TDK LPCW-50 Thermal CD printer Home tests.

Strahlen

Strahlen

1
Picked up one of these a few days back, thought someone might like to see some home tests.

TDK's official page.

LPCW-50 TDK Press Release and Details.

Printer was 150 euro, but I live in a country where there is 25% VAT! the cartridges are around 12 euro.

Each strip of the printing took around 9 seconds after pressing print, the machine then ejects the media automatically..


Back-up of a promo DVD shipped with copies of U2's Best Of 1990-2000.

Picture taken with digital camera - take my word, the print and photo are razor sharp, .jpeg compression and the picture size limit on this forum are factors to take into account.

A slight bump when you run your finger over it. Have spat on and run fingernail over text with some haste, no damage..

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PS - I find this media is hit and miss, anything with a granular/grainy surface, my best results have been with a sheer plastic surface, often found with the cheapest media.. :)

The sheer surface allows the use of tiny fonts too, as I will show in next picture..
 
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Strahlen

Strahlen

1
Very small font - sheer surface

Here I've used a very small font.. one band of the CD used.. the U2 DVD was a '2 band ' design, as the printer can only print one band at a time, the user has to switch the CD around half-way through the printing process...
 

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Strahlen

Strahlen

1
LPCW-50 Tray Open

Normal operation. The tray will come out as far as the picture shows when the printing is over (ejected automatically by the machine).. or the user has pressed the only button on the device, lower right.

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Strahlen

Strahlen

1
LPCW-50 Tray extended

The user has to pull the tray out further to have reasonable room to instert/extract a CD before/after printing. I've also raised the front cover, this then allows access to the printing cartridge, which can be 'pulled' forward and out of the machine at any time.

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Note, the CD rests on a foam like padding, there is a raised rectangular area where the print-head does its work.
 

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Strahlen

Strahlen

1
Calibration sheet

When doing a two strip design, you need to use the enclosed calibration sheet to line up the CD properly, so that the two strips (above and below the CD hole) are aligned!

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Note the calibration sheet hooks into two raised bumps at the top of the tray..
 

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RASTABT

RASTABT

1
Thanks could do with one.
Question. Is it only Black print this unit does? Since I've not read the details of this baby...
Thanks for you well worth report also bro.:)
 
Strahlen

Strahlen

1
Inks

RASTABT,

Cartridges are available in Black, Blue, Red, Silver..

Best to use one strip for most things, though, considering the cartridge is like the old typewriter ribbon, using a small font to economise might not make a difference.. :(

You have the following dialogue, my guess is this controls how much ribbon is used for a given print, but only works at lower scale well on sheer media only, no grain!

With just the title say, it is fast..

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Strahlen

Strahlen

1
No technical patience

Soz, this thread is like a grasshopper on a hotplate, I just don't have that Pokopiko approach!

The unit can extract CD-Text from a title and create an appropriate listing for you to print on the CD, the same for files and folders, but it does not list the tree under the folder you've chosen.. (unlike, say .. CDRLabel.) not much use..

All in all the software is pleasant to use, the images and text can overlap, as any value that's not black is transparent..

There's basic dithering, for people that might drop a colour photo into a design, it comes out ok, just going to look a bit rough.

There's also an AOL User dialogue window at the start, a la NERO.. so, even if you're not great with pc's it'll do its best to get you through the task unharmed.

One word comes to mind though when handling the tray, PLASTIC, you are aware that one knock will have you hand-writing titles again.. it looks and feels like it's not very rugged..

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RASTABT

RASTABT

1
Strahlen many thanks for the update still would love a unit this small that would do a colour print shame...:(
 
Wedge

Wedge

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Very nice of you to post all this info..great pics. Thank you for the time and effort.

Oh yeah, and this thing looks cool to me :)
 
woody

woody

1
Very nice Strahlen.Thanks for all the info.Looks like you have a very nice"toy" there.I'm impressed by it.;)
 
Strahlen

Strahlen

1
np Woody, the shop-keeper has had people returning units because, ' the CD's produced were not the same as on the box/web-site.. '

TDK, has posted what looks like two tone pictures on some of their web blurb and box design, the machine is not capable of doing such an act, it is one colour, or one colour with much dithering.. :D

Took me a week to tame this naughty boy, stuff does have to be dithered a bit beforehand, usually in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.. or a bit of threshold works nicely..

Anyway, a .rar of some examples that come out superbly on CD, they are .gifs, no need for colour..
:)

Currently using silver cartridges, looks really nice on thermal printable Verbatims 48x, silver on white, well defined yet subtle.

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woody

woody

1
Very nice Strahlen!One question?Can you label more than once to get multiple colours with this device?For instance do part of the text/image in one colour,then finish with another colour with another session?
 
Strahlen

Strahlen

1
Woody, I had thought about trying that, but with replacing cartridges half-way etc.. not worth the risk, the thought had crossed my mind, but that was after a few cans.....

What I am playing around with is the idea of making a template where the text is printed using 36pt. characters along the top of the text input area, then rewind the print cartridge ribbon and print the second time useage along the bottom, 36pt. characters again, so, in effect, between 90-120 CD's with thermal printed titles for between 8 and 10 euro...

I'll get back to you on that one, btw, must publish some pics of the used ribbons, haven't any at the moment, but no doubt, will have soon.. ;)

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