We distribute Ricoh and ITW brands in, wax, wax resin and resin grades - ink in and ink out formats and core configurations to suit all common Thermal Transfer Machines.

Thermal Ribbon also called Thermal Transfer Ribbon or TTR has a number of common variations that need to be identified before a ribbon can be selected to suit the machine it will be used on and the application it is being used for. We can help advise the best THermal Ribbon for your application.

What machine is the thermal ribbon being used on?

Most desk top machines use what is referred to as a flat head however there are machines such as TEC and Avery Dennison that use what is called a near edge head. These near edge heads require a special ribbon which we are able to supply. We recommend Netmark IQ for these near edge heads.

Most date coding machines such as the Markem Smartdate, Easyprint and Bellmark machines use near edge heads and again we can supply a specialist coding ribbon which we call P110 Date Coding Ribbon.

What quality of thermal ribbon is required for your application?

There are three basic qualities that thermal ribbon is supplied in.

• Wax thermal ribbon - most economical but least resistant to smear and solvents.
• Wax resin thermal ribbon - Ricoh B110A black, B210A Blue, B310A Red and B610A Green by far the most commonly used thermal ribbon being economical and having sufficient resistance to smear and solvents to suit most common applications.
• Resin thermal ribbon - Ricoh B110C is the most expensive with the best resistance to smear and solvents.

Is your thermal ribbon wound with the ink wound in or ink wound out?

This tends to be machine specific. Zebra and TEC machines are normally ink would out and Datamax and Sato are normally ink wound in. It is always better to be safe and not sorry and check which of these two alternatives you require.

Does your Thermal Ribbon require a special core?

The normal configuration is a cardboard core 25mm in diameter with the thermal ribbon width being the same width as the core. Some variations on this would be:

• Core wider that the thermal ribbon
• Thermal ribbon supplied on a core with a second receiver core attached.
• Cores notched on one or both ends of the core