US 12,759,313 B2Granted

Thermal printer and method of improving print quality

AssigneeZebra Technologies Corporation

InventorsJinqiang Huang, Changyan Huang, Hongqiang Liu, Jia Ying

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Abstract

Methods of improving print quality are disclosed herein. An example method of improving print quality may be embodied by a method of temperature compensation for a thermal printhead having a plurality of heating elements, including identifying, for the heating element corresponding to the column of the pixel, when a number of pulses delivered to the heating element in a predetermined window prior to a line of the pixel is outside of a defined range and responsive to determining that the number of pulses is outside the defined range, and prior to printing the pixel, adjusting the pulse sequence to be delivered to the heating element corresponding to the column of the pixel to print the pixel at a line of the pixel following the predetermined window.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A method of temperature compensation for a thermal printhead having a plurality of heating elements, wherein the thermal printhead is configured to print pixels of a print pattern, the print pattern including a plurality of columns and a plurality of lines, each heating element corresponding to one column of the print pattern, where for each pixel to be printed, the thermal printhead delivers a pulse sequence of at least one pulse of electrical current to a heating element corresponding to a column of the pixel, causing the heating element to print the pixel, the method comprising:

prior to printing the pixel, identifying, for the heating element corresponding to the column of the pixel, when a number of pulses delivered to the heating element in a predetermined window prior to a line of the pixel is outside of a defined range;
and
responsive to determining that the number of pulses is outside the defined range, and prior to printing the pixel, adjusting the pulse sequence to be delivered to the heating element corresponding to the column of the pixel to print the pixel at a line of the pixel following the predetermined window.

A device, comprising:

a processing platform;
a thermal printhead, including a plurality of heating elements, each configured to print a column of pixels on a media of a print pattern;
wherein the print pattern includes a plurality of columns and a plurality of lines, each heating element corresponding to one column of the print pattern:
wherein for each pixel to be printed, the device is configured to deliver a pulse sequence of at least one pulse of electrical current to a heating element corresponding to a column of the pixel, causing the corresponding heating element to print the pixel on a media element;
wherein, prior to printing a given pixel, the device is configured to identify, for the heating element corresponding to the column of the given pixel, when a number of pulses to be delivered to the heating element in a predetermined window prior to the line of the given pixel is outside of a defined range, and responsive to identifying the number of pulses delivered to the heating element in the predetermined window is outside of the defined range, to adjust the pulse sequence to be delivered to the heating element to print the given pixel.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.