Information Systems:Zebra Thermal printers

Configuration

Each picking station in the warehouse has two Zebra label printers. One label printer is for printing price tickets and the other is for printing shipping labels. Most of the Zebra label printers have model numbers of 2746E or S4M and need to have a firmware level of E50.13.5.

At the picking station there is an HP print server with three LPT ports. Port 1 is always used for the invoice laser printer (Lexmark), port 2 is always used for the shipping label printer and port 3 is always used for the price ticket printer. This arrangement is determined by the setup of the print queue on the System i.

The Zebra label printers at the picking stations are 'direct thermal'. Thus, they do not use ink/toner, nor do they need ribbons. Essentially, the paper acts as the ink and the heat from the printhead exposes the print. The thermal rolls (print media) required for these printers are managed (including sourcing them) by Gerald/DC.

Administration and troubleshooting

When troubleshooting the printer on the device itself, there are two admin levels beyond the basic settings that you can enter with the following passwords:
*Admin level 1 password: 0000
*Admin level 2 password: 1234

The Zebra S4M printers are very stable. They can operate for years without issue, needing only basic cleaning every so often. Problems are rare, but given the age of our fleet of printers (~8-9 years), a myriad of issues have been observed (although few and far between). Since the mechanical design of these printers is quite simple, diagnosis is not difficult and it is usually visibly clear whether the problem/part is serviceable, or the printer is considered irreparably broken (e.g. not feasible to repair). Most problems fit one of the following:

Bad flash

The printer has a small amount of memory (most likely some flash card). Over time, flash memory eventually degrades, and this manifests as warnings on the printer (Bad block), or through the printer attempting to self-correct flash errors by defragging. The latter causes noticeable delays in print output, while the former is just a constant error display on the printer LED. However, print quality is unaffected. Use discretion to replace a printer.

Cracked platen roller

The white, dense, rubber platen roller is one of the few parts that can feasibly be replaced by a user (in terms of cost of the part and degree of difficulty for installation).

guides to replace a roll of labels are etched on the inside of the metal printer cover.

While the Zebra label printers at the picking stations are supported and have their original warranties, the easiest process to replace a broken label printer is to use one of the many spares we have located in the computer cage. The only special setting that needs to be input into the label printers is a "tear off" value of +3. The Lexmark invoice printers will function correctly with all of the factory defaults.

Future Upgrade

It would not be logical to replace all printers with newer devices in one batch; that kind of hardware life cycle or upgrade routine just does not suit this class of product. Rather, it has been decided that a new printer be purchased when the number of available spares reaches 3. Buying printers in 2s should be proposed as then a picking station can be converted from print-server connectivity to direct, ethernet connectivity.