SATO CT400, CT410 manual Procedures, Adjusting the Print Quality, Darkness Print

SECTION 3.

CLEANING AND MAINTENANCE

INTRODUCTION

This section provides information on user maintenance for the CL Series printers. This section contains the following information.

∙Adjusting the Print Quality

∙Cleaning the Print Head, Platen and Rollers

∙Replacing the Print Head

∙Replacing the Fuse

PROCEDURES

ADJUSTING THE PRINT QUALITY

The CT400 and CT410 printers are equipped with two different methods of adjusting the quality of the print; print darkness and speed. When adjusting the printer for optimum print quality, a bar code verifier system should be used. The human eye is a poor judge of the relative widths of the bars in a symbol, a characteristic that is extremely important for good bar code quality.

Darkness (Print)

This adjustment allows the user to control (within a specified range) the amount of power that is used to activate the individual print head heat elements. It is important to find a proper print darkness level based on your particular label and ribbon combination. The printed images should not be too light nor should the ink from the ribbon “bleed.” The edges of each image should be crisp and well defined.

The print darkness level can be set by downloading the setting using the <ESC>#E Print Darkness software command (see Section 4, Programming Reference). There are five ranges 1 through 5, with the lightest setting being 1 and the darkest setting being 5. The <ESC>#E Print Darkness command also provides for darkness ranges matched to the type of media used. Setting “A” is used Direct thermal media and “B” for coated thermal transfer media.

Once the range has been selected, the PRINT Potentiometer on the front panel can be used to make finer adjustments.

SATO CT Series Printers 9001069A Page 3-1