Transfer medium feed mechanism for printers

The thermal transfer medium (28) is fed past a thermal printhead (21) at a substantially constant velocity by a feed roll (82) engaging the transfer medium (28) just prior to the printhead (21) to maintain a portion of the transfer medium (28) between the printhead (21) and the feed roll (82) relatively stiff. The feed roll (82) is mounted on a cartridge (30) having the transfer medium (28) supplied therefrom. A drag brake (70) is disposed in the feed path of the thermal transfer medium (28) prior to the feed roll (82) to cause a substantially constant premetering tension to be applied to the transfer medium (28) irrespective of the coefficient of friction between the drag brake (70) and the thermal transfer medium (28). A carrier (14), which supports the printhead (21) and a feed roll driver, is driven separately from the feed roll driver so that various ratios between the velocities of the thermal transfer medium (28) and the carrier (14) are obtained to produce various print qualities. The peel angle of the thermal transfer medium (28) from a print medium (12) is maintained at a relatively low angle to increase the contact time between the thermal transfer medium (28) and the recording medium (12).