By our definition,
a label is something with a pressure-sensitive
(peel and stick) adhesive on its back, while a
tag has nothing sticky on it and might be
affixed with a staple, wire, or stitching to
whatever it's identifying.
A Bar Code
Label & Tag Printing System is comprised of the
following components:
A thermal
label and tag printer.
Label
design and printing software.
Media
supplies.
A Windows
PC.
Electricity.
We can provide all but the last two
items.
Thermal
printers can come in two flavours: direct
thermal and thermal transfer. They are similar
in the following ways:
They both
use continuous (as opposed to sheeted) label or tag material that
comes on a roll or is fanfolded.
They both
employ thermal printheads to create the
printed images.
In the
short term, both direct thermal and thermal
transfer costs about the same to
operate from a media standpoint. In the
longer term, thermal transfer printing is
more economical.
Both are
available with options such as an automatic
label peeler/ejector, rewinder, or cutter.
Available
printhead resolutions for both types are
currently 152, 203, 300, 400 and 600 DPI
(dots-per-inch) and they produce bar code
symbols of the highest quality.
Theyre
capable of printing graphics, lines and
boxes, and decent quality text.
They both
come in a wide variety of sizes, capacities,
and duty cycles.
Direct thermal
printing technology puts the thermal printhead
directly in contact with thermally-sensitive
material. (Think older fax machines or receipts
from fast food restaurants, ATMs, or credit card
machines.) This material turns
black in places where its exposed to heat and pressure
that is, from the tiny "heat dots"
on the
thermal printhead. Direct thermal printers print great short-term labels or tags and
you dont have to worry about ink, or toner, or
any other extra consumable supply. Just load your labels and go!
Thermal
transfer printers, on the other hand, introduce
TTR (thermal transfer ribbon) from which a melting ink
is transferred from the back of the TTR to the face
of the label or tag using those same "heat
dots" on the thermal printhead. While this introduces
another consumable media to be concerned about, the TTR
actually contributes to the printhead's life,
enabling it to last two to three times longer by basically
insulating it from the abrasiveness of face of the label or tag!
It also provides a long lasting (up to 20 years),
high quality,
and very resilient image.
From an application standpoint, thermal transfer
imprinted labels could be
to identify library books, video shop videos,
retail products (UPC), boxes in a warehouse,
laboratory samples, or most any other
identifiable item that requires a long-term
label.
Looking at things from an application
environment standpoint, we can supply labels
that will endure extreme temperatures, water and
solvents, outdoor and other harsh conditions, as
well as specialty labels for specialized
applications (e.g. identifying and tracking
ceramics, glassware, printed circuit boards).
Aurora Bar Code
Technologies
8944 182 Street NW, Suite 316 Edmonton, AB T5T 2E3
Canada
Phone: 800.689.7696 Outside of NA: 780.483.6025 Fax: 780.484.8767
