Analysis of contact pressure acting on a thermal print head of a thermal transfer printer and it's experimental examination

Abstract

In case of a thermal transfer printer, it is important to place the heater of the thermal print head at the position where the contact pressure is most high. So it is necessary to clear the contact pressure between an inkribbon and a thermal print head. The viscoelastic properties of the ink, PET and platen rubber were measured with a rheometer. The contact pressures on the thermal print head were calculated by FEM. The contact pressures under consideration of viscoelasticity were different from those calculated by elastic analysis. To examine of the effect of the contact pressure to the print quality the optical densities were measured with the heater positions of the thermal print head changed. The optical densities were changed with the heater positions. It can be found that the optical densities decreased with the calculated contact pressure.