I am working on an industrial device that I would like to be able to print out direct thermally printed labels for part identification at the time of manufacture.
I have seen little receipt printers that can be interfaced with Arduino's and such, but wondering if anyone has experience with something that can be used for labels and is relatively easy to interface with and which can be incorporated as part of a larger device (ideally).
I mean something around the size of a pack of cigarettes that I can talk to via serial would be ideal.
You don’t specify what manufacturing volume you’re dealing with, but as a general rule, using el-cheapo borderline-toy products (which is what those Arduino products are) is not something I’d want to risk my production schedules to.
You want a proper label printer. You don’t specify whether you want to simply hide an off-the-shelf printer inside your device (the way that most self-checkout machines actually just use an ordinary, unmodified receipt printer inside, just with the exit slot facing through the cabinet), or truly integrated, like the baggage tag printers on airport self-checkin kiosks, or even one that automatically applies the label to the product. The former is easy, the second a bit tougher because you may face minimum order quantities for bare mechanisms, the third a lot harder.
Many companies sell OEM printer mechanisms; you really should start with a google search for “OEM label printer mechanism”. You’ll be surprised how much you find. Your best bet is probably not to deal with the manufacturer itself, but with one of the many system integrators who specialize in customizing them.
But before you contact them, nail down your requirements:
- print volume (labels per minute/hour for print speed requirements, and labels per month/year for reliability requirements)
- label size(s)
- what is the substrate your labels (or direct printing) will go on?
- label durability (environmental (temp, humidity, sunlight), chemical (solvents/oils/liquids, etc), mechanical (abrasion resistance, adhesion, etc), longevity (does if need to be legible for a year? Five? Thirty?)). This will inform the printing technology you need (thermal, thermal transfer, inkjet labels, inkjet directly onto the item or packaging), the label material (paper, plastic film), lamination, etc.
- with or without liner
- label contents: text, bar codes, images? Black and white, two color, or full color?
- print resolution, depending on your application
- label data variability: does each label’s content vary individually (e.g. for serial numbers) or is it static (e.g. date or lot codes that only vary once per job)? (For truly unchanging data like just model numbers, preprinted stickers would probably be cheaper in the long run.)
- interface requirements: what hardware is driving it, so what hardware interface do you have? Serial (UART, RS232, RS485), industrial bus (MODBUS or whatever), parallel port, USB, Ethernet? And what software will drive it?
- level of automation (from full manual, all the way to automatically applying labels unattended; cut labels? Endless?)
- any applicable regulatory requirements (for example, food packaging has to use food-save inks).
- printer downtime (is production affected by having to take the printer offline to refill, clean, or repair it? Or do you need two for redundancy?)
And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head. Think about these things so that you can answer whatever questions the integrator asks.