Miniprinter Interface control Boards

For the Original Equipment Manufacturer (oem), with large volume build quantities, it becomes cost effective to integrate basic miniprinter components into the product design. Of course it's much easier to utilise a packaged printer, such as a panel mounted or stand alone desktop unit, but only an oem miniprinter mechanism can be fully integrated into your product. This route saves inventory costs, reduces the overall product size and allows total customisation to exactly meet your specification.

Integration of a miniprinter mechanism can be a tricky business. There are far more factors to consider than designing in, for example, a display, control button or keypad! Unfortunately, due to it's very nature the printer mechanism is likely to be the least reliable component of your equipment. It has got moving parts which will wear, it is vulnerable to damage when it is accessed by its user (to renew paper rolls, ink ribbons etc) and it will always be exposed to the environment to some extent. This is why we offer full support to the oem developing their own miniprinter solution. Our expertise, built up over decades of working with miniprinters means that we can suggest work-arounds for all of the problems associated with their application. This advice is freely given and starts at the initial product design stage.

Integrating the printer is only part of the project. Printer mechanisms also require some electronics to control them and to process the data. This interface is much easier when using a control board and M-Tech offers a range of interface boards for use with most impact and thermal miniprinter mechanisms available from manufacturers including: Axiohm, Epson, Fujitsu, Citizen & Seiko. The most popular data communication protocol is serial RS232-C but increasingly USB and wireless technolgies such as Bluetooth are gaining importance. Others including Parallel and IrDA are catered for but special, customised interface boards are also easily and quickly developed at relatively low cost. All of our control boards can also be re-configured for specific applications, such as special character sets, customisable input or output, default printer parameters etc.

Remember, as an independent miniprinter specialist, M-Tech Printers can recommend the best possible printer mechanism and interface control board for your application.

Below are brief details of a few of the most popular ranges of product available. For further information please contact us.