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Routine Care and Adjustments
Cleaning Procedures
13163L Rev. 3 5/20/2004 Z4Mplus/Z6Mplus User Guide 77
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/ribbon across the printhead wears through the protective
ceramic coating, exposing and eventually damaging the print elements (dots). In order to avoid
abrasion:
• Clean your printhead frequently and use well-lubricated thermal transfer ribbons with
packagings 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, perform the following cleaning procedure after changing every roll of ribbon.
Inconsistent print quality, such as voids in the bar code or graphics, may indicate a dirty
printhead.
Figure 34 • Cleaning the Printhead and Platen Roller
Note • The printer can remain on while you are cleaning the printhead. In this way all label
formats, images, and all temporary parameter settings stored in the printer’s internal memory
are saved. In addition, keep the peel engaged while cleaning the platen roller (media must be
unloaded to do this) to reduce the risk of bending the tear-off/peel-off bar.
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Printhead Assembly
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Platen Roller
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