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Routine Maintenance
This section provides routine cleaning and maintenance procedures.
Cleaning Schedule and Procedures
Routine preventive maintenance is a crucial part of normal printer operation. By taking good care of your
printer, you can minimize the potential problems that you might have with it and help to achieve and to
maintain your standards for print quality.
Over time, the movement of media or ribbon across the printhead wears through the protective ceramic
coating, exposing and eventually damaging the print elements (dots). To avoid abrasion:
• Clean the printhead frequently.
• Minimize printhead pressure and burn temperature (darkness) settings by optimizing the balance
between the two.
• When using Thermal Transfer mode, ensure that the ribbon is as wide or wider than the media to
prevent exposing the printhead elements to the more abrasive label material.
Specific cleaning procedures are provided on the following pages. Table 4 shows the recommended
cleaning schedule. These intervals are intended as guidelines only. You may have to clean more often,
depending upon your application and media.
Important • Zebra is not responsible for damage caused by the use of cleaning fluids on
this printer.