Garmin DTC300 manual Functional Specifications, Function Description, Panels on the Ribbon

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Functional Specifications

This Card Printer utilizes two different, yet closely related printing technologies to achieve its remarkable direct-to-card print quality for dye-sublimation and resin thermal transfer. The Card Printer will print from any IBM-PC® or compatible running Windows® 98SE, Me, Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

The following describes how each of these technologies works:

Function	Description
Dye-	Dye-Sublimation is the print method the DTC400/DTC300/DTC300M uses
Sublimation	to produce smooth, continuous-tone images that look truly photographic.
	(Note: This process uses a dye-based Ribbon roll that is partitioned by a
	number of consecutive color panels.)
	The panels are grouped in a repeating series of these three process colors
	along the entire length of the print Ribbon: yellow, magenta and cyan or
	YMC.
	The Printer always prints the yellow panel first, followed by the magenta
	panel and the cyan panel. (Note: As the print Ribbon passes beneath the
	Printhead, hundreds of thermal elements within the Printhead heat the
	dyes on the Ribbon. When these dyes are heated, they diffuse into the
	surface of the card. A separate pass is made for each of the three color
	panels on the Ribbon.)
	By combining the colors of each panel and by varying the heat used to
	transfer these colors, it is possible to print up to 16.7 million different
	shades of color. (Note: This blends one color smoothly into the next,
	producing photo-quality images with absolutely no dot pattern.)
Resin	Resin Thermal Transfer is the print method the Printer uses to print sharp
Thermal	black text and crisp bar codes, which can be read by both infrared and
Transfer	visible-light bar code scanners.
	• Used to print ultra-fast, one-color ID cards on the
	DTC400/DTC300/DTC300M. (Note: Like dye-sublimation, this process
	uses the same thermal Printhead to transfer color to a card from a
	resin-only print Ribbon or the resin black (K) panel of a full color print
	Ribbon.)
	• Solid dots of resin-based ink are transferred and fused to the surface of
	the card. (Note: This produces durable, saturated printing.)

DTC400/DTC300/DTC300M Card Printer User Guide (Rev. 1.1) 2-8