Dot matrix printer

A dot matrix printer or impact matrix printer is a type of computer printer with a print head that runs back and forth, or in an up and down motion, on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper, much like a typewriter. Unlike a typewriter or daisy wheel printer, letters are drawn out of a dot matrix, and thus, varied fonts and arbitrary graphics can be produced. Because the printing involves mechanical pressure, these printers can create carbon copies and carbonless copies.
Each dot is produced by a tiny metal rod, also called a "wire" or "pin", which is driven forward by the power of a tiny electromagnet or solenoid, either directly or through small levers (pawls). Facing the ribbon and the paper is a small guide plate (often made of an artificial jewel such as sapphire or ruby) pierced with holes to serve as guides for the pins. The moving portion of the printer is called the print head, and when running the printer as a generic text device generally prints one line of text at a time. Most dot matrix printers have a single vertical line of dot-making equipment on their print heads; others have a few interleaved rows in order to improve dot density.
These machines can be highly durable. When they do wear out, it is generally due to ink invading the guide plate of the print head, causing grit to adhere to it; this grit slowly causes the channels in the guide plate to wear from circles into ovals or slots, providing less and less accurate guidance to the printing wires. Eventually, even with tungsten blocks and titanium pawls, the printing becomes too unclear to read.
Although nearly all inkjet, thermal, and laser printers print closely-spaced dots rather than continuous lines or characters, it is not customary to call them dot matrix printers.

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Label printer

A label printer is a computer printer that prints on self-adhesive label material and/or card-stock (tags). Label printers with built-in keyboards and displays, for stand-alone use (without a computer), are often called label makers. Label printers are different from ordinary printers because they need to have special feed mechanisms to handle rolled stock, or tear sheet (fanfold) stock. Common connectivity for label printers include RS-232 serial, Universal Serial Bus, parallel, Ethernet and various kinds of wireless.
Label printers have a wide variety of applications, including supply chain management, retail price marking, packaging labels, blood and laboratory specimen marking, and fixed assets management.

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Applications of Dye-sublimation printer

Dye-sub photo printing has been used in medical imaging, graphic arts proofing, security, and broadcast related applications.
Alps Electric produced the first quality dye-sub printers for home consumers in the $500-$1,000 price range, bringing dye-sublimation technology within the reach of a wider audience. Now there are many dye-sublimation printers on the market starting from as low as $100 marketed by corporations such as Canon, Sony, Sagem, HiTi Digital Inc., Mitsubishi Electric and Kodak (among others), especially postcard-sized mobile photo printers.
The ability to produce instant photo prints inexpensively from a small printer has led to dye sublimation solutions supplanting traditional instant photos in some applications, such as ID photography.
Several corporations, including Fuji, ICI, Kodak, Mitsubishi, and Sony, market desktop size units as stand-alone printers and for print kiosk and photo booth applications. Some of these units are based on generic printers produced by manufacturers such as Shinko. ICI ImageData, Copal, Shinko and Fuji, amongst others, offer software development kits with their printers, suggesting that these companies hope to attract system integrators as a potential market. Some units from manufacturers such as HiTi Digital Inc. and Sony incorporate kiosk features such as display screens and card slots directly into the unit.
Desktop size stand-alone dye-sub photo printers are also being applied by social photographers in event photography. The units' instant print ability allows photographers to produce and sell lab quality prints immediately during the event they are attending, with a minimal amount of hardware.
Dye-sublimation printing process is primarily used to print on polyester or other synthetic fabrics. It is used for many applications such as trade show banners or table covers, t-shirts, bike uniforms, competitive swimwear, soccer jerseys and flags. The original printers were an electrostatic technology using toners but now are generally large format inkjet printers using specially formulated inks. The dye sublimation inks are a pigment suspended in a liquid solvent, like water. The images are initially printed on coated transfer paper as a reverse image of the final design, which is then transferred onto polyester fabric in a heat press operating at a temperature around 180 to 210 C (375 F). Under high temperature and pressure, the dye turns into a gas and permeates the fabric and then solidifies into its fibers. The fabric is permanently dyed so it can be washed without damaging the quality of the image.
Dye-sublimation can also be used as an indirect printing process. Standard black and white laser printers are capable of printing on plain paper using a special "transfer toner" containing sublimation dyes which can then be permanently heat transferred to T-shirts, hats, mugs, metals, puzzles and other surfaces.

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Dye-sublimation printer

A dye-sublimation printer (or dye-sub printer) is a computer printer which employs a printing process that uses heat to transfer dye to a medium such as a plastic card, paper, or fabric. The process is usually to lay one color at a time using a ribbon that has color panels. Most dye-sublimation printers use CMYO colors which differs from the more recognized CMYK colors in that the black dye is eliminated in favour of a clear overcoating. This overcoating (which has numerous names depending on the manufacturer) is effectively a thin laminate which protects the print from discoloration from UV light and the air while also rendering the print water-resistant. Many consumer and professional dye-sublimation printers are designed and used for producing photographic prints.

Sublimation is when a substance transitions between the solid and gas states without going through a liquid stage; the action of dry ice exposed to room temperature is a common example. In a dye-sublimation printer the printing dye is heated up until it turns into a gas, at which point it diffuses onto the printing media and solidifies. Prior to printing, the dye is stored on a cellophane ribbon. The ribbon is made up of three colored panels (cyan, magenta, and yellow) and one clear panel which holds the lamination material for the overcoating. Each colored panel is the size of the media that is being printed on; for example, a 6" by 4" dye sub printer would have four 6" by 4" panels. During the printing cycle, the printer rollers will move the media and one of the colored panels together under a thermal printing head, which is usually the same width as the shorter dimension of the print media. Tiny heating elements on the head change temperature rapidly, laying different amounts of dye depending on the amount of heat applied. After the printer finishes covering the media in one color, it winds the ribbon on to the next color panel and partially ejects the media from the printer to prepare for the next cycle. The entire process is repeated four times in total: the first three lay the colors onto the media to form a complete image, while the last one lays the laminate over top. This layer protects the dye from resublimating when handled or exposed to warm conditions.

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Types of Label Printers

Types of Label Printers
• Desktop label printers are generally designed for light- to medium-duty usage with a roll of stock up to 4" wide. They are quiet and inexpensive.
• Commercial label printers can typically hold a larger roll of stock (up to 8" wide) and are geared for medium-volume printing.
• Industrial label printers are designed for heavy-duty, continuous operation in warehouses, distribution centers and factories.
• Industrial portable label printers are designed for heavy-duty operation on location. Examples of applications are labeling for electrical installations, construction sites, production floors where there are no computers.
• RFID readers are specialized label printers that print and encode at the same time on RFID transponders (tags) enclosed in paper or printable synthetic materials. RFID tags need to have printed information for backwards compatibility with barcode systems, so humans can identify the tag.
• Label printer applicators are designed to automate the labeling process. These systems are common in manufacturing and warehousing facilities that require cases and pallets to be labeled for shipping.
• Label software is computer software which runs on a general-purpose personal computer, and is designed to create and/or format labels for printing. The software can use native OS printer drivers, or embed drivers in the software, bypassing the OS print subsystem. It may work with dedicated label printers as described in this article, or use sheet-fed labels in a general-purpose computer printer.

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