BARCODE DATALINK Since 1991
Zebra industrial printers · ribbon and labels

The path is moulded into the machine. People still get it wrong.

Every one of these printers has lines and markings inside the lid showing you where the ribbon and the labels go. We have still seen plenty loaded wrongly — so here is one loaded right, and the three ways it usually goes wrong, in photographs.

If it is clicking, stop and read the second one. That noise is costing you a part.

Which printers

Same basic layout across the industrial range.

The photographs are our own ZM400, and it is close enough to go by for the Z4M, the ZT410 and ZT411, the S4M, and the Stripe 300, 400 and 600.

The parts sit in slightly different places between them. What does not change is the two things that actually matter: which way the ribbon comes off its roll, and whether the labels run under the dancer plate.

Right

What a correctly loaded machine looks like.

Inside a Zebra ZM400 loaded correctly. The ribbon supply roll feeds off clockwise from its bottom right, the used ribbon is wound onto the take-up spindle above, and the label web runs underneath the steel dancer plate.
Two things to check, and they are the only two. The ribbon comes off its supply roll clockwise, feeding from the bottom right. The labels run under the steel dancer plate — that plate is what keeps tension on the roll, and it only works if the web is beneath it.
Wrong, one

Ribbon in backwards — and this one makes a noise.

Inside a Zebra ZM400 with the ribbon supply roll loaded the wrong way round. The ribbon runs straight down from the left of the roll instead of coming off clockwise from the bottom right.
The ribbon is on the spindle, and it is on it the wrong way round. It should come off clockwise, feeding from the bottom right. Here it is running anti-clockwise, straight down from the left, and the angles it takes through the machine are wrong with it. Easy to do, and it looks loaded.

Why the direction matters: these printers use ribbon ink side out.

The ink has to face the label. The two meet at the point of contact at the top of the platen roller at the front — the roller that pulls the labels through — and the printhead heats up there to melt the ink off the ribbon and onto the label.

Load the ribbon the wrong way round and the ink is facing the printhead instead of the label. So the printhead burns the ink where it sits, and nothing transfers. You get a printer that sounds like it is working, a ribbon that is being used up, and blank labels coming out of the front.

And it is damaging the printer while it does it. Left like that the ribbon will break the spring on the supply spindle it is sitting on — and before it does, it clicks.

That noise is the thing worth knowing. A printer that was quiet yesterday, clicking today, and somebody changed the ribbon this morning: that is the whole diagnosis. Open it, turn the roll round, and you have saved the spindle.

Wrong, two

Labels not under the dancer plate.

Inside a Zebra ZM400 with the ribbon loaded correctly but the label web running over the top of the steel dancer plate instead of underneath it.
The ribbon is right in this one. The labels are not: the web is not under the steel dancer plate, so nothing is keeping tension on the roll. The plate is not a guard or a guide to be routed around — holding tension is its whole job, and the paper has to be beneath it to get any.
Wrong, three

Both at once.

Inside a Zebra ZM400 with both faults at once: the ribbon supply roll in backwards, and the label web running over the top of the steel dancer plate rather than under it.
Ribbon in backwards, the same as the first one, and the labels not under the dancer plate either. This one is never going to work, and now you can say exactly why: the ink is facing the printhead instead of the label so nothing transfers, and nothing is holding tension on the roll. Blank labels, a slack web, and a spindle spring on its way out.
Once it is loaded

If it still is not right.

Labels coming out in the wrong place — feeding two for one, skipping, printing over the gap — is a calibration and sensor question rather than a loading one. Feeding, skipping and printing over the gap →

Printing too light is usually speed against burn temperature, and both are free to change. When it prints too light →

A white line down every label is none of the above. That is a burnt-out element and the head is finished. Printheads, and how to pick the right one →

Or just ring

We will talk you through it with the lid open.

We keep these machines here, so we can look at the same thing you are looking at while you are looking at it. It is quicker than a manual and it is free.

And if it turns out to be the machine rather than the loading, that is a different conversation and you get the price before anything is booked — Zebra service and repairs →

0414 53 53 95, or andrei@barcodedatalink.com.