Getting My Zebra ZD420 Setup over Network via Raspberry PI-3

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Having been in the shipping business for a large part of my life including being a seller on eBay and right here on betterparts.biz, I figured it was past time to get a 4 inch by 6 inch label machine working within my network. Although I do not ship as many items anymore, it still seems useful to have a thermal transfer printer available on my network in case things pick up or I have to return an online item.

Every manufacturing facility I have worked at over the years uses the Zebra thermal printers. Some with ribbons and some without. Over my time I have noticed that the printers are very durable seemingly holding up for years and low maintenance.

After having installed fiber optic networking into the garage shop facility I knew I could install a printer right out in the garage and be able to print to it from my work station in the house.

Eventually I would add a work station in the garage and at which point could print from either work station depending on needs. The shop is around 200 foot away from the house so it's a walk to go pick up my printed label however it's better than cluttering up the house any more.

I decided to purchase a Zebra ZD420 which does not have a built in print server per say at-least not one that ties it into a Local Area Network. This refurbished printer was one of the most affordable out there on eBay and I have seen the very model several times over the years. While it does not have a print server and requires a ribbon cartridge, I decided to go with it.

Considering it is without a LAN print server built in I decided to just go with an older raspberry PI 3 to serve as a print server, which I also purchased off eBay.

Why I Chose Raspberry PI 3

I chose the raspberry pi due to it's affordability and customize-ability. I also chose it due to it's size and quality. I have seen some cheesy print servers over the years. Had I went with a traditional print server I would be unable to customize it while the raspberry pi has a flavor of Debian.

The default raspberry pi operating system, PI-OS is built off of Debian which is very similar to Ubuntu. I have used Ubuntu most of my life, especially in server environments. Debian is a very stable OS and it saw the printer right away with the correct drivers. I did not even have to download drivers for the Zebra ZD420.