Knowing how to properly clean your thermal label printer is important and has many benefits too.
Proper cleaning will not only prolong the life of your machine, it will also save you money on replacement parts, and help to avoid any unnecessary printing errors. Below you will find our expert cleaning guide for thermal label printers.
Thermal Label Printer Cleaning
Before we explain the cleaning method, let’s first look at some of the elements you need to be familiar with. Every label printer has a printhead and a platen roller. These are in constant use when your printer is running. When labels pass through your printer, paper dust can accumulate and this is what causes errors to occur. With thermal transfer label printers, the ribbon wax or resin that is used can build up on the printhead and this in turn leads to problems. If you have a direct thermal printer, it won’t have a ribbon so you avoid this issue.
If your printer is dirty and needs to be cleaned you will find errors such as streaks, printing will be of a lower quality than normal, or you may find that you are dealing with an abundance of paper jams.
Proper cleaning of your label printer will be required. To do this you will need a compressed gas duster and thermal label printer cleaning wipes. These are special wipes that have been soaked in a solution that has been designed for printers. Using these will help to prolong the life of the printhead and the platen roller.
It is vital that you do not use any other cleaning products as these can damage your label printer.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Remove any labels or ribbons from your label printer.
- Starting at the front of the machine, use the gas duster to blow any paper dust around the platen roller and printhead. You should work your way towards the back of the machine and use the compressed gas to blow out the rest of the printer too.
- Take one of the thermal cleaning wipes and gently wipe the platen roller. It is important to make sure that you roll it around. After this carefully wipe the printhead.
- The solution on the thermal wipes dries very quickly, meaning you are ready to use your label printer more or less straight away.
Our experts at AIS Ltd., recommend cleaning your thermal label printer after every roll of labels has been used or if you find that a lot of paper dust accumulates in your machine. Doing this on a regular basis will save you money in the long term as you won’t have to fork out for replacement parts. For more information be sure to visit our label printers and consumables page.
We offer a range of industrial label printers, desktop, and mobile printers. We also have a range of printer supplies too. Should you have any questions or need to get advice, our live chat agents and customer support team are always on hand to help.