PRINT MECHANISM
The print mechanism provides the capability to interchange printheads industry standard, 8
dot/mm printheads which have been selected by ATLANTEK in order to provide a good
representative cross section of competing thermal printheads. This will allow the printhead
itself to be treated as a control variable for evaluation purposes.
POWER SUPPLIES
The system power supply consists of two modules containing two separate supplies as follows:
1. Adjustable Printhead Supply
2. Motor and Logic Supply
ATLANTEK CONTROLLER BOARD
The control board provides the following functions:
1. Stepper Motor Control
2. Printhead Control
3. Data and Control Interface to Computer
The stepper controller is a high performance stepper drive designed to provide both a wide
range of paper speeds as well as smooth, precise incremental motion. The smallest
programmable step increment is 50% of the dot pitch at the 8 dot/mm resolution or 16 dots/mm
of position resolution. The motor drives themselves employ a combination of chopper drive and
half-stepping to insure smooth, resonance free motion over the full range of paper speeds.
The printhead temperature control allows the operating temperature of the printhead assembly to
be programmed as a variable parameter from ambient temperature to 50 degrees Centigrade.
The computer measures the temperature and based upon the test requirements instructs the
control board to heat or not heat the printhead. The control board also determines the dot pulse
duration (Ton) and manages the head strobing in accordance with the test requirements.
PC-AT OR COMPATIBLE
The computer resident system software provides for independent configuration of all variable
parameters, plus a data base designed to store all test results together with their specific
configurations. This software has been developed by ATLANTEK specifically for the
purpose of performing thermal response characterizations and is designed to work in close
conjunction with the PRINTHEAD I/O driver card to insure the data throughput requirements
associated with the high speed end of the thermal characterization spectrum. All data entry
and system operation will be performed via this software package which provides simple
parameter configuration menus to insure user friendly operation during system operation all
variables and data are passed from the computer to the control board where real time execution
takes place.
