I was always amazed at how often my computer printer at home or the one in the office at work falls victim to a paper jam. In the busy office, it sometimes seems that every time I try to print something, the printer is down because of a paper jam and I have to go and open it up and clear it before I can print anything. I was also amazed that seemingly much more complicated machines like ATMs or automated gasoline pumps can spit out receipts all day long and seem never to be down for a paper jam. It turns out there is a reason why these machines are more reliable than our home and office printers.

Our home and work printers, for the most part, are ink based printers using discrete sheet of paper. Using individual sheets of paper means that every time a page is printed, the sheet feeder needs to grab onto a new sheet and pull it into the feeder mechanism. The leading edge and the corners need to avoid catching the edges of the guide and need to lie flat enough to make I into the rollers without getting caught. Each and every sheet needs to be fed perfectly straight since any misalignment is magnified as the paper sheet is fed further into the machine. This precise alignment needs to happen all over again every time a page is printed or the machine becomes jammed.

ATMs and automated gas pumps, on the other hand, use a completely different set up. Instead of discrete paper sheet, ink based printers, these machines have continuous feed thermal printers. These continuous feed printers use thermal paper rolls that need only get a leading edge through the feeder mechanism one time when the roll is loaded. After that, hundreds of feet of the thermal paper are pulled through straight as an arrow with no opportunity to become misaligned or get caught up in the feeder mechanism. As each receipt or transaction record is printed, the paper is either cut to length or presented for the customer to tear off along a serrated cutter bar edge. Not only does this virtually eliminate paper jams, but it saves on paper as well.

Another advantage of the thermal printers used by these devices is the fact that they don’t need ink cartridges, toner cartridges, or printer ribbons to be replaced since thermal printers don’t use any of them. This also reduces maintenance and downtime for high traffic devices like gas pumps and ATMs. So why don’t we all use thermal printers for our home printing needs? Well for one thing, they don’t print in color or even grayscale. Everything is strictly solid black or white. While that may be ok for printed receipts, it would never do for most home or office printing needs.