The cab XC4 and XC6 two colour thermal transfer printers are very good for printing GHS labels, but tend to suffer from print quality problems for the following reasons,
  1. There is only one temperature (temperature) setting to control both colours, so the two ribbons have to be closely matched.
  2. The design is such that there is a small tolerance on the darkness setting for particular combinations of labels and ribbons.
  3. The print quality is adversely susceptible to a small amount of residue on the print head, resulting in frequent head cleans.
  4. The lower print head is very difficult to clean.
  5. Ribbons are prone to creasing, causing diagonal white lines in the print.
  6. The print quality problems increase with the higher speeds, so users tend to run the printer at a slower speed, reducing productivity.
  7. Print quality can be affected by the ambient temperature.
These problems are particularly noticeable when using resin ribbons on a synthetic material such as polypropylene or polyester. A common application for the cab XC4 and XC6 printers is GHS labelling. A frequent problem occurs when printing the large areas of black as shown in the example. The LQ ADR symbol is particularly difficult. If you reduce the darkness to avoid ribbon crease in the ADR symbol, the smaller text and the red print is of poor quality and if you increase the darkness to get a reasonable print quality on the smaller text and the red, you get ribbon crease in the area of the ADR symbol. Alternatively, you can get a good print quality on one colour but not on the other colour AM Labels has tested most of the thermal ribbons currently available and has identified a combination of red and black resin ribbons which go a long way to alleviating the above problems. The advantages are,
  1. Wider range of darkness settings, providing good quality print on small text and red diamonds, without ribbon creasing on ADR symbols.
  2. The printer can be run at the full speed of 125mm / Sec with a good print quality on both colours.
  3. Less susceptible to ribbon creasing.
  4. Print quality less affected by small amounts of residue on the print heads.
  5. Less susceptible to changes in the ambient temperature.
View in action: cab XC series video Contact us on 01536 414 222 or fill in our contact form to get a FREE sample pack of ribbons for you to test.