Label Printing is Confusing. Here are our recommendations and reasoning.

Selecting the best label printer for workstations in your fab shop can be a daunting task due to the multitude of options available in the market. In this article PypeServer offers our best guidance on how to select a printer that addresses the specific requirements in your shop.

Printer Brand:

• recommended – Zebra desktop models ZD6XX, ZD4XX, or ZD2XX
• minimum – Brother, Sato, Epson, and other major brands with ZPL language compatibility

Printer Type:

• recommended – Thermal Transfer (works with or without a ribbon for best flexibility)
• minimum – Direct Thermal (prints only on thermal paper, no ribbon, for indoors and cool surfaces)

Printer Resolution:

• minimum – 203 dpi
• recommended – 300 dpi

Printer Communication:

• recommended – USB
• not recommended – WiFi, Bluetooth, or other wireless

Label Material:

• best abrasion and solvent resistance – coated thermal paper (no ribbon needed)
• best tear and heat resistance – polypropylene or other plastic (requires ribbon)

Ribbon Type:

• slightly better abrasion resistance – resin ribbon
• best cost and print speed – wax + resin ribbon

Bottom Line:

PypeServer recommends Zebra 300 dpi Thermal Transfer printers and coated thermal paper labels for most part labeling applications. If your parts will be labeled while hot or will have extended exposure to sun and rain, use polypropylene labels with a wax + resin ribbon. Zebra printers, labels, and ribbons can be ordered from the PypeServer Portal: https://portal.pypeserver.com/shop.

Want to know the reasoning behind the recommendations? Read on…

Label printers come in two flavors: “direct thermal” and “thermal transfer”. Both have printheads that selectively heat up to create the tiny dots that form the text and images on the label. In direct thermal printers, the printhead acts directly on heat-sensitive thermal paper, turning it black where it’s heated without the need for a ribbon. In thermal transfer printers, the printhead’s heat acts to transfer and fuse pigment from a ribbon to the label below. Zebra’s thermal transfer printers can also act like direct thermal printers and print on thermal paper labels. Because the thermal transfer models don’t cost much more than direct thermal-only models and offer much greater flexibility, PypeServer only recommends and sells Zebra thermal transfer printers.

Labels and Ribbons

If you’re putting labels on parts and assemblies that’ll be kept indoors or at least sheltered, we recommend thermal paper labels. There’s no ribbon to buy or change but there are a few cautions. Paper labels can tear if scraped hard and they’ll turn gray if exposed to high temperatures, like pipe that’s hot from cutting or welding. They also won’t tolerate extended exposure to rain or sun. However, because the print extends below the surface of the paper, it resists abrasion and tolerates exposure to solvents like alcohol, mineral spirits, and acetone better than thermal transfer print.

If you’re putting labels on parts that are hot from cutting or welding or that’ll have extended outdoor exposure, we recommend the use of a thermal transfer ribbon and labels made of polypropylene. The ribbons come in three formulations: wax, wax + resin, and resin. Wax ribbons are the least expensive but they aren’t as durable as wax + resin or resin-only ribbons. In PypeServer’s testing, wax + resin ribbons produced print that’ve very nearly as durable as resin-only ribbons for a fraction of the cost of resin-only.

One caveat: if you’re using a ribbon-based printer, make sure you don’t inadvertently load it with thermal paper labels. If you do, you’ll have the higher costs of ribbon-printed labels without any of their benefits.

Also, some shops like to color code their labels for different building systems. We recommend that this be implemented using black print on different colored labels rather than by using a color printer. Colored print tends to be less legible and less durable than black print.

Printers

The various Zebra printers come in either 300 dot per inch (dpi) or 203 dpi resolution. For text only, 203 dpi is sufficient but moving up to 300 dpi doesn’t cost much and will produce clearer text while allowing the use of more sophisticated QR codes that contain more data.

The Zebra ZD621

Print Methods: Thermal Transfer and Direct Thermal

Communications: USB, Bluetooth and Ethernet

Resolution: 300dpi

Maximum Print Width: 4.09″

Maximum Print Speed: 8 inches per second

Whatever printer you decide to get, you should consider buying the same resolution and, ideally, the same printer model for all your stations. Standardizing the resolution will allow you to use the same label templates across your different printers. If you go even farther and standardize on a single model of printer, you’ll be able to quickly swap out a broken printer at one station with the printer from another station. You may also be able to use one set of consumables across multiple stations. We also recommend that any printer you buy be “ZPL compatible”.

One thing you don’t need to do is buy high-end “industrial” printers. In addition to being more expensive, they tend to be larger and more complicated. Their main benefits are faster printing speed and a diversity of wired and wireless data connection options. However, the standard office-grade printers are plenty fast enough for fab shop duty, they’re simple to operate, they tolerate the shop environment well, and their USB connections are more reliable than wireless connections. PypeServer recommends and sells Zebra’s ZD621 printer with a 300 dpi print head. For those on tight budgets, we also sell Zebra’s ZD220 printer with a 203 dpi print head. Both can be used either with or without ribbons.