from 6×8 to 64×64 dots. The printer can operate with paper widths from 58 mm to 83 mm. An illuminated bezel indicates the availability of a ticket very clearly. All these features provide you a great flexibility for a number of applications.
- Base Model KSM347: print mechanism, controller, paper holder and flex paper channel
- Output Control Model KSM347O: base model including output control module with anti jam control and active pull protection
- Presenter Model KSM347P: base model including presenter control module for save paper handling
- Retractor Model KSM347R: presenter model including retractor control module for save paper handling and possible paper retraction. Also internal printing possible (no access from outside)
Thermal Panel Printers
In simple terms, simply cut a hole in the fascia of your product and slide the panel printer in from the front. Secure it from the back with the clamp supplied, then plug-in power and data from a USB or Serial port on your product. Using Seiko’s “Easy Paper Load” system, just drop in the paper roll, close the door and tear-off the loose end against the serrated edge to be ready to print. There is a wide choice of driver software available to suit most applications.
If you make a product that needs to produce a printout, then integrating a “Panel Printer” could be a quick and easy way to do it
Panel printers are small, easy to mount, highly reliable and they don’t need any ink!
As panel printers are loaded from the front they are particularly well suited to applications where trained staff use a device or instrument. They are regularly used in medical devices, diagnostic equipment, measuring instruments and building control panels. So, whether your business builds portable drug testers or exhaust analysers, if you are looking for an easy way to produce a printout, then a panel printer could be the solution for you. Check out the DPU-D2 and DPU-D3 models from Seiko Instruments and call us at BVM for more information.
In-Vehicle Thermal Printers
These in-vehicle thermal printers are more than just mobile, as they can be permanently mounted and powered by the vehicle battery. Users include the emergency services, utility companies and fleet vehicles. Print widths up to A4 size and communication via USB, Bluetooth or WiFi. BVM’s in-vehicle printer is perfect for printing receipts, invoices, tickets and more on the move.
- Easy-to-read control interface and simple drop-in paper loading
- Dual tear bars allow easy tear-offs
- True WYSIWYG printing with the Windows driver
- Printer integration is quick and easy with Windows driver or Android and Microsoft SDKs (Apple iOS under preparation)
Thermal Label Printers
The user friendly Smart Thermal Label Printers make it easy to grab text straight from the screen of your PC and create smart professional labels for almost any application. Easily prepare customised formats with your own company logo complete with a post office approved bar code – without the hassle of using standard printers. Mix and match fonts, graphics and bar codes, all on the same label.
- Intuitive ! Automatically imports address information from various applications.
- Economical ! No ink, toner or ribbon needed.
- Modern ! Elegant and compact design
- Compact ! Small footprint, suitable for any work station
- Easy ! Uncomplicated change of labels and tags
- Individual ! Biggest range of labels and tags in the market with over 50 SKUs
Thermal POS Receipt Printers
Seiko RP- series receipt printers raise the bar in POS, delivering an unparalleled synthesis of performance, reliability, flexibility, contemporary aesthetics, and ease of use. And with the availability of the new RP-F Series with optional display or RP-E Series, Seiko thermal receipt printers offer an array of options to help tackle the most daunting technical and business challenges in point-of-sale.
RP-F10/RP-E10 Series
Receipt, slip, ticket and more. RP-F10/RP-E10 series is ideal printer for many applications
- Seiko RP-F Series, extremely compact thermal printers and come with an optional 4.3 inch color display.
- Seiko RP-E Series printers generate receipts at 1.15 feet per second (350 mm per second).
Portable Thermal Printers
The range of compact and light weight Seiko portable thermal printers (with Bluetooth options) are ideal for printing anywhere. Applications range from field sales, inspection and measuring services, mobile medical facilities, warehouse inventory and equipment, issuing of tickets to name but a few.
The switch to mobile computing can offer dramatic bottom line results, by making users more efficient, shortening transaction times, expanding revenue opportunities, and more. The transition to mobility can be daunting though. Equipment has to be durable enough to perform consistently in the field. Downtime is not an option. Technology must be intuitive for operators who are not IT professionals. And with constrained budgets, solutions must provide an immediate return on investment.
The demand of Mobile printing is expanding in various applications!
Mobile printing has became a critical tool in industrial, logistics and retail market. With utilizing smartphone or tablet PC, it will be widely expanding its business field moreover.
SII Portable Print Service for Android and iOS
The Print Service recognizes Bluetooth and WLAN coupled Seiko Instruments printers, and allows printing directly from various apps (for example the browser).
The following printers are supported:
We like to make life easier ….
Our supporting team have all worked in an embedded environment for a number of years, consequently providing knowledge, experience and good advice around all BVM’s products & services when and where you need it. We don’t profess to know everything you need at the time – but we’ll always help in the first instance and get back to you when a little more information is required.
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