eXtendo
®
Thermal Printer Family
HENGSTLER
Part No. D 684 124
Mod. No. 4 080812 LEV
page 30 of 38
eXtendo
®
Print Terminal:
Possibly the most useful tool of the bunch, the Print Terminal has
six sets of 24 buttons each, most of them preprogrammed to transmit commands to your
eXtendo
®
printer. All buttons are programmable to make them transmit whatever is needed.
This tool is very popular with software developers who are integrating the eXtendo
®
into their
products.
eXtendo
®
Uninstaller Tool:
Use this tool to uninstall single or all versions of the eXtendo
®
driver.
eXtendo
®
Upload Tool:
Used to upload new firmware, specific data files, etc. to the flash
area of your eXtendo
®
printer.
eXtendo
®
Wide Font Tool:
Used for creating Wide Font formats (such as Chinese or
Korean) from standard graphic files.
8.
Low Current Operation
There are numerous factors that affect thermal printer current. It is possible to manipulate these
factors consciously to reduce current draw for situations where this is important, such as operating
from batteries. If battery operation only occurs when power has failed, the host software can be
programmed to print at a faster, higher current rate during normal operation and then switch the
eXtendo
®
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 eXtendo
®
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 eXtendo
®
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 eXtendo
®
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 eXtendo
®
Emulation Command Set Reference for the specific command sequence.
8.5. Burn Time Correction
The eXtendo
®
family of printers include a feature that will adjust burn time automatically
depending upon ambient temperature. Burn Time Correction allows the adjustment of these