A printhead is a consumable with a long life rather than a component that lasts forever. When it goes, the printer is not finished — it needs the right head, and usually a conversation about what wore the last one out.
We supply heads for the printers we sell and for a good many we stopped selling years ago, because plenty of those are still working and a good machine is not finished just because one part is worn. Whether yours is one of those is the first thing worth working out, and it is further down this page.
Onsite where we attend, or the machine comes to us from anywhere else — rates and areas are on that page. Fitting a head is usually the smaller half of the job.
The lines are not the expensive part. The barcode is. On this tag the text is still readable by a person, so nothing looks urgent. But a white line through a barcode breaks the bars, and a scanner either misreads it or refuses it — which is found at a loading dock or a customer’s goods-in, not by whoever printed it. A label that a human can still read and a scanner cannot is the worst state for this to be in.
Not our customer and not our printer — a real sample, with the company, the barcodes and the identifiers taken off it.
Arrived here from the other end, with a scanner that will not read? Why a barcode will not scan starts with this fault and then works through the cable, the trigger and the battery — because the scanner is usually the last thing wrong.
Get either wrong and the part will not fit, or it will fit and print badly. Both are printed on the machine.
Not the range. A Z4M and a ZM400 are different machines and take different heads, and both are on a plate on the back or underneath — a photograph of it settles this in one message. Sometimes the answer is better than you expect: the ZT410 and the ZT411 that replaced it take the same printhead part number, so an older ZT410 is no harder to supply than the current model.
203, 300 and 600 dpi heads are not interchangeable, and the same printer model was sold more than one way. A 300 dpi head in a printer set up for 203 prints labels that look wrong and scan worse. Most warehouse labels are 203; 300 is for small type and dense codes; 600 is for genuinely fine detail on a small label.
Ask why the last one died before ordering the next. A printhead that lasted six months rather than several years usually did not fail — it was worn out early, by a ribbon and a label stock that were never meant to meet, or by a machine printing at a darkness setting that was compensating for the wrong pairing. Replacing the head without changing that buys you another six months. We would rather ask about the labels and ribbons first.
And sometimes the honest answer is not to fit one. A printhead is often around a third of what the printer cost. On an industrial machine that is obvious arithmetic — a new head in a ZT421 or a fifteen-year-old ZM400 is a fraction of replacing it, which is exactly why those machines are still working. On an entry-level desktop printer it is the opposite, and nobody repairs those, ourselves included.
So we will ask what the printer is before quoting you a head, and if the numbers say replace we will say replace — even though the head is the thing you rang about and the thing we would rather sell you. A quote for a part that is not worth fitting is a quote that costs us the next one.
Zebra printers last a long time in a way that catches people out — a fifteen-year-old machine printing shelf labels every day is a perfectly good machine with a worn part in it. The current machines wear out too — a ZT111, ZT211 or ZT231 running all day is on its second head soon enough, and that is the part doing its job rather than a fault.
Grouped by part rather than by printer, because that is where the useful surprises are. The ZT410 and the ZT411 that replaced it take the same head; so do the Z4M and the Z4M Plus, and one 203 dpi head covers the ZT111, ZT211 and ZT231 between them. Every one carries a three month warranty.
| Fits | Part | Resolution | Part number | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Z4M Plus, S4M | Platen Roller | any | G77023M | Ask |
| ZT410, ZT411 | Platen Roller | any | P1058930-080 | Ask |
| 105SL | Printhead | 203 dpi | G32432-1M | Ask |
| 105SL | Printhead | 300 dpi | G32433M | Ask |
| 220xi4 | Printhead | 300 dpi | P1004239 | Ask |
| GK420d | Printhead | 203 dpi | PAZ105934037 | In stock |
| GK420t | Printhead | 203 dpi | PAZ105934038 | Ask |
| S4M | Printhead | 203 dpi | G41400M | In stock |
| S4M | Printhead | 300 dpi | G41401M | Ask |
| Z4M, Z4M Plus | Printhead | 203 dpi | G79056-1M | Low stock |
| Z4M, Z4M Plus | Printhead | 300 dpi | 79057M | Ask |
| ZM400 | Printhead | 203 dpi | 79800M | Ask |
| ZM400 | Printhead | 300 dpi | 79801M | Ask |
| ZT410, ZT411 | Printhead | 203 dpi | P1058930-009 | Ask |
| ZT410, ZT411 | Printhead | 300 dpi | P1058930-010 | Ask |
| ZT410, ZT411 | Printhead | 600 dpi | P1058930-011 | Ask |
| ZT420 | Printhead | 203 dpi | P1058930-012 | Ask |
Genuine Zebra or an OEM equivalent — and the quote will say which. We supply both. An OEM head is made by somebody other than Zebra to fit the same printer, and depending on the part and the day, one, the other, or both may be available. That is why this page carries part numbers and no prices: the quote is the point at which we can confirm what it costs, whether it is on the shelf or coming in, and whether it is Zebra-branded or OEM. Where there is a genuine choice you get both prices and you decide. What you will not get is one quietly supplied as the other.
Not the printer you are looking at? The list above is what we hold part numbers for, not the limit of what we supply — Zebra printers we stopped selling years ago are still supplied. Ask.
Not a stock photograph and not a render. Our own parts shelf in Berowra, taken on the date above — because "we carry printheads" is the sort of claim every barcode website makes, and a picture of the boxes is the cheapest way to show that this one means it.
Most people who ring about a printhead have not cleaned it, and not because they are careless — it looks like the one part of a printer you are not supposed to touch. It is not. A customer who was too nervous to try is the reason this is written down.
You need isopropyl alcohol and a lint-free swab. A Zebra cleaning pen is the same thing in a tidier shape. Nothing else will do: water leaves minerals behind, methylated spirits leaves a film, and anything abrasive — a fingernail, a screwdriver, a paper towel — finishes the head on the spot. Isopropyl is the right choice because it lifts adhesive and then evaporates, leaving nothing at all.
A head that has been printing is hot enough to matter. Switch the printer off, open it, and give it a minute. Alcohol on a hot head flashes off before it has dissolved anything, so you would be wiping dry.
A narrow strip along the bottom edge of the head, usually a slightly different colour to the metal around it. That strip is the row of heating elements and it is the only part you are cleaning. Do not touch it with your fingers — skin oil and static are both bad for it, which is why the spares on the shelf above live in anti-static bags.
Damp swab, light pressure, along the strip rather than across it. What comes away grey or brown is label adhesive and melted ribbon. If the swab keeps coming up dirty, keep going with a fresh one — it is the build-up that makes printing go faint and patchy, and it does not come off in one pass.
The rubber roller underneath, the one the labels run over. Same swab, turning it as you go so you get the whole way round. A glazed or sticky roller feeds badly and wears the head unevenly, so cleaning the head and not the roller only fixes half of it.
Wait until there is no trace of damp, close it, and print a single label rather than a batch. You want to see what changed before you commit a roll to it.
How often is the part nobody does. Every roll of labels on a direct thermal printer, and every ribbon change on a thermal transfer one. It takes less time than loading the next roll. A head has a working life measured in kilometres of label, and the thing that shortens it most is printing through grit and dried adhesive — so the cleaning is not maintenance for its own sake. It is the difference between replacing a head this year and replacing it in three.
When cleaning will not help. A sharp white line running down every label in the direction of printing is a burnt-out element, and no amount of alcohol brings it back. That one is a head. Faint all over, faint on one side, patchy, or slowly getting worse over a few weeks is usually dirt, pressure, darkness set too low, or the wrong ribbon for the label — and all four of those are cheaper than a part.
We sell printheads, and we would still rather you cleaned it first. A head you did not need is the worst thing we could sell you. The second-worst is the one you buy from somebody else next year, because the one we sold you did not fix anything and nobody told you what would.
Zebra made a video for this exact machine — How to Replace the Printhead on a ZT231 Printer. It is better than anything we could film, so watch that first. The ZT111 and ZT211 take the same head and the job is the same on all three.
What the video does not tell you — five things worth knowing before you start.
A printhead is a strip of heating elements on a ceramic edge, and static kills them silently — it will look perfect and print nothing. Touch the printer frame first, hold the head by its metal carrier, and keep off the print line.
The ribbon connector only goes on one way. The mounting does not always, and the photograph takes two seconds against twenty minutes of working it out backwards.
Over-tightening bows the head, and a bowed head prints light down one side. If you are leaning on the screwdriver you have already gone too far.
You will not have the machine open again for a year, and a glazed roller wears the new head unevenly from the first label. The swab and the alcohol are in the section above.
A sharp white line down every label means the head is finished. Nothing at all is usually a ribbon cable that is not fully seated, or a latch that has not clicked. People buy a second head because the first one “was faulty”.
A head bought from overseas usually cannot be sent back, so the install is the part worth being slow about. If it does not come up, ring us before you buy another one — that is a five-minute phone call and it costs nothing.
A photograph of the model and serial plate answers the first question. What the print looks like now usually answers the second.
That is a burnt-out element and the head is done. Faint on one side, patchy, or fading over a few weeks is usually something else — and worth a phone call before you buy anything.
