What Label Printer does ShotFlow recommend?

There are various manufacturers of label printers suitable for use in printing labels with ShotFlow. While there are numerous consumer-level printers available (Dymo, Brother) we have found them to have issues in productions environments due to the unreliability of their printer drivers, limited label materials available, and robustness of the printer in high volumes.

We currently recommend the Zebra ZD421 or Zebra ZD621

Zebra ZD421 Options

The Zebra ZD421 is a 203 DPI printer available in a "direct thermal" (DT) or "thermal transfer" (TT) configuration.

• "direct thermal" (DT) utilizes coated paper (similar to consumer Dymo and Brother) printers. This has a slightly lower cost per label but is limited in label sizes and useful applications.
• "thermal transfer" (TT) utilizes a low-cost resin ribbon, which allows for a wide variety of materials to be used. This can range from a low cost paper (Z-Select) appropriate for labeling flat items to a flexible polypropylene (PolyPro 3000) appropriate for labeling challenging items such as clothing. A full selection of materials is contained in the attached PDF.

The Zebra ZD421 has several interface and material handling options available.

• The base printer utilizes a USB interface
• Optional interfaces include Ethernet and WIFI
• An optional cutter is available
• An optional peeler is available

Zebra ZD621 Options

The Zebra ZD621 is a 300 DPI printer available in a "direct thermal" (DT), a "thermal transfer" (TT), or a combined "direct thermal" (DT) and "thermal transfer" (TT) configuration.

• "direct thermal" (DT) utilizes coated paper (similar to consumer Dymo and Brother) printers. This has a slightly lower cost per label but is limited in label sizes and useful applications.
• "thermal transfer" (TT) utilizes a low-cost resin ribbon, which allows for a wide variety of materials to be used. This can range from a low cost paper (Z-Select) appropriate for labeling flat items to a flexible polypropylene (PolyPro 3000) appropriate for labeling challenging items such as clothing. A full selection of materials is contained in the attached PDF.

The Zebra ZD621 has several interface and material handling options available.

• The base printer utilizes a USB 2.0, Ethernet, or Serial interfaces.
• Optional interfaces include WIFI and  Bluetooth.
• An optional cutter is available
• An optional peeler is available

Installing the Zebra ZD421 OR ZD621

The Zebra utilizes the CUPs (Common Unix Printing System) built into the MacOS, and the ZPL drivers are included with the base operating system. The default printer driver is installed similarly to any other Mac compatible printer.

You must manually configure the printer utilizing the web-based CUPs interface. While specifics for manually configuring the label size you are producing are beyond the scope of this KB article, the CUPS interface can be accessed as follows:

• via your browser at http://localhost:631/printers
• If you receive a CUPs interface error, this means the CUPs interface is not enabled on your computer. You must enable it via the Terminal with the command cupsctl WebInterface=yes