Thermal printers are very useful and economic devices that every contemporary company should own one. As we mention on a previous article, thermal printers can be found everywhere. On this article though, we are going to analyse the basic types of thermal label printers.
Barcode label printers are divided in five main types depending on their size, their dynamic output, and their ability to print labels, tickets or wristbands. Let’s analyze each type separately.
Desktop barcode printers
Desktop barcode printers are designed to meet the needs of a company that prints an average of 500 labels per week. These printers are suitable for an office or a retail store as they can print high quality labels but in smaller quantity.
Industrial barcode printers
Industrial barcode printers are obviously bigger in size, more equipped and use more metal parts on theirs printing mechanism than desktop label printers in order to print a larger quantity of labels. The quantity of labels may vary from hundreds to thousands daily. These printers are designed so they can use large label rolls and they are able to print from 1cm to 20cm label width.
Industrial barcode printers can be found in factories, distribution centres, courier companies and of course in large retail stores. Industrial barcode printers constitute the most reliable solution for every company.
Mobile barcode printers
Mobile Barcode printers provide all the capabilities of a desktop barcode printer with the difference that they can do it wirelessly.
There are some limitations on using mobile barcode printers though. Mobile barcode printers cannot print large quantities of labels, they don’t have a lot of memory and they cannot print labels more than 5 or 10 cm width.
Despite their limitations, mobile barcode printers are ideal for on the go receipt or ticket print.
Wristband barcode printers
Despite the fact that other types of barcode printers can print wristbands too, wristband barcode printers offer lot of capabilities in lower price. For places that they print wristbands daily (hospitals, parks, concerts), wristband barcode printers are the ideal solution. Some of them come with antibacterial construction in order to meet high standard of hygiene. Zebra has a very popular line of wristband printers.
Ticket printers
Tickets printers are specialized in printing on a thicker paper (like the one on the tickets). If you need a printer for theatre, concert or football tickets, then this printer category constitutes the best solution. One very popular ticket printer is Datamax ST-3210.