Mastodawn

Hey Fedi, bit of printer advice please....

I'm looking for replacement label printers - we used to use Dymo 450 but they were EOL'd a while back and the new software's a bin-fire. Any subsequent Dymos have DRM'd consumables so we can't use non-Dymo labels, cos Dymo are bastards.

Ideally we want something with a wired LAN interface, or that I can hook into CUPS on a Pi to network-print given a PDF. Must be able to take 1" and 1.5" label rolls.

Anyone, please?

#fedihelp #askfedi #printers

Neil Brown 1d ago

This might help:

https://neilzone.co.uk/2023/11/a-web-ui-for-label-creation-and-printing-on-a-brother-ql-710w-on-linux/

I have used a roll of pre-sized labels rather than a continuous roll of label paper, but the slicer works, so I suspect that this is "just" a config thing.

A web UI for label creation and printing on a Brother QL-710W on Linux

I posted recently about getting my Brother QL-710W working correctly on an Intel NUC running Debian 12.

Neil Brown 1d ago

@jess I wanted a web UI, but one can also print to it via a cli, as a mapped printer:

https://neilzone.co.uk/2023/11/getting-a-brother-ql-710w-label-printer-working-via-cups-on-debian/

Getting a Brother QL-710W label printer working via CUPS on Debian

I have a old-ish Brother QL-710W label printer. It has a Wi-Fi function, but I don't really want it connecting to the network itself. Instead, I wanted to conne...

@neil Oh useful, ta. I'll add it to the pile!

matthewcroughan 1d ago

You should check out https://niim.blue and maybe get a cheapo NiimBot printer from eBay like I did. I've been having endless fun

This is a bit like a blog post in an issue, I guess
https://github.com/MultiMote/niimblue/issues/125

NiimBlue

NIIMBOT custom web client/app. Design and print labels with NIIMBOT printers directly from your PC or mobile web browser!

NiimBlue

@matthewcroughan @neil Thanks,m will add that to the eval pile. We're sorta trying to avoid the cheap ones and stick to a "name" which will have LTS, as they're quite business-critical, though...

@matthewcroughan @neil That *is* quite cool though... :)

Mx. Eddie R 16h ago

@jess
As far as printers go, I rather liked working with the Boca Lemur ticket printers; I think they can take label rolls as well and you can get them with a cutter. Any mechanical interface you want (serial, Ethernet, etc), CUPS support, or you can send raw commands in their "friendly ghostscript language".

aschmitz 16h ago

@jess I don't have actual experience since I stopped short of actually buying them, but I dug into this kind of thing (though with slightly wider labels - 2-3") and my understanding is that Zebra devices should be supported by CUPS in most versions, and don't use anything proprietary for materials. Old hardware is relatively cheap on eBay (compared to new, anyway), but connectivity options differ.

Does Brother produce that kind of label maker? Because if they do, you should get that.

@bruce Brother seem to come up repeatedly. Thank you x

Wizard Tig 15h ago

I've been using Zebra label printers for over a decade, but they're more expensive. The newest that I have is a ZD421 which is much nicer than the older LP-2844. I use them over Ethernet or USB, direct thermal or thermal transfer, and print from PDFs through Ghostscript (on Windows) or sometimes directly with the EPL/ZPL2 languages. Some of them supported multiple roll sizes right away, but it looks like the ZD421 uses 1" rolls and might need an adapter for 1.5" (I don't have it with me to check, but I see that they're selling adapters online).

David de Groot 15h ago

@jess we’ve standardised on brother label printers at work. The software is pretty decent, available on windows or Mac, and they talk zpl so you can send that directly to them if that’s your thing.

Roger BW 😷14h ago

@jess I'm still using Dymo 4xx printers (especially the 4XL for address labels), ebay mostly, the thing that apparently breaks is the plastic spool holder and you can 3d print that.

@RogerBW Trouble is we need some more of them, and it's not really a sustainable model to rely heavily on EOL'd items (plus no security updates which we need to be able to show).

Roger BW 😷4h ago

@jess I do see your point; my needs are different (driving them from Linux rather than via the official software for a start).

Amar Balikai 11h ago

@jess we had this exact problem. Needed a solution that worked with CUPS on a raspberry pi. We swapped the Dymo for a Brother QL 600 and it works perfectly. The drivers are available on the Brother website too.

@abalikai That's really useful thank you!

@abalikai Looks like we're going to eval this particular unit. Thank you again!

@abalikai @jess there's also some python for printing on Brother QL which I've used previously
They're good for temporary labels, the plastic film ones are slightly more durable. Third party consumables are cheap

@flangey Excellent, ta.

Amar Balikai 25m ago

@flangey @jess I could use python instead of CUPS?