Printing ZPL With The C6000

With Epson’s new C6000 color label printers, you can “colorize” ZPL to increase the readability, improve the look of your labels and even decrease the latency of your printing operation.

ZPL Printed With The C6000A

“Zebra Programming Language (ZPL and ZPL II) is a page description language from Zebra Technologies; and is used primarily for labeling  applications” says the Wikipedia page for ZPL.  Wikipedia says also, “A page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap.”

Zebra Printers Use ZPL

When introduced to the market, thermal transfer and direct thermal printers utilized these types of languages to produce the text and objects printed on the label.  To compete in the market, competitors to Zebra developed emulations and/or interpreters to enable their printers to “plug and play” in environments driven by software using only ZPL.  Now, Epson offers this capability in their new C6000 series printers without requiring the Windows driver.

Epson C6500P

Bill Vasques, Vice President, Software and Systems Development for General Data, demonstrated the different ZPL printing capabilities of the C6000A printer recently.

• Printing native ZPL
• Adding images/logos in ZPL
• Adding color images/logos in ZPL
• Printing objects (text, lines, logos, etc.) in color in existing ZPL

Watch Bill print these types of situations here: 

According to Bill, “Epson’s Escape Label is very similar to ZPL, but provides additional commands to add color to the ZPL.  And the additional code required to add color is very small.”  For example, Bill added a PNG image to the image itself to print the logo in the video; and he did not have to load the code into the printer itself.  Some time ago, I discussed uploading an image to the C7500 and running ZPL:
https://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2018/05/zpl-with-c7500.html 

Bill continued, “what is great about the Epson printer, the ZPL should produce label output that is no different than with Zebra printers. Now you can get higher resolution labels, eliminate the hassle of loading thermal transfer ribbons and save money compared to using resin or even wax/resin ribbons when printing black, text only labels.”

The new C6000 series printers offer other features that make replacing Zebra printers easy to do:

• Peel and present
• Remote printer management
• SAP direct integration
• I/O integration for print/apply and other applications

Learn more about the new C6000 series printers here:

https://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2019/09/new-c6000-series.html

Color Label Solutions merged with General Data in March of 2019 to gain access to the capabilities offered by our new parent; like what Bill shows with ZPL in the video.  Learn about our merger here:

The C6000 printer opens up the black only, thermal transfer printing world to color.  If you run Zebra printers in your factory, warehouse or other facility, now you should consider how colors, logo’s and images can improve the look of your labels; and make your labeling operations easier to do.  Contact us to discuss how moving to color will fit your operation.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com 

C6000 Series Winders

If you are considering the Epson C6000 series printers, you need to consider winders as well for this printer. DPR has both unwinder and rewinder for these important new printers.

C6000 Winders

 Watch the video of the DPR winders here:  

Or a shorter version here:

 

Download the brochure here:  

Given the 8.375” C6500A and C6500P printers come with only the capability for a 6” OD, I believe many if not most users of these wider printers will want an unwinder to enable larger rolls.  You can order either the unwinder, rewinder or both.  A plate is required for any of the 3 possible setups to ensure the labels are fed into or out of the printer straight.

C6000 Unwinder

When asked why the rewinder is behind the unwinder, Michael Panzeri, Vice President of DPR, said, “With the rewinder in the back, it enables the user to wind either the label itself or the liner if they are using the Peel and Present mode.  Further, it enables the label to be wound either face in or out.  The rear rewinder makes this configuration very flexible.” 

C6000 Rewinder

Michael did say that DPR will release another rewinder for the front of the C6000A or C6500A that will sit in front.  This front facing rewinder will prevent any predispensing of labels during rewinding using the cutter versions of the printer.

If you don’t know about the C6000 series printers from Epson, learn more here: 

C6500P

To purchase the DPR unwinder for the C6000 printers, visit our store: 

To purchase the DPR rewinder for the C6000 printers, visit our store here:

And don’t forget to purchase the plate:

With the unique capabilities,

• High print resolution
• 8.375” max print width
• Peel & Present
• MAC, Linux and SAP connectivity
• Spot Color Replacement
• Network Management
• ZPL datastream printing

The C6000 series printers will be a big hit in the label print market.  Purchase your C6000 printers here:

Or contact us to learn more about the C6000 printers and the DPR winders.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com 

Preroll Label Applicator

If you produce and sell prerolls, you know the hassle of applying labels to these tubes.  With the CTM Tabletop Wrap Label Applicator, you can eliminate this tedious and costly activity.

CTM Wrap Label Applicator

Watch this applicator apply labels to our customer’s CoolJars tubes:

When our customer first saw this video, their response was “Awesome”!  This customer has production lots of 30,000+ prerolls.  Further, they have to begin applying batch ID’s on their tubes prior to receiving their test result data which is included on the final label.  This applicator will make applying both of these labels much easier.

You might also like to watch the CTM video of this label applicator.

And look at some of the applied labels on a different tube size.

Auto Applied Labels on CoolJarz 116 mm Tubes

The Tabletop Wrap Label Applicator works as follows:

“Round products are manually loaded onto the infeed magazine. The indexing starwheel will remove one product at a time from the infeed magazine with each indexing motion. Once products have been captured by the starwheel, they are indexed to the labeling station where a powered roller spins the product as the label is applied. Labeled products will then continue around the starwheel until they fall onto the exit chute where they will fall into a collection hopper (collection hopper or box is not included.)”

What I find great about this applicator is the “Machined Starwheel”.  This component is machined for the exact tube you have; even those tubes with a taper.  The capability to change the Starwheel allows for many different tube and label sizes.

Although named “Tabletop Wrap Label Applicator”, this machine is not small:  40" H, 48" W, 25" D and weighs 250 pounds.  It does need to sit on a sturdy table for easy operation.

With tapered tubes, you do need to consider your label sizes as well.  If you place a rectangle label on a tapered tube, you’ll get a gap that is not consistent top to bottom:

Rectangle Labels on Tapered Tubes

To eliminate this inconsistent gap, plan on using tapered labels.  For example, we would recommend on this tube a label size of 4” x (2” on bottom side and 2.25” on the top side were the tube is larger).  Using this taper label, you will make the gap consistent and potentially more visually appealing.  We can work with you to insure the label fits your tapered tube.

As a producer of prerolls, you can save a lot of time and money by automating your label application.  Contact us to discuss how the CTM Tabletop Wrap Label Applicator can work for you.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com