Service & repairs · Zebra, Symbol and Motorola

It has stopped. It is usually not finished.

Barcode equipment is bought once and lives for a decade, which means most of what we see is not a broken machine. It is a worn part, a tired battery or a cable that has been walked on four thousand times — on a printer or scanner that has years left in it.

We have been repairing and supporting this equipment since 1991, through the Symbol years and the Motorola years and now Zebra. A good deal of what is still running in Australian warehouses, we sold.

Before you replace anything

What actually goes wrong.

Nearly all of it is one of these, and the cheap answers are more common than the expensive ones. Worth reading before you price a new machine.

Printers

The printhead, and the roller under it

A white line down every label is a burnt element and the head is done. But faint, patchy or fading print is usually the platen roller — the rubber the label rolls over, which flattens and glazes and costs a fraction of a head. Replacing the printhead when the roller is the problem buys you a few months and another printhead.

And light down one side rather than all over it is a third thing again, and the cheapest of the three: the printhead pressure, which is a setting rather than a part. The pressure toggles →

Printheads and how to pick the right one →

Scanners

The cable, nine times out of ten

A corded scanner that reads intermittently, drops characters or resets when you move it is almost always a cable that has been rolled over by a chair or pulled tight across a counter for years. The cable is a separate part and the cheapest thing in this list. Try one before you condemn the scanner.

Cordless & Android

Batteries, and they are consumables

A battery is not a fault when it stops holding a shift's charge after a few years — it has done its job. The same goes for a cradle that no longer charges properly, which is usually contacts rather than electronics. Screens and keypads on mobile computers are replaceable parts too.

Ask what wore it out, not just what broke. A part that failed early usually had help. A printhead that lasted six months was worn out by a ribbon and a label stock that were never meant to meet; a battery that died in a year probably lived in a charger at 40 degrees. We would rather ask about the labels and ribbons and how the thing is used than sell you the same part again next winter.

Three more are worth half an hour before you ring anybody. Each is a page with photographs of a real machine on this bench, and none of them costs anything to try.

Grey where it should be black, barcodes that scan on the third try — usually two settings, and both are free. When it prints too light →

Feeding two labels for every one printed, skipping every second one, printing over the gap — four causes, and three of them cost nothing. Labels that skip →

Or it was loaded wrongly in the first place. The path is moulded into the machine and people still get it wrong — and a supply ribbon in backwards clicks, then breaks the spring on the spindle, so that one is worth knowing before it costs a part. How to load an industrial printer →

Old equipment

We still support what we sold you.

Zebra hardware outlives the sales cycle by a wide margin, and being discontinued is not the same as being unsupportable.

Printers

Z4M, ZM400 and their generation

Industrial printers from a generation ago that are still printing every day in Australian warehouses. Printheads, platen rollers and belts are still available, and a fifteen-year-old machine with a new head in it is a perfectly good machine. The ZM400 in particular turns up constantly.

Printheads for current and legacy printers →

Legacy Zebra wireless print server user manual84 pages · PDF, 1.9 MB Download →

Mobile computers

MC9100, MC9200 and MC9300 — all three

We repair the whole MC9000 family. The MC9100 and MC9200 are Windows Mobile and CE and Zebra closed both out years ago, and we still fix them — along with the MC3100s of the same era. At some point the honest answer stops being a repair, because a device nobody issues security updates for is a different problem from a device that will not switch on.

And we go further back than the MC9000s. We repair MC55 onwards, and MC70 and MC75 onwards. Not all of it is economic and we will say which is which, but we will always quote — and when the quote turns out to be the wrong answer, a used machine or the parts off one sometimes is not. That line is here.

The MC9300 is not in that group. It is Android, Zebra support it to 28 June 2030, and batteries, cradles and keypads are all still orderable.

MC9300 parts, repairs and what replaces it →
Still running Windows Mobile? →

There are two ways a repair gets done here, and the second one is why a date on Zebra’s website is not the end of your fleet.

Through Zebra, while the model is still inside their own service and support dates. That is the route for anything under warranty or on a OneCare contract, and it is the one we use while it exists.

Through our own technician once it is not — an independent contractor we have worked with for years, on time and materials. That is why an MC9200 is still repairable today, years after Zebra closed it out, and why 2030 is a date on Zebra’s calendar rather than on yours.

Either way you get a quote before anybody touches it. Send the unit in, we look at it, and you get a price for the repair before work starts. Rates and turnaround are on one page rather than repeated here.

What to have ready

Three things that save a week.

None of them are compulsory, but a repair conversation that starts with these usually ends in one phone call rather than three.

The model and serial, off the machine

Not what it was called when it was bought. Zebra printers carry a plate on the back or underneath; on a scanner the label is usually in the battery bay or under the cable boot. A photograph of it is perfect and settles the parts question immediately.

What it does now, not what it should do

"A white line down every label", "reads then stops after ten scans", "shows a charge then dies in an hour". The symptom names the part far more reliably than a diagnosis does, and a photograph of a bad label is worth a paragraph.

When it was bought, roughly

It decides whether this is a warranty claim or a repair, and the two go different ways. If we sold it to you we already have the date — that is the advantage of buying from somebody who is still here thirty-five years later.

While it is away

Two things worth asking about.

Neither gets offered by default, because neither suits everybody. Both are worth knowing before a printer stops rather than after.

There is one loan printer

A ZM400, 203 dpi, with ethernet. Not a pool of them — one machine, so whether you can have it depends on whether it is free and whether it suits your labels. It is an industrial printer, so it steps in for an industrial printer.

Ask early rather than late. Somebody running a single printer on a dispatch bench should be asking about this before it fails, not on the morning it does.

Zebra OneCare, if it earns its place

Zebra's own support cover, and we can put it on a machine. It suits a printer whose failure stops a shift rather than annoys somebody — and it genuinely does not suit a spare desktop unit that prints forty labels a week.

Tell us what the printer does all day and we will say whether it is worth it. Sometimes the answer is no.

What a repair costs, and how long it takes, is set out on one page rather than two. Call-out rates, driving, what happens if you turn the quote down, and the three-day turnaround all live with the booking form — so there is one place to keep right rather than two that can drift apart.

Book a service call

Why us and not somebody bigger

Nobody here has a ticket queue.

There are bigger service operations in Australia and some of them are very good. What they have is depth — more technicians, more benches, more parts on more shelves. What we have is that the phone gets answered by somebody who has been repairing these since 1991.

You describe it once

“It feeds two labels for every one it prints” gets you an answer about a sensor in the same call. Not a reference number, not a callback window, not a technician reading your words back off a script. The person you tell is the person who works out what it is.

Small enough to change the plan

A printer that stops on a Thursday afternoon is not a job that waits for Monday's run. We are not always the cheapest and we are certainly not the biggest — but a business this size can move something forward the same day, and usually does.

Where bigger is better, we will say so. A fleet of forty printers across three states wants a national contract and a service desk, and we would rather tell you that than sell you something we cannot staff.

Tell us what it is doing

Describe the symptom. We will tell you the part.

Thirty-five years of these conversations says the answer is usually cheaper than it looks from where you are standing.

If your software vendor says they will not support hardware you bought elsewhere — that is a different question from repairs, and the answer is usually not what people assume. Software support, the manufacturer's warranty and the staging in between are three separate things. Which is which, and the one question to ask in writing.

Onsite, or send it in?

We come to the big ones. The small ones are usually not worth it.

It is decided by the size of the printer and whether it is holding work up — not by how far away you are. At the small end the honest answer is often that a repair costs more than a replacement, and you should hear that before you pack anything.

Small desktop printers

Usually cheaper to replace than to fix

An LP2844, a GK420d or GK420t, a ZD220, any of the old Eltrons. We do not drive out to these. That is not reluctance — a printer at that end of the range is close to disposable, and a call-out costs a real fraction of replacing it outright.

If one of them is blown and it is three years old or more, buy a new one. We will tell you that rather than take the work, because the arithmetic does not support anything else.

What is worth doing is a printhead, a platen roller or a broken clip — particularly if you have a row of them and one visit sorts the lot out. One printer on its own, rarely.

Industrial printers

We come to it, and you print again the same visit

A Z4M, a ZM400, a ZT410 or ZT411, or anything else industrial. Nearly everything that stops one of these is a wear part — the printhead, the drive belt, the platen roller — and all three are fixed where the machine stands. You are printing again that afternoon rather than a week on Tuesday, and the printer never leaves your floor.

The Central Coast and Wollongong are regular runs, not exceptions. Gosford, Tuggerah, Erina, Wollongong, and the five metro capitals as well. None of that changes the rule above — it is still the printer that decides and not the postcode — and what the driving comes to is a figure on your quote rather than something you can work out from a map, because it depends on where the technician starts from on the day. If you assumed you were too far away, ask.

The exception is no power at all. That is usually a main board, and a main board is not a job anybody does in your warehouse. If that is the symptom, say so on the phone — it changes the answer before anybody gets in a van.

When the answer is no

Not worth fixing. Then what?

A repair that costs more than half a replacement is a delay rather than a repair, and we will tell you so. The next question is always the same one, so it is answered here instead of being left to the phone call.

Here is the arithmetic, because it is not obvious and nobody tells you. On a small desktop printer, parts and labour can reach $500. The printers page carries what a new one costs, and the subtraction is usually short: below about $800 you are choosing between a repaired machine of unknown remaining life and a new one carrying twelve or twenty-four months of warranty. Most people should take the new one.

Scanners are blunter still. Anything under about $500 is close to a disposable item — a cable or a battery is worth replacing, and beyond that a repair costs more than the scanner. We will say so rather than quote you for it.

All of which changes completely if it is still under warranty. Then it is not your money at stake and the arithmetic does not apply — tell us when you bought it and we will start there.

A desktop printer

Twenty years of desktop Zebras have all done the same job, so the replacement is usually simpler than people expect — four inch, USB, and it takes the labels already on your shelf. An LP2844 or a TLP2844 is the common case, and it is worth knowing which labels fit one before you replace anything.

Zebra desktop printers →
Still running a 2844? →

An industrial printer

The Z4M and ZM400 generation above is the one that usually reaches this point, and they are worth keeping running longer than most machines ever made. When one is genuinely finished, the current industrial printers carry their prices on the page, so you can see the number before you ring rather than after.

Zebra industrial printers →

A scanner, or a mobile computer

A corded scanner is rarely worth repairing and the honest answer is usually a new one. A mobile computer is the opposite and worth fixing for years — an MC9300 is the case to read. Its cradles and keypads carry straight over to an MC9400: the 53-key is KYPD-MC9353ANR-01 on both machines, which is a part number rather than a promise.

And it reaches back further, with one honest limit. An MC9300 or MC9400 does not fit an MC9100 or MC9200 cradle. The adapter cup, ADP-MC93-CRDCUP-01, is what makes it sit in one — and it is charge only. No Ethernet, no USB, no comms. Keep the old rack for charging by all means; the data connection is the part you lose.

Barcode scanners →
MC9300, and what carries over →

And the cheapest way back to working is often not the current model. Surplus machines still sealed in the box turn up here, and if you need the replacement to match the four you already have rather than to be the newest thing, that is frequently the right answer. New in the box, just old →

What it costs

The rate, and what a visit usually adds up to.

Nobody enjoys ringing for a price and being told it depends. It does depend — but not on anything you cannot be told up front.

Everything on this card is the printer rate. A technician drives to a printer because a printer is bolted into a line and prints the labels that line needs today. Scanners and mobile computers are not onsite work at all — they come back to us, they are quoted on the bench before anything is done, and nobody drives out to one. None of the figures below apply to them. Scanner and mobile computer repairs →

$352 in the metro areas, including GST

Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. One call-out rate, with the first hour on site and the travel both already inside it. There is no premium for an industrial machine over a desktop one and no tiering by the day of the week or the hour of it — and if the repair takes twenty minutes, that is still the whole labour charge.

What the hour buys, when no part is needed: the machine is serviced, the printhead and the roller are cleaned, it is calibrated to the stock you actually run, and it prints test labels that get checked before anybody leaves. That is $352 and that is the invoice — parts are the only thing that can be on top of it, and they are quoted before the visit rather than decided on your floor. The same figure, broken into what it covers →

$297 plus the driving, everywhere else we go

The Central Coast, Wollongong, Newcastle and Geelong. Lower than the metro rate because the travel is not inside it — that is charged separately, below. The first hour on site is still in it, and any hour after that is $297 as well.

$154 an hour for travel, including GST

Charged once, no matter how many machines get looked at while we are on site, and always on the quote before anybody gets in a van. How much driving a job carries depends on where the technician starts from rather than where our office is, so it is not something you can work out from a map — one Central Coast visit this year carried two hours and another carried three, same destination. The part worth knowing is that it is charged once: if you have three printers and two of them are limping, have us look at all three in the one visit.

Billed in 30-minute blocks, there and back, at what it actually took rather than what was quoted. A run that comes in twenty minutes under does not get rounded up to the hour.

Which is the opposite of the way time on site is charged, and the difference is deliberate rather than untidy. A visit is booked in whole hours whether the job turns out to be quick or not. Driving is only ever measured.

$297 an hour if the printer comes to us, or $148.50 a half hour

The same hourly rate, with no driving attached — which on a small printer is usually the only version of a repair that makes arithmetic sense. Freight to us is yours; what happens on the way back depends on whether you accept the quote, and that is set out on the booking page rather than twice here. One labour rate covers all of it: $297 an hour whether the hour is spent on your floor or on our bench, and on site the first hour is what the call-out above already buys.

The difference is that on our own bench we can stop the clock at a half hour. Work back here is booked in half-hour blocks, so a twenty-minute repair is $148.50 rather than a full hour. On site it is whole hours, because a visit is booked that way whether the job turns out to be quick or not — and saying otherwise would be a kindness we could not actually afford to keep.

Parts are quoted separately, and estimated before the van moves

On an industrial printer it is nearly always a printhead, a drive belt or a platen roller, and we will give you a number for the likely one before anybody commits to the visit. You should not be finding out the cost on your own loading dock.

And when the answer is “don't”. If you tell us it has no power, it is a logic board, a main board or the power supply — and often enough more than one of them, which is the part that decides it. Nobody can say which until the machine is open, so an honest quote has to carry all three, and on a large industrial printer that is a send-it-over decision rather than an onsite one.

On anything smaller, a new printer is usually the cheaper answer and the better one — and if the machine is discontinued and ten years old or more, that is nearly always where it lands. Three boards quoted against a printer that cannot be replaced part for part is money spent on the next fault rather than on a working printer. You will get that answer from us for free, over the phone, before anybody has driven anywhere.

And support itself is chargeable — that is a rule here, not a software thing. Phone, email or remote help on a machine you did not buy from us is $165 an hour inc GST. The same hour whether it is a driver that will not install, a scanner that will not pair, a label printing too light, or a handheld that has lost its wireless.

If you buy your hardware, labels or ribbons from us, we do not usually start a clock. Ring and ask. That is how we have worked for years, and it is a practice rather than a published entitlement — which is worth saying plainly instead of leaving you to work out which side of it you are on.

The same rate with the half day and the travel beside it is on the label software page, since an install or a training session is the most common reason anybody buys the hour.

Is it worth fixing?

Sometimes the answer is no, and you will get that answer too. A machine we would not repair is one we will say so about — the trade is thirty-five years long and a bad repair costs more than a lost sale.

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