Color thermal printer might be your best option. With its thermal printing technology, color thermal printer can be used to produce color images by adhering a wax-based ink onto paper.
As the paper and ribbon travel in unison beneath the thermal print head, the wax-based ink from the transfer ribbon melts onto the paper. When cooled, the wax is permanently adhered to the paper. This type of color thermal printer uses a like-sized panel of ribbon for each page to be printed, regardless of the contents of the page. Different from monochrome printers that have a black panel for each page to be printed, color printers have either three (CMY) or four (CMYK) colored panels for each page.
And, unlike dye-sublimation printer, this color thermal printer cannot vary the dot intensity, which means that images must be dithered. Although acceptable in quality, the printouts from this printer cannot compare with modern inkjet printers and color laser printers. Currently, this type of printer is seldom used for full-page printing, but this is the right device for industrial label printing due to its water fastness and speed.
Also, color thermal printer is considered highly reliable due to its small number of moving parts. Unfortunately, printouts from color thermal printers are sensitive to abrasion because the wax ink can be scraped, rubbed off, or smeared.
Rimage Perfect Image Prism CD/DVD Color Thermal Printer might be your best option if you have decided to purchase color thermal printer. This printer is the first CD thermal printer for true production applications that require high-speed printing to keep pace with CD-R production, which offers full color, high-resolution text, and graphic printing. Completed with an exclusive 3-paneled ribbon, this printer provides for a full pallet of colors and single color capabilities.
In addition, this color thermal printer features the indelible printing process that requires no drying time and the fully functional label creation software that will allow custom design capabilities on Windows-based systems. The software allows for bar codes, scanned images, imported logos and custom serialization, and is capable of up to 99 merge files for unique CD production runs.
Another option is Rimage Producer II Everest Autopriner CD/DVD Color Thermal Printer. With Everest printing technology, this printer ushers in a new era of affordable, offset quality CD/DVD printing, producing photo-realistic labels that have the rugged durability of thermal. With Everest, CD-R/DVD-R labeling has taken a quantum leap into the future. Its Photo-Realistic Images is a ground breaking thermal-retransfer system that redefines the industry standard.
Meanwhile, the MicroDry variable dot printing of this color thermal printer delivers images equivalent to 160 lines per inch, – a true paradigm shift in technology. AutoEverest blows away traditional screen printing (90 LPI) and eclipses magazine print standards (150 LPI), delivering unequaled CD printing quality. Completed with its remarkable capability, this printer allows you to achieve label effects previously unattainable, including photo-realistic printing on silver surface media.
Or you can choose IBM SureMark 4610 Model TI4 – Receipt printer – two-color – direct thermal / dot-matrix – up to 52 lines/sec. With a high-powered combination of advanced technology and reliability, this color thermal printer can help retailers in every segment reduce transaction times, customize receipts with marketing messages and maximize uptime at the point of sale (POS).
This printer uses the latest innovations in thermal printing to quietly produce crisp, clean output on every receipt. Even, it is completed with TrueType fonts to enable newspaper-style printing with proportional, scalable characters that attract customers’ attention and improve the readability of targeted marketing messages.
