Hi, Travis from POSGuys.com.
Today's question comes from Blake Marks, he was basically asking about the Epson U220B
and asking if we could show some footage of it working, and kind of go into an explanation
of why we like thermal printers just more than impact printers.
Yeah, Blake I'd be happy to answer that question and kind of show you some footage of it.
Here I have a restaurant set-up.
The Epson U220B I have it set up to print the receipt, and the Epson 88V I have it set
up to print the kitchen ticket, so that's kind of the opposite of how most people set
it up, but for this example I just wanted to set it up that way.
So I'm going to print them both, and I'm going to send this order through, and it's going
to print both the receipt and the kitchen ticket at the same time, so I'll add some
stuff to the order, and I am going to finish up.
Okay, so the first thing that comes obviously is that the thermal printer prints much faster
and much quieter than the impact printer.
However, the thing that the impact printer does that the thermal printer can't do is
that it prints in two colors, so that's a major advantage for kitchen printing, because
if you want things like no mayo or or the temperature of the steak to really stand out,
then if your software has the capability to highlight it in a different color then it
will, and that'll really make it stand out.
So that's a very important thing when it comes to kitchens, because one of the worst things
that happens in a kitchen is to have to cook things twice, that really jams everything
up and slows it down.
So that is one of the main reasons you will see impact printers used as kitchen printers,
rather than thermal printers.
The thermal printers work better, conversely, than the impact printers in the front of the
house, because it's much quieter and it's also much faster, so you can print out all
of the receipts really quickly.
It also has a higher print resolution which means print quality when it comes down to it.
One thing to keep in mind though, when it comes to kitchen printing is that heat is
what's used to print the receipts in thermal printers.
So if you have something hot, like a stove, a pan, warming lights, and your kitchen tickets
are exposed to it, they turn black, so if that's happening, that would be pretty much
impossible for a kitchen to use.
But with an impact printer, heat is just not going to be a factor.
So for kitchen printing, this is definitely the way to go over that.
For receipt printing, thermal is the way to go over that.
One other thing to look at is if you are going to be doing graphics on your receipt or barcodes
on your receipt, then thermal printers are just superior.
For instance, I will print a receipt, I'm going to start with the thermal printer.
So I'll print the receipt on the thermal printer.
It printed it nice and fast, you can see the logo is at the top of the receipt.
Now let me switch to the impact printer, and I will finish an order up, and I'll print
that same receipt with the impact printer.
So a very similar receipt, the styling for the impact is slightly different with the
logos ate the top, and you can see how much slower it printed the graphics, graphics on
an impact printer, barcodes on an impact printer print at a lower quality and slower, so really
it's not recommended if you're going to be doing that.
If you're going to be just printing a basic receipt without any kind of logo, it prints
okay speed-wise, but it is loud, so if your store is outdoors or like a hardware center
and it doesn't matter, you can have a loud receipt and no one cares, then impact printers
can work fine.
Overall though, thermal is kind of what we recommend for all kind of receipts.
There are low-cost thermal printers that are the same price or cheaper than impact printers
now, so really you can find a good thermal printer for a low price.
So that's why we push it.
As far as supplies go, basic bond paper is cheaper than thermal paper, so that is a money
saver there, however you do have to buy ribbon, so keep that in mind.
The ribbon does last for quite a long time, there are different types of ribbon, different
colors, there's the black and red for doing dual color printing, or there's solid black,
or there's solid purple on it, but you do have to have ribbon, so keep that in mind
that you're buying paper and ribbon, versus buying just thermal paper that won't use any
kind of ribbon.
Hopefully Blake that answers your questions.
We'll also do a follow up video where we're going to do an in depth review on the U220B
and we'll link it do this video as well.
For more information on the printer or supplies, please visit us at POSGuys.com.
Thanks!