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Label maker - do you have a recommendation?

DavidR8

DavidR8

Scrap maker
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Time to take my shop organization to the next level which means I need to label bins and drawers.
I see the major labels brands are Dymo and P-Touch.
I used a P-touch a lot when I worked in the US. It was alright but I disliked the tiny keyboard and it seemed to waste a bunch of tape with each label.
Does anyone have a label maker they recommend?
 
DavidR8 said:
Time to take my shop organization to the next level which means I need to label bins and drawers.
I see the major labels brands are Dymo and P-Touch.
I used a P-touch a lot when I worked in the US. It was alright but I disliked the tiny keyboard and it seemed to waste a bunch of tape with each label.
Does anyone have a label maker they recommend?
Click to expand...
This is my third or fourth label printer and it seems to be much more rugged than the Brother equivalents. Decent sized keyboard and a good selection of fonts and styles. It has preset styles for wiring tags, breakers, flags, etc.

I bought this specifically because there are shrink tube tapes available, as well as a good range of tape widths and colours. Amazoom has the tapes in bulk.
IMG_5198.JPG
 
We have a P-touch D210, normal keyboard and print tape. Works okay waste alot of tape, to print one letter would use about 2 inchs of tape. But you can get different colours and sizes of tape.

The electricians used one of these to relabel the panel.


Neat little machine, prints off individual labels
 
DavidR8 said:
Time to take my shop organization to the next level which means I need to label bins and drawers.
Click to expand...
@Susquatch you might want to lean against something, I know how this made me a little light headed. :p
My experience with label makers is more as the end user, rather than the label maker. The only ones that seemed to still be in place after a few years had a staple in either end. Maybe some tape is better than others?
A good one would place a picture on the drawer or what ever so us pilers stand a chance of survival in your environment. ;)
 
I quite like this Brother model I bought recently. The software was easy to install & feature rich. The tape consumables are reasonably priced & many types are available for different applications.
My own view is by eliminating the keyboard you lose some degree of portability I suppose. But OTOH the unit is only about label making, not data entry. Analogous to a printer. The software is more powerful than a teeny keyboard & allows updates as features & fonts & tape types become released. Its not a big deal to drive it off a laptop in the shop but for the most part I just print what I need in the house & take the labels out.

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Arbutus said:
This is my third or fourth label printer and it seems to be much more rugged than the Brother equivalents. Decent sized keyboard and a good selection of fonts and styles. It has preset styles for wiring tags, breakers, flags, etc.

I bought this specifically because there are shrink tube tapes available, as well as a good range of tape widths and colours. Amazoom has the tapes in bulk.
View attachment 54939
Click to expand...
Thanks, how is it for tape waste? The P-Touch units I used used to print about 3/4" before and after the actual letters. Was a complete waste of tape.
 
YotaBota said:
We have a P-touch D210, normal keyboard and print tape. Works okay waste alot of tape, to print one letter would use about 2 inchs of tape. But you can get different colours and sizes of tape.

The electricians used one of these to relabel the panel.


Neat little machine, prints off individual labels
Click to expand...
The tape waste is what I dislike about the P-Touch units I've used.
The second one looks interesting, especially if I can use a device with a proper keyboard to write the labels.
 
I have both Dymo and P-Touch, the P-T units waste a lot of tape but the tape seems better quality. The P-T model PT-2700 is quite nice and has a USB port and supporting PC software. I usually pick them up at Value Village, labelers are one of the items that always seem to end up there.

As for label longevity, the labels on my toolboxes are probably ten years old, no issues. Just make sure the surface is clean, and the labels don't adhere very well to plastic but hold up fine on painted metal.
 
@140mower - leaning didn't help much.

@ the rest of you - If you have 42 unique items in the drawer, what meaningful info can you put on the label?

Consider a photo of the inside.... Maybe 2 or 3 photos.

Or how, about an inventory photo album with numbers beside the photos and also on the drawers.

FWIW, I'd love a labeler that didn't waste tape, stayed where I put it, was easy to read, and was easy to remove and re-use without damaging paint.
 
The P-Touch can use less unprinted tape by changing the margins but, big but, the cutter is 1 inch away from the print head so we lose that first inch. You can print more than one label and use chain setting. The old plastic Dyna labels would drop in time.
I do use the shrink tube cassettes in my P-Touch from Amazon.
 
I've had an old Brother that hooks to the computer via USB for years. It's ok. Then bought a dymo rhino dirt cheap off market place because it would do shrink tubes. It's great. I don't think I have any complaints about it. I don't remember the last time I used the brother.

The wife uses the brother more because I store the dymo out in the garage on a tall shelf and she's short :D. Each are ok, but my nod if buying one would go to the dymo for the versatility in being able to print shrink tube. But then again, maybe newer brother can do that too?
 
PaulL said:
You buy it on a spool, like tape, but after printing you get to pop it open and heat shrink it onto wires. All fancy-like.
Click to expand...

Oh my..... I think I bought my last peel and stick wrap on letter labels. Be still my heart.

So I assume it comes in all kinds of diameters. Got a link?
 
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