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Why do they use thermal printing for receipts? Is it just cheaper because you don't have ink that runs out? Less moving parts so less maintenance?
by cinntaile 5y ago
Why do they use thermal printing for receipts? Is it just cheaper because you don't have ink that runs out? Less moving parts so less maintenance?
- postalrat 5y agoFast, reliable, inexpensive, relatively quiet. Hard to beat.
- otterley 5y agoThat, and also speed. Thermal printing is fast compared to the alternatives.
- RankingMember 5y agoAs someone who once worked a job in retail where we printed receipts on dot matrix printers on triplicate paper, we longed for thermal printing at the time. Noise, speed, and jams were a common occurrence.
- tyingq 5y agoNo trying to get cashiers to refill ink properly is, I assume, the main business benefit. The only thing they refill is paper, which should be dead simple on a decent thermal printer.
- drewzero1 5y agoPros: faster, quieter, better quality, don't need to know how to load ribbon when it runs out. Cons: fancy paper, fades over time, destroyed by even minor heat. We switched from dot matrix receipts to thermal a few years ago and there were several very vocal complaints about the relative impermanence of a thermal receipt.
- chucksmash 5y agoReading the thread for "minor hear" There was essentially no reasonable distance at which we could store the to-go pizzas from their accompanying thermal receipts where information the receipts contained would be recoverable.
- drewzero1 5y agoGood point, I forgot about food. We don't sell anything hot, but a lot of our customers work out of trucks or vans and some complained that the receipts were unreadable after leaving them in their vehicles in the summer.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoNo ink cartridge/ribbon/toner, the head is "solid state", and they can be very, very fast as the head is a linear array the width of the printable area. Also, the cynic in me says that thermal paper is exceptionally fragile and this benefits return policies. Thermal receipt paper falls apart readily when wet, bleaches quickly, and of course turns black if exposed to too much heat.
- xenadu02 5y agoIf you're never seen a thermal printer hooked up properly with proper software... those things are insanely fast. It can spit out a meter/yard long receipt in two seconds. Nothing else comes close. It also uses paper in rolls, without requiring spools, and no ink/toner/ribbons to replace which would be both more complicated and take longer.