Zebra Printers with Ribbon Cartridges VS Just a Ribbon Spool

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Having worked in manufacturing since 2017 and selling on eBay since 2011 I have encountered my share of printers, mainly Zebra label printers over the years. I have seen white printers, grey printers, HUGE printers and small printers. Beat up printers and brand new printers. I have also seen guts hanging out of the printer and it still working! lol.

One plant I worked at had a huge printer inside of a machine that butted up to the part going down the line and slapped on a label as the part passed by. What could go wrong with that? None the less I saw it.

I decided to purchase my own Zebra ZD420 which I was hoping to use for Direct Thermal Printing however I noticed it had a ribbon cartridge as opposed to no ribbon or one where the ribbon spools within the printer. A quick check on eBay will show they are quite affordable compared to some sites out there.

The cartridge is very easy to insert and it can't be messed up unlike traditional printers with ribbon spools. It only goes in one way and has arrows with tabs to lock it into the printer. It inserts directly into the printer and the cartridge has a gear that the printer turns to un-spool the ribbon. The cartridge has two spools. The fresh ribbon and the used ribbon.

Installing the ribbon in my ZD420 was so easy even I could do it. I purchased the ribbon cartridge right off ebay with no problem. When I was a trainer in one of the jobs I worked at It took me over an hour to learn how to spool the ribbon within the printer. They had one of those super large zebra printers.

Traditional ribbon methods are going to be more affordable i.e buying spools in bulk and will waste less plastic into the environment. In my case I do not print enough labels to justify going with traditional ribbon. The easier route with an entire cartridge is more appropriate for me.