Barcode System Printer Technology

Remember the chug-chug of the dot-matrix printers?  At the time they were very cool technology, slow, but cool.  After finishing a term paper, you would set the document to print and go have a snack while it printed.  Sometimes there was even enough time to catch an episode of the A-Team.  Then there was the tedious task of tearing off the tractor hole borders.  Ah, those were the days.

Surprisingly (or not surprisingly depending on your point of view), dot matrix printers are still in use.  Many low-end or outdated cash registers still use dot-matrix printing, as well as institutions that require a high volume of invoice printing.  Since the paper used with these printers is continuous in length, multi part documents such as credit card receipts are easily printed with relatively little cost.  However even the dot matrix is slowly fading away.

Thermal printers are rapidly taking over the world of retail and industrial printing.  They work by heating certain points on heat sensitive paper to create letters and images.  No doubt if you have ever purchased gas or withdrawn money from a bank machine, you have received a receipt printed on a thermal printer.  This type of inkless printer is great for entities with extremely high volumes of paper being printed, as there is no cost for ink.  Another inkless type of printing being tested is the ultra-violet printer, which uses a specialised UV light bar to activate light sensitive chemicals on the paper.  So far the testing has shown the UV stimulated print can only last a maximum of 24 hours.

Of toner based printers the laser and inkjet are the most widely used both commercially and non-commercially.  Laser print technology was invented by a researcher at Xerox in 1969.  It wasn’t perfected, made network capable and marketed until 1972, but when the laser printer was made available it was first paired up with IBM hardware.  The laser printer was a true innovation of the time because it used a laser beam to project the printing image onto an electrically charged drum.  The areas on the drum hit by light instantly lose their photoconductivity, causing dry ink to settle.  Then the drum contacts the paper and uses heat to adhere the dry ink to the paper in the desired pattern.  The process was faster and much more crisp that dot matrix, plus there was a greater ability for hundreds of shades of colours.

The second toner based printer used quite often is the inkjet.  The inkjet has a pretty straightforward method of working.  It creates an image by propelling droplets of ink on the paper.  The whole concept was first developed during the 19^th century but was not really made commercially possible until Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Canon got involved (separately).  Continuous Inkjet (CIJ) is the oldest category of inkjet, and probably the most efficient in a high volume application.  Since the ink is projected at such a high speed, the printing pace is very fast.  Plus the nozzle does not become clogged, which is a common downside to low end inkjet printers.

The other two categories of inkjet are thermal drop-on-demand (DOD) and piezoelectric DOD.  Thermal DOD utilizes heat to cause a droplet of ink to form a bubble, which is then propelled on the paper.  As one might guess, this is the type of printer Canon liked to call Bubble Jet.  Piezoelectric DOD is most commonly used in commercial and industrial applications.  The technology is much the same as thermal DOD, except the print heads are made from piezoelectric metal containing lead zirconium titanate.  These types of print heads are more conducive to many different kinds of inks and almost never become clogged up with ink residue.  All those little expiry and ‘best before’ dates shown on perishable foods are printed with a piezo DOD inkjet printer, as well as barcode labels, event tickets, inventory control labels and so on.

Solid ink printers began their life with Tektronix in 1986.  Printing is carried by heating the end of a solid stick ink enough to produce letters and images on paper.  The first versions of solid ink printers used ink sticks made from food-grade vegetable oils; however when Xerox took over Tektronix the formula changed.  Solid ink printers are very popular in offices for a variety of reasons.  The print quality is excellent, even on recycled paper.  The speed at which the first page can print from a solid ink printer is faster than any other, and there is far less wastage than other kinds of printers.

Every printer has its perks, but there is no point in having a state of the art printer for your business if there is no computer powerful enough to handle the software.  It is kind of like putting the horse before the cart.  If your business is at a point where a highly manipulative inventory control system is becoming a necessity, seek out a whole system approach.  The initial expense may be a little more, but the time and money saved in the long term will be well worth it.