An Introduction To Kiosk Printers

Determining the best type of print output for your application early in the design cycle can prevent significant delays, save costs, improve the overall kiosk design and speed product development time to market. The kiosk market is exploding, with new applications emerging at a rapid pace. Printing has become an integral part of kiosk capability for providing a wide range of information such as maps and directions, receipts, coupons and promotions, reviews, tickets, and questionnaires.

Designing a kiosk that requires some type of print output is one of the situations where advanced planning can make a tremendous difference, not only in efficient production and cost savings, but also in the performance of the end product itself. However, many designers often leave this important consideration until the end of the process.

Kiosk Printers

There are two main types of print technologies available:

Direct thermal printing uses a heated print head to record an image on special paper. These units are light in weight, economical to purchase, require very little power to operate, and are typically very quiet. In addition, the only consumable these printing devices need is paper. On the downside, the printed document can eventually fade over time (5-7 years).

Impact printing (Dot Matrix) uses a moving hammer to transfer ink from a ribbon onto paper. The impact allows these devices to print multi-part forms, automatically generating several copies of a document. As a result of more moving parts, impact printing devices tend to use more consumables and tend to have a shorter life span.

There are advantages to each technology. Which you use depends upon your application. Generally speaking, thermal printers are faster, have better resolution, and require less maintenance than impact dot matrix types. On the downside, they require the use of a special paper, which is slightly more expensive than plain paper, and thermal printouts can fade when exposed to heat and bright light.

Impact dot matrix printers generate a permanent printout that is not heat or light sensitive. They also have the ability to print multiple part paper or forms, which thermal printers cannot do. Impact dot matrix printers, however, are slow, generally have poorer resolution, and use an ink ribbon or cartridge. When replacing the ink ribbon or cartridge, remember that the cost of labour to install the cartridge, especially in kiosk or decentralised applications, may be much higher than the cost of the cartridge itself.

Thermal printers are generally accepted for most applications. Many credit card machines are now thermal, and compensate for their inability to print multi-part forms by printing two originals.

Printer Assembly or Mechanism?

A complete printer assembly like a TUP900 saves the need to worry about a separate PSU, interface and paper holder etc. but may not fit into an existing kiosk design, integrating a separate mechanism might be a better option. A paper roll can play a key part in this decision, depending on how large a roll you go for and where it fits into the kiosk may force you to opt for a mechanism.

Some Printer assemblies also have a presenter option which dramatically reduces the chance of paper jamming/issuing to the customer. If a cutter is used in combination with a capture slot/tray then this may not be such an issue but worthwhile considering at the early stages of design.

Card Reader/Writers

Security and customer information is becoming very important in the kiosk industry and therefore choosing the correct card reader is very important. There are three main types of card to choose from:

Magnetic Stripe - The card is divided into 3 tracks (track 1 for alphanumeric and tracks 2,3 for numeric)

Smart Card - This type of card has a smart chip built in which can be encoded with a lot more information than a standard magnetic card

Visual Card - This is relatively new technology which has a magnetic stripe but also has a re-printable surface so it can be printed on over and over again.

Manual or Motorized?

The main benefit of a motorised card reader/writer over a standard insertion type is the ability to retain the card if due to an error or a security issue as the card can be fed from the back of the unit into a capture tray for an engineer to pick up at a later stage. Also if it’s secure data that is being read then you do not want the card to be susceptible to theft which you may find with a manual insertion.

Design Requirements?

As discussed earlier, in the desire to achieve the smallest size possible, proper space allowance for the mechanism itself is often overlooked. But, there are a number of other important considerations that come into play.

Unit/Paper Size Requirements - Size of the printed document can be a deciding factor in space requirements. Whereas a simple receipt may not need much information on the document, a detailed sheet may require a lot more space. Typically, you wouldn't want a 60mm wide piece of paper that ends up being 250mm long--instead you may want to design a printer that would have a 112mm wide piece of paper that is 80mm long. The amount of information to be printed needs to be considered early on. For some applications, designers want to make the printer large enough to hold a substantial amount of paper-due to the infrequency of service. So size would matter-not so much for the printer-but for the amount of paper the printer holds. Additionally, paper stock should be considered. The application may require fan-fold paper, ideally suited for coupons or tickets, or roll type paper for receipt printing.

Interface - It is important to make sure that the kiosk software being used interfaces correctly with the printer. Special software commands can also be created to provide unique features for the application, such as characters, rows and columns, graph, logos, graphics and paper cut length. The early consideration of communications can either qualify or disqualify products, because certain printers can't communicate in every language or at every level. For example, some print mechanisms can only accept either serial or parallel signals-not both.