Zebra Printer and Compact Logix

[ASF]

Hi all,

I've been asked to quote a system involving a zebra printer on a compact logix. Nothing too complicated, just need to set it up to print date, time, and weight on a small label for each batch. Here's the criteria I've been given:

- Black & white labels, 150mm wide (or larger)
- Heavy duty unit (IP56 rated if available) due to environment being used in
- Label printer to communicate direct with PLC via ethernet if possible

The second one confuses me. How are you going to have an IP65 device spit out a paper label?

I've not had to source a label printer before, and it's a bit hard to tell from the Zebra website what each model is best suited to. Is anyone able to recommend a particular model for this application? Any success (or failure) stories to share for this type of application? Any tricks or gotchas with setting one up to get the data via Ethernet?

Thanks guys!

 

[the_msp]

At work we standardise Zebra printer's. I severely doubt you are going to get an IP56 unit. At a guess ours are IP30-ish. I will get you a model this time tomorrow for an ethernet enabled one (most of ours are on LPT1). Our's get data from PC, not PLC.

What environment is it going into?

 

[ASF]

Thanks Patrick. I just spoke to a local Zebra distributor and he didn't even know what IP56 meant so I guess that answers that

They're also going to have their tech guys call me to discuss the PLC side of it, so if I come up with any new information I'll report back!

 

[the_msp]

We use mainly Z4m/plus but I found a Z6M plus which has Ethernet. We print around 405K labels a year with these. Tech's say they don't give much bother if the paper and ribbon's are in date.

What size is the label going to be for your application? For smaller labels we use CAB Hermes+ Type 2L/600-3. About 85M labels a year with these, although not sure if they do an IP56 version.

 

[ASF]

Thanks, I'll check the CAB ones out as well. The label will be around 150mm by 100mm or thereabouts. We'll be printing labels roughly every 5-10min, so assuming a pretty constant 24/7 operation we'd be looking at between 50-100k labels per year.

 

[ASF]

Well I've just heard back from the technical support department, who didn't know what a PLC was. So I don't suspect I'm going to have any luck with printing directly from Compact Logix to Printer.

My next plan of attack is to use a panel PC instead of a PanelView Plus, and run the print software on that in the background. Since I'm now getting quite specific about what I'm doing, I might start another thread