| Thermal printing is a non-impact method of coating images on paper and synthetic film. The process applies heat from a thermal printhead onto thermal material. The thermal material used in the thermal printing process may be paper of varying grades or synthetic film (eg. Polypropylene or polyester), with a special chemical coating applied to one side to make it sensitive to heat. |
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| A thermal printhead has a large number of tiny resistors (up to 1,000), which individually react to convert an electrical impulse into heat. The heat from the printhead creates a reaction with the chemical coating to produce an image.
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| Thermal printheads eliminates the need for mechanical parts, messy ribbons or toners, and inking devices needed to create the image.
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| Thermal printers only have one or two moving components, they are very reliable and economical to operate.
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| Thermal printheads are usually much smaller and lighter than the printing elements used by other imaging processes, so thermal printers are suitable when compact size, portability and on-demand printing are needed.
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