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Pro tip: picked the $40 used label maker over a $250 thermal printer for asset tags
Small shop in Dayton, maybe 60 machines going out per month, and I needed to tag them so I could track em. I almost dropped $250 on a thermal printer but grabbed a $40 used label maker off Marketplace instead. Ran it for 6 months and the labels on the back of the cases are still holding up fine, no smearing, no peeling. Only downside is doing 60 labels by hand is slow and my wrist hates me by Friday. I keep the tag list in a plain spreadsheet and it's been good enough. Any of you running a bigger setup actually glad you spent the money on a real printer?
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johnb9516h ago
Been down that road and yeah, the wrist pain is the real cost nobody talks about. What saved me was printing labels in batches before I even started tagging, like 30 at a time while watching TV, so the actual tagging part is just peel and stick. Also grab a cheap barcode scanner off eBay for 20 bucks and put a serial number on each label, then your spreadsheet can actually be searched later instead of you squinting at tag numbers when something comes back. The $40 maker is fine for 60 a month, but once you cross maybe 150 or start doing replacement tags for machines already in the field, a real printer pays for itself in time alone. Your spreadsheet plan is solid, just add a column for date tagged and location so it doesn't turn into a mess in a year.
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