104Routine Maintenance Cleaning Procedures

Clean the Printhead and Platen Roller

You can minimize printhead wear and maintain print quality with regular preventive measures. Over time, the movement of media or ribbon across the printhead wears through the protective ceramic coating, exposing and eventually damaging the print elements (dots). To avoid abrasion:

•Clean the printhead frequently, and use well-lubricated thermal transfer ribbons with backings optimized to reduce friction.

•Minimize printhead pressure and burn temperature settings by optimizing the balance between the two.

•Ensure that the thermal transfer ribbon is as wide or wider than the label media to prevent exposing the elements to the more abrasive label material.

For best results, clean the printhead after changing every roll of ribbon. Inconsistent print quality, such as voids in the bar code or graphics, may indicate a dirty printhead.

Caution • While performing any tasks near an open printhead, remove all rings, watches, hanging necklaces, identification badges, or other metallic objects that could touch the printhead. You are not required to turn off the printer power when working near an open printhead, but Zebra recommends it as a precaution. If you turn off the power, you will lose all temporary settings, such as label formats, and you must reload them before you resume printing.

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Note • For printers with a peel assembly, keep the peel assembly closed while cleaning the platen roller to reduce the risk of bending the tear-off/peel-off bar.

Figure 16 • Location of the Printhead and Platen Roller

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1Printhead assembly

2Platen roller

79695L-002 Rev. A

Z Series®/RZ™ Series User Guide

6/6/08