LX2000-Full Bleed Color Label Printer

This week, we received our new LX2000 color label printer from Primera.

With up to 4,800 dpi, from .75” to 8” print width, durable pigment ink, built in cutter and BarTender driver, the LX2000 offers a great solution for those customers who want to print high quality, full bleed, relatively low volume labels. 

LX2000

Let me tell and show you why the LX2000 does a good job for this type of manufacturer.

To start using the LX2000, I download the instruction manual and driver here:  http://www.primeralabel.com/support/LX2000.html 

  

When I downloaded the driver, I learned of my biggest disappointment with the LX2000.  I was told by Primera that a Mac driver would be available.  Instead, I read this statement:

The LX2000 is not currently compatible with Macs.

This was disappointing as I had a customer waiting for the LX2000 specifically for the Mac driver.  Bummer.

Although no Mac driver, I did learn about the wireless option:

Wireless is a unique feature I believe.

And the BarTender driver:

As I use BarTender frequently, this feature as a real benefit.

After installing the driver, I loaded the ink cartridges.  The black is larger than the other three cartridges.

LX2000 Black Cartridge

LX2000 Cyan Cartridge

The cartridges seemed small given the manufacturing aspect of this printer.  Plus I find it interesting that Primera does not change the ink cartridge casing, just like VIP 495:   http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2015/05/495.html 

During setup of the driver, I realized that the printer required alignment of the printhead; just like many desktop inkjet printers do.  To align the printhead, you need to load A4 paper, provided by Primera, into the printer.

It took me 3 tries to get the alignment to work correctly.  I decided that I had not pushed in the paper sufficiently far.  Be sure the paper is gently pulled into the printer when loading.

After aligning the printhead, I “attempted” to print labels.  Frankly, I had a rough start.  First I had labels that were banding.

I have no idea why; or even why it stopped.  But it did.

Second, the printer “grasped” the skin on my hand and pull it into the roll arm.  Ouch!

Be careful when loading the labels; and make sure the lever is up on the Roll Guide

And third, some jobs would just not print:

By the end of the day, I decided all of these issues were operator error.  Specifically, you need to insure the paper is loaded correctly; and to understand the button push sequence.  It’s not obvious what the buttons and lights mean when flashing.  Be sure to read section 5H on buttons/LED lights.  And be careful of the rotating and unprotected arm.

Even with these issues, I was soon printing great looking labels full bleed on matte paper:

LX2000 Matte Paper Labels

Gloss paper:

LX2000 Gloss Paper Labels

Kimdura poly labels:

LX2000 Kimdura Poly Labels

And even clear polyester film:

LX2000 Clear Film Labels

Primera did a great job of explaining how to print full bleed labels in section 4E of the manual.  With BarTender, they have made full bleed printing easy to do.

In terms of waterfastness, I found both the Kimdura and clear film performed well.  However, alcohol removed some of the ink from the Kimdura label (see the slight red over the barcode):

LX200 Alcohol Effect

In addition, I printed die cut, blackmark and continuous labels. All printed correctly with the appropriate settings.

One nice feature was the ink cost analysis in the Status Monitor.  As a worst case, I printed 10 (according to the Status Monitor, 10 prints is the minimum required to print for an accurate cost analysis) 4” x 6” high gloss labels at the highest resolution. 

Ink for these labels cost $0.107 and took 26 seconds each.  $0.11 is a seemingly high ink cost.  But the label print quality was great!

LX2000 Ink Cost/Label

After discussions with Primera, I printed a second label, 4" x 6" matte poly at normal resolution with less than 100% coverage to see the ink cost.  The label printed really great!

LX2000 Print

And the cost per label was $0.10; about the same price.

LX2000 Cost Per Label

To purchase the LX2000, contact us or visit our store:  http://stores.colorlabelsolutions.com/lx2000-color-label-printer/

To purchase LX2000 ink: http://stores.colorlabelsolutions.com/lx2000-ink/

And don't forget to purchase 3 years of "Hot Swap" Extended Warranty:  http://stores.colorlabelsolutions.com/lx2000-hotswap-extended-warranty/

Overall, I believe the LX200 produced great looking, full bleed labels easily.  For manufacturers with relatively small volumes that want high resolution labels, the LX2000 seems like a good choice. Please remember:  no Mac driver currently and relatively high ink cost is a part of using this label printer. Contact us to learn more and to purchase the LX2000 printer, ink and labels.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com

#colorlabels