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[David Wheat]

Hello, 

We’re about to implement label printing from NAV for our outgoing shipments (pallets).  Several of our customers require a 4″x6″ pallet label (GS1-128 standard) with the SSCC-18 bar code pallet identifier.  We need to pick a make and model of label printer and were wondering if any of you have experience with similar label printers and if you can recommend products that have worked well for you. 

Thanks,

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David Wheat
Director of IT
noosa yoghurt
Bellvue CO
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[David Wiser]

Are you using a 3rd party shipping add-on (like Lanham or ChargeLogic) to print the labels or from within NAV itself?  I ask because those compaines usually have recommended printers that work well with their products.

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Dave Wiser
Controller
Beckwith & Kuffel
Seattle WA
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[John Ondercin]

I have had great success with SATO GL408e, SATO M-8485Se, Zebra S4M-203dpi, and Zebra Z4MPlus

We print the labels directly from NAV to our label printers, and I’ve implemented auto print and apply using the Sato 8485Se

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John Ondercin
Senior Developer
Unilock Ltd
Georgetown ON
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[David Wheat]

Thanks John – I really appreciate the info on specific models!  I’ll go check them out. 

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David Wheat
Director of IT
noosa yoghurt
Bellvue CO
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[John Ondercin]

What I have done is purchased the Barcode Fonts and had them installed on our NAV servers (we have users connect using RDP), then I simply created a report 4×6 to my specifications and we print the label as you would a normal report.

I’ve never had any issues with the barcodes on the labels, and we’ve even begun putting barcodes on other documents (Sales Orders, PO’s, etc..)

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John Ondercin
Senior Developer
Unilock Ltd
Georgetown ON
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[David Wiser]

This response brought up a question, are you using only barcodes or will you also need to print QR codes.  My understanding is that the QR codes can get a little tricky.

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Dave Wiser
Controller
Beckwith & Kuffel
Seattle WA
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[John Ondercin]

I am printing qr codes but for our sample products only which is a 2×2 label.

I don’t foresee you running into problems once you acquire your codes. I’ve stored the qr image on our product groups so the label is easily produced

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John Ondercin
Senior Developer
Unilock Ltd
Georgetown ON
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[David Wheat]

Thanks for the follow-up Dave.  We print right from NAV, not from a 3rd party application.  We will be using Loftware for the label printing software and they have a long list of supported printers, but don’t make specific printer recommendations. 

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David Wheat
Director of IT
noosa yoghurt
Bellvue CO
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[Manfred Ingerl]

Hi,

we are using Sato and Zebra now for a couple of years to print your carton Labels with Barcode and QrCode and they are in my mind the perfect pick for printing labels.

If you pick one of those you are not making any mistake.

Regards.

…Manni

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Manfred Ingerl
IT-Manager
Simon H. Steiner, Hopfen, GmbH
Mainburg / Germay
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[Mark Welte]

David,

We use a Sato 408e and the thing has been a workhorse. We also use a separate program called Bar Tender and the combination has worked well. We use it for tags on the bundles of bricks. The Sato runs about 100-200 tags a day five days a week. It has been in use for about 12 years now. They are in both of our manufacturing plants and have held up to the dirt and grime of a brick plant. They are not in NAV yet and when we go to 2016 we will work to integrate the systems.

Mark

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Mark Welte
Director of Information Technology
Summit Brick Company
Pueblo CO
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[Ian Ray]

We used a Zebra 110Xi4 for several years to print individual case labels. This replaced other printers which had issues with plastic parts bending and with lower-temperature (refrigerated) operation. The main issues I faced were not with print drivers, they were remembering to replace the printhead if cleaning wasn’t clearing defects and ethernet disconnecting every now and then. I remedied the ethernet issue with a remote power switch from 3gstore. (I think those are primarily intended to restart consumer modems, but they worked well for keeping the barcode printer connected.)

Even though it has been replaced, we still use the Zebra for printing inventory labels to scan for internal shipping process purposes in NAV using a custom shipping module (bcPackNShip from Beck Consulting). The use of ZPL II helped as I was able to author custom barcode printing web applications using ZPL II to output.

I only offer this experience as it seems important to choose a model that offers both the appropriate durability to operate in the environment it will be placed in as well as the flexibility to be used for other purposes once you upgrade equipment later. However, the particular model we used may be overkill for pallets as you wouldn’t be printing nearly as much.

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Ian Ray
Cypress Grove Cheese
Arcata CA
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