At Labelman Ltd, we can’t assure you that your printer won’t breakdown or come into faults, but we can offer guidance and advice to ensure you’re keeping up with printer maintenance and giving your printer longevity by trying to prevent breakdowns and printhead failures.

One prevention tip is to clean your printer.

Within your operations your Zebra Printers are most likely to be shared amongst your workforce, with guidance put in place to clean the outside of the printer to decrease the risk of bacteria spreading. Whilst this is important, did you know the cleaning the inside of the printer is just as important?

Here are some top tips to ensure you are cleaning your printer correctly and at the right time:

1. Regular Cleaning

Cleaning your printer should be a mandatory task in a worker’s day to ensure there isn’t a buildup of dust and dirt within the printhead – as that’s when print quality significantly falls and printheads become more prone to failures.

It is advised that the printer should be cleaned each time the ribbon is replaced in thermal-transfer, or at every media change for direct thermal printers. The cleaning process luckily only takes a matter of seconds and won’t affect your worker productivity.

2. Investing in Proper Cleaning Products

When we say “cleaning”, some may associate this with cloths, sprays and bleaches, but let us reiterate that cleaning your zebra printers requires the use of proper cleaning materials.

Simply wiping a printhead with a cloth will actually do more harm than good. As fibers from the cloth enter the printhead, and the dust is spread against the printhead rather than removed. This then results in elements of the printhead to overheat and burnout, which will require a costly printhead replacement.

To ensure you are cleaning your printer properly, you should invest in proper in-expensive cleaning products such as pens, cards and swabs used with isopropyl alcohol. These cleaning products are properly tested and formulated to lift dirt from the printhead without sticking or leaving any debris.

You can find our range of cleaning products, kits and accessories here.

3. Cleaning Correctly

The main component you need to clean is the printhead, as that’s the key component to your business operations. Using a centre to side motion, you can use a cleaning pen on the dark areas to successfully clean your printhead so it’s ready for the next media roll. But please make sure it’s dry before adding another roll.

In terms of the platen, you shouldn’t be using a cleaning pen. A lint-free wipe soaked in alcohol would be more beneficial. To clean the platen, you would use a centre to side motion whilst turning it to ensure that every inch of it gets cleaned. Again, allow for drying before going back to printing.

4. Training Process

It may also be a good idea for the cleaning process to be implemented into employee training, to ensure that every person that may come to use the printer can leave it in the exact same condition as to how they found it.

This will also ensure the cleaning process – and the importance of it, is clear in their minds from their first day, and that every worker is doing all they can to ensure that workflows run smoothly, and operations don’t have to stop due to faulty printers.

5. Speak to the Experts

If you’re ever unsure about how to clean your printer, or the products you should be using for each component, our experts are always on hand to advise and guide you through the process.

Don’t hesitate to contact us today.

Cleaning your printer is just one of the ways to maintain your printer and prevent printer breakdowns and printhead failures. Another way by investing in the correct supplies – such as Zebra’s Certified Supplies. You can read more about them here.

By committing to Zebra’s Certified Supplies, now comes with even more benefits. This year, Zebra Technologies introduced the Printhead Protection Program, offering customers free printheads for life.*

Program benefits include:

• Reduce Downtime
• Cuts Printhead Costs
• One Source Printing Solution
• Simple Enrolment and Redemption
• No Need to Ship Printers Back

Commit to Zebra Certified Supplies today, so you can eliminate the cost of printheads and enrol into Zebra’s brand-new program.

For more information, contact our team today.

Terms and Conditions Apply*