Wax Ribbon

What is a wax ribbon?

A wax ribbon is a ribbon coated with an ink made essentially with wax-based components. Wax ribbons are the most popular thermal transfer ribbon for thermal printers. Wax-based inks have a good adhesion on almost all types of substrate and are perfectly suitable for printing barcodes and other types of labels.

Wax ribbons will deliver a great print quality on the following label materials: 

• Rough vellum papers
• Matt coated papers
• Glossy coated papers

What are the typical uses of wax Thermal Transfer ribbons for barcode printers?  

• Storage
• Shipping
• Crate
• Distribution labels
• Tags
• Bag of parts/products
• Signage and logos

What are the advantages of wax thermal transfer ribbons?  

• Ideal for short-term use
• Good printing quality: ensures a good readability/scanning of barcodes, digits and characters.
• Fast print speed up to 12 ips depending on the label/ribbon combination.
• Good ink blackness, even on rough label materials like velum.
• Competitive ribbons: lower prices than wax-resin and resin based ribbons.
• Receptor multi-compatibility: the ink has a good adhesion on coated or uncoated labels.
• Low energy required to transfer the ink: helping to extend the print head lifetime.

What makes a wax ribbon different from wax-resin and resin ribbon?

• Print durability: It’s a softer ink more vulnerable to scratching and smudging. For applications requiring a more durable ink, it will be appropriate to use wax-resin or resin ribbons.
• Printer compatibility: wax ribbons are working on Flat-head printers, whereas Wax-resin and Resin ribbons can also run on Near-Edge printers.
• Printhead heat setting: Wax inks have a lower melting temperature compared to Wax-resin and Resin ribbons. Therefore, they impose less stress to the print head.
• Label compatibility: Wax ribbons are suitable for uncoated or matt coated surfaces. For synthetics labels, Wax-resin and Resin ribbons are more adapted

ARMOR Wax ribbons

• The AWR®/AWX® range of Wax Thermal Transfer films is an economic label printing solution using flat head thermal printers. ARMOR Wax ribbons offer particularly high levels of performance for printing entry-level or coated paper labels.???
• They have been designed to offer ribbon users optimum protection of the print head.
• The various Wax Thermal Transfer ribbons vary according to the amount of print energy they require, by their darkness and by their level of resistance to abrasion.