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XPM 80™ Thermal Printer Family
XPM 80™ to a lower current mode when the system switches to battery operation. The following are
some considerations to aid in reducing current draw.
8.1. Print Speed
With thermal printers, average current is proportional to print speed. Since the burn time for
each dot row is fixed, when printing slower there is more pause between burns and therefore
a lower average current. (The peak current is determined by the number of dots burned at
once, and so is unaffected by print speed.) The XPM 80™ target print speed (called the
"target speed" because other settings may cause the actual print speed to be lower than this)
can be set via the interface; please refer to the XPM 80™ Emulation Command Set
Reference for the specific command sequence. The slower this print speed is, the lower the
average current draw will be. Note that when using the XPM 80™ Windows XP driver, the
driver will override settings sent to the printer directly via the interface.
8.2. Graphics/Bar Codes
Printing graphics rather than text consumes more current than printing only text. Typical text-
only printing is considered to be 12.5% coverage on average, while graphic printing varies
from 25% to 50% average, consuming 2X to 4X the average current. Printing bar codes is in
the same category, and draws about 4X the current of text. Both should be avoided or
minimized to reduce current draw. In terms of current draw, it does not matter whether
printing is done using the printer's internal character set or the via the driver.
8.3. Reverse Printing
Reverse printing should be avoided, since everything that's normally black becomes white,
and vice-versa, drawing (in average text) about 8 times the current.
8.4. Dot History Factor
Dot history monitors previously burned dots and reheats them for a shorter time to prevent
blooming and excessively black areas, thereby decreasing total current consumption. Using
dot history and minimizing the main burn time will reduce average current draw. Please refer
to the XPM 80™ Emulation Command Set Reference for the specific command sequence.
8.5. Burn Time Correction
The XPM 80™ family of printers include a feature that will adjust burn time automatically
depending upon ambient temperature. Burn Time Correction allows the adjustment of these
burn times to "tune" the printer to maximum performance for any given paper, thereby
improving print quality but having little effect on current consumption. If current draw is truly
critical, reducing these values will reduce current slightly at the cost of lower contrast in the
printout. Please refer to the XPM 80™ Emulation Command Set Reference for the specific
command sequence.
8.6. Multi-Strobe Factor
This feature is the only XPM 80™ software feature that will reduce peak current. When this
features is turned on, only one side of the printhead is fired at a time, reducing the peak
current by a factor of two, but having virtually no effect on average current. This is very useful
if your power supply has a restrictive maximum current, but slows printing. Please refer to the
XPM 80™ Emulation Command Set Reference for the specific command sequence.
8.7. Print Density Adjustment
Increasing print density will improve print quality, but at the same time will increase average
current. Therefore Print Density is always a trade-off between these two characteristics. Use
the lowest print density that is visually acceptable to minimize current draw. Please refer to
the XPM 80™ Emulation Command Set Reference for the specific command sequence.
Part No. D 690 019
Mod. No. 4 051015 Eli1
HENGSTLER
page 27 of 32
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