Section 1. Printer Overview; Introduction - SATO M10e Operation Manual

Operation Manual Section 1: Overview
SECTION 1.
PRINTER OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION

The SATO M10e printer is a wide carriage thermal printer designed specifically to address need
for large high resolution labels. It can print labels as large as 10.5" x 16.5" with a resolution of
305 dpi (dots per inch) at speeds up to 5 inches per second, making it ideal for large compliance
label applications.All printer parameters are user programmable using the front panel controls
and DIP switches. All popular bar codes and 14 human readable fonts, including vector and two
raster fonts, are resident in memory providing literally thousands of type styles and sizes.
The M10e is available in two versions. The M10eDT is a direct thermal only version and must
use thermally sensitive paper to print. The M10eTT is a thermal transfer model and has provi-
sions for using a thermal transfer ribbon. It can also print in a direct thermal mode if the ribbon is
not used.
This manual will help you understand the basic operations of the printer such as setup, installa-
tion, configuration, cleaning and maintenance.
The M10e uses the standard SATO Printing Language command codes. The only differences
between it and other SATO printers are the allowable values representing the print positions on
the label. These values are specified in "dots" and vary depending upon the resolution of the
printer and the amount of memory available for imaging the label. The allowable ranges for the
M10e are specified in the SATO "e" Printer Programming Reference. This commonality makes it
easy to convert labels from one SATO printer without having to create an entirely different com-
mand stream. There are some caveats that must be observed though to compensate for the dif-
ferent resolution print heads. The effects of the different print resolutions are best illustrated by
taking a label designed for a 305 dpi printer and sending the command stream to a 609 dpi
printer. The label printed will be an exact one half scale, including the fonts, bar code dimen-
sions and line length/widths. The only exceptions are the Postnet bar code and OCR-A and
OCR-B fonts that have only one legal size and the printer resolution is automatically compen-
sated for by the various printers. Conversely, a label designed for a 609 dpi printer and sent to
its 305 dpi cousin will be twice as large. It probably will be "truncated" if the resulting size is
larger that the maximum allowable for the printer.
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