On Dec 13, 6:51 am, Pat Brennan wrote:
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What is the model number of this toaster? What size tag rolls did you
get? I was wondering about maximum length of tags and their
*thickness* What really confuses me is that the printers offer stats
for labels and the only ones that mention max thickness of the print
media is the jacked-up-price "brand" the Horticultural label company
sells; which I suspect are just re-branded models. The end of the
dotmatrix printer....these are scary times indeed.

When I got a call from the label company this summer about how they
were not going to carry dotmatrix tag stock anymore I had just reveid
a box of ten 1000 lable rolls. I told the sales rep that I don't go
through these tags fast enough to make it worth buying one of the
printers she was selling and she told me that they would probably have
enough stocked dotmatrix rolls for the foreseable future if I needed
them. Who knows what that means or if tag horders have changed the
equation.

Earlier this year I was astounded that the new printer head for my old
epsom dotmatrix cost more than a replacement printer of the same make
and model. So this spring I bought a new printer and a replacement
head and then all those new tags and THEN I get the call about the
dotmatrix label shortage...- Hide quoted text -

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Hi Al,

If the weather stays this warm maybe we will have christmas.

I got a Toshiba TEC B-572-QQ-CHD printer. I am not sure what the B
stands for and it is often dropped. QQ is a country code and the one
we want. No idea about the CHD. The 5 in 572 stands for a 5" print
head. For standard plant tags, the TEC 472 with a 4" print head also
works fine. These printers have been discontinued and replaced with
the Toshiba TEC BSX4 and BSX5 which also work fine and maybe better
for plant tags. All of these TECs have some sort of floating head
which stands up to tags better than most thermal printers and are the
printers Checkpoint/Ecomony/Specialty/Label It re-markets. I am not
sure what the TXP printers are, but they are also remarketed by the
hort label companies. If you buy a used TEC it most likely came out
of a factory where it printed the UPC and warning labels that are
stuck all over a product and the box it is packed in. The used
printers may come with verity of options including rewinders, cutters,
flash memory and optional interfaces. The only option worth looking
for is a USB port, not only will getting it running be easier, but
most likely you will also be getting a newer printer. In industry
these printers are know as bar code printers and are real work
horses. With one of these we are ready to market to Wal*Mart.

For tags I got 9/16" X 4" X 20 mil styrene. These seems to be the
same tags you see coming from the larger Hawaiian growers and are very
similar to what we used with the dot matrix printers. If you have
ever looked at one of these tags you may have noticed a small notch
just above the V shaped portion that you stick in the mix. This is
for an optical eye in the printer so it knows where each new label
starts. When you print 5 feet of tags you will go through 5 feet of
ribbon (the ribbon is single pass). If all you print are 4" tags, the
472 or SX4 are cheaper to operate because the 4" ribbon is cheaper
than the 5" ribbon ($39 vs. $49 per roll or 20,000 labels) and of
course the 4" replacement head is cheaper.

As to why my computer's printer port and port #25 are not working -- I
have no idea.

Pat- Hide quoted text -

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Oh, this info is for keeping. Thank you! Good luck figuring out the
computer issues. Confidence is high.