Gulton offers it's customers a choice of either thick film or thin film printheads. Thick film printheads use gold, insulating and resistive pastes which are screen printed onto a ceramic substrate. Electrical properties are obtained by drying or sintering these pastes at high temperatures, approximately 800 Degree C. Film thickness ranges from sub-micron to 2.5 microns. The optional layer of gold for the high voltage electrode and ground in addition to the thicker conductor allows for a higher current carrying capacity, which can accommodate higher power requirements. The insulating layer of specialized glass and wear resistant oxides prove to be very resistant to wear even in harsh environments.

Thick film technology is desirable where heavy use and harsh environments, such as cold and dust, are present. Applications such as bar coding and high volume ticketing can take advantage of the superior wear life characteristics of thick film printhead technology.

Gulton thick film thermal printheads are industry leading in wear life performance. This wear life advantage is due to a number of unique material and process enhancements including a protective diamond like carbon (DLC) coating. Diamond like coating provides a surface hardness equivalent to Rockwell 85 to 90. In addition, the coefficient of friction for this coating is very low. These qualities reduce the wear on the resistor element caused by the abrasive action of paper, media, ribbon, etc on the printhead surface during printing. In a comparison test of a standard Gulton DLC printhead with that of a major printhead competitor, the Gulton printhead life far exceeded its competition.

As a printhead wears, the value of resistance changes. Appreciable change in resistance is considered a failure because it has a direct effect on print density. A 15% change in the value of resistance is considered as a permanent failure. The printhead would still be functional below 15% change in the value of resistance. Controlled lab tests showed that the value of resistance for the Gulton DLC printhead began to change only after 330,000 inches. This compared with only 30,000 inches for the leading competitor under identical conditions.