• CLEAN your printhead regularly. Use cotton swabs* and Isopropyl Alcohol (recommend 90% - 99% concentrate, however common 70% will work just fine, too) to thoroughly clean the print element area of the printhead. Dirt, dust, adhesive, and ribbon/ink residue will build-up over time. Failure to clean these substances off of the print elements will cause the printhead to have to work much harder to transfer its energy through the residue, to the ribbon or label surface to create the image. A dirty printhead will burn out its print elements much faster, causing a much shorter printhead lifespan.
  o If printing Thermal Transfer (with a ribbon), you will want to clean the printhead every time you change the ribbon.
  o If printing Direct Thermal (no ribbon), you will want to clean the printhead every time you change a roll of labels. Direct Thermal label stock will leave much more debris, dust and adhesive residue on the printhead than if printing with a ribbon.

**Cleaning pens, cleaning cards and foam swabs are available and approved by most printer manufacturers, however they are very expensive compared to a package of wooden-shaft cotton swabs. Cotton swabs are the softest and produce the lowest amount of friction against the printhead

• NEVER touch or scrape the printhead with any metal object (including items made of very hard materials such as ceramic and other abrasives). Hard objects can scratch and destroy the printhead elements. Physical damage to printhead elements is permanent and will require the printhead to be replaced. This damage will result in the appearance of sharp, straight, vertical void area in the printed image. It only takes one bad/damaged print element to render a barcode un-readable by the scanner. Multiple damaged or burnt-out elements will severely compromise the image’s overall quality. Knives, razor blades, screwdrivers and jewelry (rings and watches), are some of the more common items that result in damaged printheads. Thought and caution must be observed if the printer is placed in an area where there may be airborne metal dust, or abrasives that can settle on the printer or the labels and ribbons running through the printer.
  
  
• REPLACE wear parts when they need replacing – especially those parts critical to print quality such as the Platen Roller, Main Drive Belt and any worn parts which physically support the printhead alignment and balance. The printhead is designed to print accurately and evenly when its printing surface is also perfectly even and symmetrical. This “surface” is actually the center-point (or near-center) of the platen roller. The surface of the platen roller must be even; and free of any wear, tapering, pits or cuts. Platen rollers that are sliced, or have “chunks” cut out of them, will produce voids and blemishes in the print quality; and increase unnecessary friction against the printhead. Worn or tapered rollers will cause increased friction, as well as excess strain on other parts of the printhead support mechanism.

If your printers are used heavily in “mission critical” applications, it is a good idea to maintain a stock of new printheads for these vital printers. Keeping a replacement printhead on hand for your mission critical printers is a good way to cut down on costly down-time.

Consider these questions when evaluating the importance of your printhead and printer:

• How much is your production time worth?
• How much money does it cost your business each day, each hour, if you cannot ship your products because you are unable to print the needed labels?