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Box Contents
Everything you need to be up and running
is in the box, including a blank CD that I'm sure
wasn't included to tempt you over to the TDK brand.
The single black cartridge should be good for around
20 disks if you print in both locations on each disk
or 40 if you print in just the one location.
The average price for a replacement
cartridge seems to be around £6.00 so that's
in the region of 30p per disk which, for the record,
is more than I pay for the disks themselves. If you
print in just a single location then it becomes a
more reasonable 15p per disk but even this is quite
expensive compared to the cost of a page of text on
a regular inkjet printer. The problem is a regular
inkjet printer can't do what a solid ink printer can
do so its a bit of a moot point really.
The Label Printer
This is the top view of the label printer
and as you can see it's pretty slick looking. As an
idea of scale that round indent in the middle is just
about the same size as a regular CD. You can't tell
very well from this particular picture but the casing
is a light gray/silver coloured plastic.
The four rubber feet that the printer
stands on wrap around onto both sides though this
seems to be a cosmetic thing as there's no mention
of being able to use the printer in a vertical orientation
and no clips on the disk tray to secure the CD when
used this way. Maybe it's a feature planned or used
for other models but there was no mention of it in
the user's guide.
The back has only two connections, one
for the supplied USB1.1 cable and the other for the
power adapter which, should you be even remotely interested,
is powered from a 9v 1000mA adapter.
The front is clean and simple featuring
just the drawer eject button with an integral green
power LED and the blue flip up cover used to access
the print cartridge.
And as if by magic, here it is with
said cover open! It's not exactly crammed to the gills
with sophisticated electronics but I guess it doesn't
really need to be. The cartridge, print head and motor
are mounted together as a single unit which saves
space. Although the unit is quite compact a quick
peep inside revealed lots of space at the back behind
the print mechanism and I'm sure the casing could
be redesigned slightly to create storage room for
a spare print cartridge or two, perhaps in a little
drawer.
The cartridges simply push over the
print head assembly and click into place and are removed
in the same way. You need to put the end of a pen
or something similar into the white spindle (on the
left in image below) and wind up any slack tape before
you install the cartridge. I couldn't find any info
on the ribbon used in these cartridges but I think
these days they all have an antistatic layer, an important
feature as dust particles on the back of the ribbon
can quickly abrade the print head.
Cartridges are available in black, blue,
silver and red at just under £6.00
each.
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eeeeee
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One thing TDK do need to sort out is
the wording on the warning sticker in the middle of
the CD drawer. The recording side is clearly NOT
the side on which you want to print despite what the
sticker says.
Thermal Transfer Printing
If by now you're wondering what this
thermal printing business is all about I'll try and
give a brief explanation. In those cartridges is a
certain length of ribbon, plastic film to which a
layer of "ink" has been applied. This ink,
usually a form of resin or wax, is solid at room temperature
but melts when heat is applied. To print, the ribbon
is pressed against the print surface (in our case
the CD) and a combination of pressure and bursts of
heat created by the print head melt small amounts
of ink which adhere to the print surface and become
solid again almost instantly.
The benefits to this kind of printing
are mainly that the finished results are extremely
durable and the ink is dry immediately or almost immediately.
You also get the option to use metallic inks if the
manufacturer makes them available.
Thermal transfer printing has been tried
in the past for desktop colour printing with very
limited success. Alps introduced a range of "Micro
DryTM " printers which operated on a thermal
transfer principle but high running costs meant they
were popular only for very specialist print jobs like
making decals for modellers. I believe Alps have now
discontinued these printers.
From watching the way the ribbon feeds
under the head on the LPCW-50 when printing I'd say
that a lot of changes could be made to increase the
cartridge life. Even if you're printing a single character
right in the middle or to the right of the printing
area (the head moves left to right) the ribbon spools
under the head for the full width of its travel. This
has to be done once the head applies pressure and
the ribbon is sandwiched between it and the disk but
surely this doesn't need to happen across the whole
print area when only a small part is being printed
to.
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