ATLANTEK 200 User manual

OPERATORS MANUAL FOR
MODEL 200
THERMAL RESPONSE TEST SYSTEM
Revised March 14, 2003

SYSTEM OVERVIEW
The ATLANTEK Model 200 thermal response test system is designed to provide thermal
response vs. print density for imaging on direct thermal or thermal transfer media. This
system is based on a special purpose ATLANTEK controller board which drives a standard
thermal printhead and a programmable stepping drive controller. The system includes
provision for mounting four standard performance thermal printheads. The system is
controlled from a personal computer with parameter programming accomplished from menu
driven software designed specifically for thermal response and performance characterizations.
For a given printhead and media type the primary factors which determine print quality are:
1) Printhead Substrate Temperature
2) Printhead Platen Pressure
3) Applied Dot Power or Voltage
4) Dot Pulse Duration(Ton)
5) Print Rate(Tcycle)
6) Dot Duty Cycle(% Dot) - Dots printed per line
The ATLANTEK system is designed to control and measure these parameters and to provide
results which not only produce the visual print data but which are stored in computer data files
and thus can be recalled and analyzed. The two key print timing parameters are Tcycle and
Ton. The difference between these two variables is Toff which represents the dot cooling time
between printed dot lines.
Tcycle = Ton + Toff
To provide meaningful test data Tcycle and SPEED must be related by the expression:
[ L / (SPEED X Tcycle) ] = 1
Where L is the amount of paper advance per dot line. In this system L is fixed at .125 mm
providing a square matrix. This is to avoid overlapping dot lines or creating spaces between
dot lines, either of which introduce error in the densitometer readings.
Thus the specification of SPEED implies a value of Tcycle. The parameter APPLIED DOT
POWER (P/DOT) is controlled by the applied VOLTAGE through the expression:
P/DOT = [ ( VOLTAGE - Vd )**2 / Rdot ]
where Vd and Rdot are parameters of the printhead. Thus the applied VOLTAGE determines
P/DOT.
The system, consists of four major components: the PRINT MECHANISM, the POWER
SUPPLY, the ATLANTEK controller board and a COMPUTER containing the SYSTEM
SOFTWARE.

PRINT MECHANISM
The print mechanism provides the capability to interchange printheads industry standard, 8
dot/mm printheads which have been selected by ATLANTEK in order to provide a good
representative cross section of competing thermal printheads. This will allow the printhead
itself to be treated as a control variable for evaluation purposes.
POWER SUPPLIES
The system power supply consists of two modules containing two separate supplies as follows:
1. Adjustable Printhead Supply
2. Motor and Logic Supply
ATLANTEK CONTROLLER BOARD
The control board provides the following functions:
1. Stepper Motor Control
2. Printhead Control
3. Data and Control Interface to Computer
The stepper controller is a high performance stepper drive designed to provide both a wide
range of paper speeds as well as smooth, precise incremental motion. The smallest
programmable step increment is 50% of the dot pitch at the 8 dot/mm resolution or 16 dots/mm
of position resolution. The motor drives themselves employ a combination of chopper drive and
half-stepping to insure smooth, resonance free motion over the full range of paper speeds.
The printhead temperature control allows the operating temperature of the printhead assembly to
be programmed as a variable parameter from ambient temperature to 50 degrees Centigrade.
The computer measures the temperature and based upon the test requirements instructs the
control board to heat or not heat the printhead. The control board also determines the dot pulse
duration (Ton) and manages the head strobing in accordance with the test requirements.
PC-AT OR COMPATIBLE
The computer resident system software provides for independent configuration of all variable
parameters, plus a data base designed to store all test results together with their specific
configurations. This software has been developed by ATLANTEK specifically for the
purpose of performing thermal response characterizations and is designed to work in close
conjunction with the PRINTHEAD I/O driver card to insure the data throughput requirements
associated with the high speed end of the thermal characterization spectrum. All data entry
and system operation will be performed via this software package which provides simple
parameter configuration menus to insure user friendly operation during system operation all
variables and data are passed from the computer to the control board where real time execution
takes place.

PLOTTING
Plots of the test results may be obtained through the use of the optional "TECH-GRAPH-PAD"
software. TECH-GRAPH-PAD is a powerful menu-driven software package whose features
include the following:
- Plotting single or multiple data files
- Support for various types of hard copy devices
Printers, Laser Printers, Pen Plotters
- User defined labels and comments
- Automatic or Manual scaling
- Curve fitting

GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS
PRINT MECHANISM
MAX. MEDIA SPEED...................................125 mm/sec.
MINIMUM STEP INCREMENT...................0.0625 mm
PRINTHEAD RESOLUTION........................8 dots/mm
TEST PRINTHEADS SUPPORTED.............Kyocera 8" Model KST-216-8MPD1
Kyocera 8" Model KJT-216-8MGF1
Rohm 8" Model KF2008-B1
Rohm 8" Model KE2008-C2
Ricoh 8" Model SH216-08FSH41
Ricoh 8" Model EH216-08FS41
Gulton 4" Model SMO-108-864
REAR PANEL CONFIGURATION
PARALLEL PRINTER INTERFACE CONNECTOR (To Host Computer)
POWER ON/OFF SWITCH
FUSE
AC POWER CONNECTOR (Three prong)
CONFIGURABLE TEST SYSTEM PARAMETERS
PRINTHEAD DOT SIZE AND RESOLUTION (Fixed by P/H).
PRINTHEAD OPERATING TEMPERATURE
PAPER SPEED (SYNC. WITH PRINTING)
APPLIED VOLTAGE (Front panel setting)
SIMULTANEOUS OR MULTIPLEX STROBING OF PRINTHEAD (Automatically Selected)
DOT PULSE DURATION (Ton)
TEST PATTERN SELECTION
MEDIA TYPE (Determined by User).
RIBBON TYPE (Determined by User).
HEADER WIDTH
IMAGE WIDTH