Complete understanding of dot matrix printer ribbon

Complete understanding of dot matrix printer ribbon

Although the scope of use of dot matrix printers is quite small, it still plays an irreplaceable role in some industrial applications. Therefore, it is necessary for these users to talk about the knowledge of ribbons, because ribbons are consumables for dot matrix printers. Knowing the ribbon is very helpful to using the dot matrix printer. Are you still a dot matrix printer user? Please lock us below.

One, the role of ribbon in the printer

In the physical structure of the dot matrix printer, we can easily find that, in fact, the dot matrix printer uses the dot matrix firing pin in the printer head to hit the printing ribbon to produce a printing effect on the printing paper. It can be seen that the ribbon plays the role of consumables in this process, and the quality of the ribbon will directly affect the printing effect and even the life of the print head. It can be seen that the ribbon is very important.

We might as well use a formula to express this relationship between the dot matrix printer and the ribbon:

good ribbon = excellent printing effect = long life of the printer

I would like to emphasize again here that the most important factor that determines the printing effect and service life of the stylus printer is the quality of the printing ribbon. Under normal circumstances, it is easy to be overlooked. We can see that a lot of wrinkled ribbons are already fast. It’s colorless, and the user still uses it with the nickname: cost saving-but he doesn’t know that this is very easy to cause the printer’s needle to break. If you want to ask how much does it cost to change a print head? Compared with the more than 20-odd ribbon, it is undoubtedly that you have picked up sesame seeds and lost watermelon! We know that high-quality ribbons can generally print more than 3 million characters, while inferior ribbons can only print about 100,000 to 200,000 characters and cannot continue to be used normally. The difference between the two is tens of times as large, so learn to distinguish correctly Good ribbon quality and correct selection are skills that every stylus printer user must master.

2. Choose a good ribbon

Because of the importance of ribbons, it is necessary for us to choose high-quality ribbons. Through our market analysis and investigation, the current situation in China is like this. Imported original ribbons with higher quality are in our market. Rarely, most of the common ones are imported assembled or domestic ribbons. Among them, there are many fake and inferior ribbons that imitate imported original or counterfeit famous brands. Therefore, we should learn to correctly identify the quality of the ribbon and make a selection. It is a basic skill that every stylus printer user must master.

1. How to identify the quality of the ribbon

To know whether the ribbon you choose is a good ribbon, you must first learn how to identify the quality of the ribbon. The quality of the ribbon for the stylus printer is mainly from three aspects: the tape base, the joint welding seam and the ink.

1) Ribbon base

Generally speaking, the base of the ribbon is woven from nylon filaments, and its quality directly affects the service life of the colored ribbon and the ability of ink adhesion and penetration. The base of the printing ribbons currently sold in the market is divided into nylon 6 and nylon 66. The difference between the two is that the chemical composition of the nylon is different. Nylon 66 is more elastic and durable than nylon 6, and well-known brand ribbons on the market generally use nylon 66 as the base. Nylon 66 is divided into low-density, medium-density, high-density and high-density twisting. The higher the density, the more warp and weft weaves, the better the elasticity. Take 13MM bandwidth and 1CM belt length as an example, high-density belt The warp count is 98-100 weaves, the weft count is 44 weaves; the high-density twisted belt warp counts 105-107 weaves, and the weft count is 47 weaves. The two can be clearly distinguished when looking at the leucobelt base, but it is not easy to distinguish after dyeing. It is easy for customers Confuse them. The high-density twisted belt has thick single weave in warp and weft, which is more durable and has large elasticity. The base of the high-density twisted belt is lint-free, uninterrupted, and can not afford the edge of the leaf for a long time. A good tape base has a flat surface, no protruding fiber knots, uniform and tight warp and weft density, straight and uniform cutting edges, and no burnt phenomenon. Touch by hand: The tape base is soft and delicate, with a smooth feeling. It has good elasticity and good resilience when pulled. The bad tape base breaks and spins severely, feels hard when touched, cut edges are uneven, and the tape edges are severely burnt. The elasticity is small when pulling, the recovery is poor, and the printing is often entrained; the belt base will be fuzzed when it reaches 60,000 characters per meter, and the ruffled edges will be blocked, and the needle will be blocked and the tape will be stuck.

In general, we should choose a high-density tape base woven with high-density nylon 66, with a warp and weft density of more than 130 threads per centimeter, and a fiber state of no entanglement, lint, and deformation. When selecting the ribbon, you can look at the ribbon at the light. If you can't see through the light, it is generally a high-density tape base, and the quality is better. If it can transmit light, it indicates that the density of the tape base does not meet the standard requirements. Because of the low-density nylon filament woven ribbon, its printing quality will naturally be greatly compromised.

2) Ink

Of course, ink is also very important. Good ink particles are small, will not block pinholes, have good fluidity, uniform PH value, strong absorption when ink is applied, good moisture retention, durable printing and color transition during printing slow. Good ink is organic, non-toxic, will not corrode, has no peculiar smell, will not stick after dyeing, and is easy to dry. The bad ink particles are large, sticky and sticky. The tape will not dry after being dyed. The tapes produced are very sticky, which will easily block the pinholes during printing, and make the needles unable to stretch flexibly, thus breaking the needles.

When choosing, we should know that the ink of the ribbon should be moderate, too much or too little will affect the printing effect. The high-quality ribbon inks are all degreasing processed, so when you touch them with your hands, there will be no obvious ink marks on your fingers. The printing process of this ink is also very uniform, and there is no obvious difference between the front and back printing effects. And some of the inferior inks we see are greasy and greasy when you touch them with your hands, and your fingers are full of ink traces. It seems that the ink is sufficient, but the color will appear heavy when printing, that is to say. If you touch the printing paper with your hand, it will be blurred. Inferior quality ink will not only cause poor printing results, but it can also enter the print head needle seams along the print pin guide hole and solidify, blocking the print needles, causing the printer to fail to print normally, and in severe cases, it may cause the print head to resist needle ejection. The printing needle is enlarged and broken, the parallel groove of the printing needle is crushed, the driving chip of the printing head or the ribbon motor is burned out, and other serious faults.

3) Interface

We know that the interface of a good ribbon is flat and narrow, the error is relatively small, the degree of hardening is very light, and the needle is not hung when printing; the interface is strong and the tensile strength is also strong. The bad ribbon interface is wide and long, hard, easy to hang the needle, the needle is easy to break when hit here.

So how do we check what is a good interface? Tell everyone that the basic requirements for ribbon joint welds are as follows: the welding angle should be greater than 30 degrees, the joints should be smooth, and there are no obvious joints or convexities. Out, it can maintain the fibril characteristics of the tape base and absorb the ink normally and evenly. The welds of high-quality ribbons are all welded by an ultrasonic welding machine, which can effectively guarantee the quality of the joints. However, the weld seams welded by simple hot melt or hot pressing methods destroy the fiber characteristics of the tape base to varying degrees, resulting in obvious double-layer joints at the weld seam, and the interface is very uneven. This kind of ribbon Often, the printing needle cannot be returned in time, resulting in severe abrasion, damage or even breaking of the printing needle. Therefore, carefully observe the joint welds when purchasing ribbons.

4) Service quality

In addition to the quality of the ribbon itself, I think the quality of after-sales service of the ribbon is also very important. We know that for any product, its after-sales service is the foundation of its market, so users must learn more about the after-sales service of the product manufacturer when purchasing; general manufacturers must have their own perfection as long as their product quality is trustworthy After-sales service is backing up.

I need to remind everyone that a low price is a condition for the survival of inferior ribbons, and it has a certain market and has attracted many consumers. However, due to its short service life and frequent replacements, the printer is always in poor operating condition and damaged. Therefore, the majority of users must not just look at the price of the ribbon and neglect to identify its quality, otherwise it will cause great economic losses.

Three, the daily use of the ribbon

In the process of using ribbons, we will encounter problems of one kind or another. Here is a summary of everyone's daily use of ribbons as follows.

1. change the ribbon by yourself

In fact, it is not too difficult to replace the printing ribbon by yourself, but the structure of the ribbon holders of different types of dot matrix printers are different. Fortunately, their ribbon operation principles are similar. Take the commonly used LQ1600 as an example: First, open the upper cover of the printer, and you will see a black box (usually black) shaped like a clip. We call it the print frame, and the empty part in the middle is the print head. Remove the print frame, pay attention to pull up from the end close to the print head when disassembling, the print frame can be easily removed. Then you can open the print frame. Because the structure of the print frame of different models of printers is different, its ribbon winding method is also slightly different, so you must observe the winding method of the original ribbon, otherwise the ribbon is very likely Can not rotate normally and cause printing failure. It should be noted that the two gears in the print frame should clamp the colored ribbon, and they should be parallel to them, otherwise the ribbon will shift with the rotation of the gears, and finally the gears will be stuck and cannot rotate. After the ribbon is installed, put the print frame back to its original position, and the ribbon replacement procedure is complete.

2. a good way to extend the injection ribbon

In fact, as I said just now, the ribbon is the main consumable of the dot matrix printer. Is there any way we can extend the life of the ribbon in our daily use? The answer is yes. Take the AR3200 printer I use as an example, I can introduce several ways to save ribbon. Of course, other printers can be used as a reference.

1) Prepare two printing ribbon cassettes, use the darker color (newly changed) ribbon to print the official document, and use the lighter color (used, but the tape base must be intact, otherwise the needle will be damaged) ) Ribbon for printing informal documents or wax paper.

2) Fix two small pieces of foam at the ribbon outlet position in the ribbon box, sandwich the ribbon between the two pieces of foam, and let the foam absorb some good quality printing ink, so as to keep the ribbon moist , Extend the use time of the ribbon.

3) Clamp a section of the ribbon exposed at the front end of the ribbon cassette with two foams that absorb printing ink of good quality, and gently rotate the ribbon shaft to add some to the ribbon that has been used for a period of time (the ribbon base is intact) Ink (the entire ribbon must be added, otherwise the color will be different when printing), then open the ribbon box and let the ink ribbon dry (or add a small amount of gasoline in the ink) before using it. Try to print a few The informal draft of the page makes the ink distribution even. Print the official manuscript again.

4) Develop the habit of adjusting the distance between the print head and the paper according to the thickness of the paper. The principle is that it can be as large as possible, as long as the printing effect meets the requirements. For new ribbons, you can also increase the distance appropriately when printing on thin paper, because the color is thicker at this time, which can ensure the print quality.

5) The ribbon can be removed when printing on wax paper. Do not print on wax paper directly at this time to prevent the wax from melting and flowing into the pinhole. Most wax paper comes with transparent paper, just cover it on wax paper and print it.

6) Sometimes the printing ribbon cartridge does not work well, and the printing needle repeatedly prints a certain part of the ribbon, resulting in holes in the ribbon. At this time, you should first open the ribbon cartridge and check whether the gears and metal cards are crossed (large). Part of it is caused by the card ribbon is too loose). For the damaged ribbon, you can cut off the hole part and then implement welding. The welding method is simple: align the interfaces and overlap them slightly, and stick them tightly with transparent thin tape on the inner side (note: on the inner side). If you are afraid of breaking, you can also use thin lines along the left and right directions at the upper and lower interfaces. Needle (usually only the middle section of the ribbon is used).

According to the quality of the ribbon and the specific conditions after printing, I take the above methods respectively. Usually, the use time of a ribbon can be extended by 1.5 to 2.5 times, which greatly reduces the consumption of the ribbon.

3. Ribbon failure and solutions

When using a dot matrix printer, the most common problem is ribbon failure. Taking EPSON LQ series dot matrix printer as an example, introduce and solve several printer ribbon failures.

1) Ribbon breaks-the ribbon is pulled too much, the sutures are broken or the ribbon is broken by a hammer, causing the ribbon to break. In the former case, you can cut off the broken part and re-stitch it; in the latter case, just replace the ribbon.

2) The ribbon is jammed-the edge of the ribbon is detached and fluffed, it is easy to entangle the ribbon wheel, which causes the ribbon wheel to be jammed and the ribbon cannot be retracted into the ribbon cassette normally. The solution is: first open the printer cover, open the ribbon arm and hammer row interlocking handle, gently pull the ribbon back at the ribbon feeding end of the ribbon cassette, and then close the ribbon rotor arm to interlock with the hammer row Handle, turn on the power, the ribbon will be put back into the ribbon cassette after the machine self-check.

3) The ribbon driving wheel drive belt is worn or broken. This failure is caused by the drive belt being used for too long or the character chain rubbing against the drive belt. The solution is to adjust the position of the character chain so that it no longer rubs the drive belt; if it is broken, please replace it.

4) Ribbon motion sensing signal interruption First check whether the ribbon motion sensing signal line is damaged, if it is broken, please replace the signal line; then check whether the ribbon motion sensing signal line at the J6 socket on the interlock conversion board is damaged Or the contact is not good, please replace or plug in the signal line.

4. What should be paid attention to when using ribbon

1) Do not use inferior ribbons. If you use inferior ribbon cassettes and ribbons, during the printing process, the cover of the inferior ribbon and the box body will not be tightly combined, which will easily cause the driven gear to leave the original position. The main gear does not bite tightly, causing the ribbon to slack. Due to the poor quality of the ribbon used, the ribbon ink will enter the print head needle seams along the print needle guide hole and solidify, which will increase the resistance of the print head to eject the needle, which will easily cause the needle to break or crush the parallel groove of the print needle, which is more serious. It will burn out the print pin driver chip or ribbon motor and driver chip.

2) The ribbon installation should be very reasonable. If it is unreasonable, the ribbon on both sides of the print head will be reversed, wound, or deviated when rotating, which will cause the printing needle to directly contact the character roller and wear the printing needle, causing the needle to break.