Brother P-Touch TZe Tape 12mm Teardown

Written By: Quanten (and one other contributor)

Published: November 16, 2023

Written By: Quanten (and one other contributor)

Published: November 16, 2023

Teardown

Introduction

A look into the tape cartridge, the printing process and the resolution.

The disassembly was a little bit destructive. Maybe, with enough care, one may be able to open the cartridge nondestructive.

This teardown is not a repair guide. To repair your Brother P-Touch TZe Tape 12mm, use our service manual.

The clear top tape (light blue line) is usually completely clear.
The tape is empty and the zebra stripes indicates it to the user.
The thermal ink tape gets unrolled and again rolled onto another roller.
In the printing zone, a single column of heat "pixels" heats the thermal ink (red line) and sticks it to the clear top tape (blue line).
The clear top tape than gets laminated with the white backing (white line).

Since the ink from the printed spots is now on the label and not longer on the ink tape, you can see a inverted image of everything the cartridge ever printed.
Keep that in mind when printing sensitive information like passwords or PPI!

The resolution of the text font seems to be lower than the icons (this icon should resemble a old mobile phone).
The small dots on the mobile phone are about 180 µm apart.
Both images are captured using the same magnification. The image circle has a diameter of approximately 2.5 mm.