What is Thermal printer?

What is a thermal printer? Thermal printer is a printer which produces a printed image by heating a coated thermo chromic paper or simply a thermal paper. This image is printed when the thermal paper or the thermo chromic paper passes the thermal print head. The coating actually turns black in the areas where it is heated under the thermal head there by producing an image. Two colored images usually black and red can be obtained by applying heat at two different temperatures. This two color images are printed by the printer called two color direct thermal printers.

Thermal transfer printing is a process that uses heat sensitive ribbon instead of heat sensitive paper. A thermal printer does usually have the following key components. A thermal printers which generates heat and also prints on the heat sensitive ribbon. A platen which is a roller made of rubber and this platen feeds the paper or the ribbon used for printing. A spring which is used for applying pressure on the thermal head making it to contact the thermo sensitive paper or heat sensitive ribbon. Most importantly controller boards for controlling the mechanism.