Dymo vs. other print servers
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@Pete-S said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
If they just support Dymo printers it has to be some kind of SOHO product.
Dymos are a SOHO product, yes. The lack of built in networking alone means it's just for extremely small applications.
But that's the case here.
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@CCWTech said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
Many of them want to have multiple computers print to the label printer so I have used the Dymo LabelWriter Print Servers (est $125/each).
I think Dymo buys their print servers, but not their printers. They are pricing it for the semi-obvious reason of pushing people to just buy more printers. I bet the cheaper printers have better margins than the print server does.
For almost all places looking at a print server for the Dymo, they will just opt for one of the following...
- Sharing from a normal print server.
- Sharing from the desktop that the printer is plugged into.
- Plugging the printer into a server and sharing from there?
- Just buying more printers and making them all local, they are so cheap you can do that.
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@scottalanmiller said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@CCWTech said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
It seems really high compared to other brand of print servers out there.
because it's from the printer maker.
You can always make your own with a Raspberry Pi for very cheap that will support as many printers as you'd reasonably want.
So you know the environment here. We need to go from Ethernet to USB, but the printers aren't often close so are you saying a really long USB cable if they have 2 or 3 Dymos?
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@scottalanmiller said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@CCWTech said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
Many of them want to have multiple computers print to the label printer so I have used the Dymo LabelWriter Print Servers (est $125/each).
I think Dymo buys their print servers, but not their printers. They are pricing it for the semi-obvious reason of pushing people to just buy more printers. I bet the cheaper printers have better margins than the print server does.
For almost all places looking at a print server for the Dymo, they will just opt for one of the following...
- Sharing from a normal print server.
- Sharing from the desktop that the printer is plugged into.
- Plugging the printer into a server and sharing from there?
- Just buying more printers and making them all local, they are so cheap you can do that.
They aren't normally near the server. AVImark won't support anything but DYMO's, and you know the problems we have had with shared printers from desktops. Why buy additional DYMO's if you can get a print server for one for around $40 (if it an inexpensive print server works)?
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@scottalanmiller said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@CCWTech said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
It seems really high compared to other brand of print servers out there.
because it's from the printer maker.
You can always make your own with a Raspberry Pi for very cheap that will support as many printers as you'd reasonably want.
You beat me to it- I actually just did this with a raspberry pi three and diet pi, it also run apcupsd to monitor the APC 1000 running my core network.
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Incidentally, you could likely do this with a raspberry pi zero and a USB add on board for a smaller footprint if needed
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@gjacobse said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
Incidentally, you could likely do this with a raspberry pi zero and a USB add on board for a smaller footprint if needed
What advantage would that have IF one of the $40 print servers would work?
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@gjacobse said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
Incidentally, you could likely do this with a raspberry pi zero and a USB add on board for a smaller footprint if needed
The zero is all but useless. You'd want at least an RP3 so that you have the Ethernet connection.
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@CCWTech said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@gjacobse said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
Incidentally, you could likely do this with a raspberry pi zero and a USB add on board for a smaller footprint if needed
What advantage would that have IF one of the $40 print servers would work?
An RP means that you have unlimited flexibility to make it do whatever you want. A $40 print server is hard to beat, but an RP is roughly the same price, too. Would be potentially easier to standardize if you are deploying lots of them.
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@gjacobse said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@scottalanmiller said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@CCWTech said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
It seems really high compared to other brand of print servers out there.
because it's from the printer maker.
You can always make your own with a Raspberry Pi for very cheap that will support as many printers as you'd reasonably want.
You beat me to it- I actually just did this with a raspberry pi three and diet pi, it also run apcupsd to monitor the APC 1000 running my core network.
Nice!
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@scottalanmiller said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@CCWTech said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@gjacobse said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
Incidentally, you could likely do this with a raspberry pi zero and a USB add on board for a smaller footprint if needed
What advantage would that have IF one of the $40 print servers would work?
An RP means that you have unlimited flexibility to make it do whatever you want. A $40 print server is hard to beat, but an RP is roughly the same price, too. Would be potentially easier to standardize if you are deploying lots of them.
I like this. Thanks!
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An RP would mean that standard tools... Zabbix, MeshCentral, whatever could be installed and used. As can ZeroTier, SSH, SaltStack, etc. Whatever standardization path you go down, they are a part of it rather than being an IoT device that isn't easy to manage.
Plus you have full control of patching and updates for the long haul.
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Each Dymo gets one RP?
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@FATeknollogee said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
Each Dymo gets one RP?
In my scenario yes. Printers are not near each other.
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@scottalanmiller going to look into this for our shipping Dymo label device, never even thought of using a Pi. Thanks!
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In the past, I've used these to "network" desktop scanners, I wonder if this would work?
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@FATeknollogee said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
In the past, I've used these to "network" desktop scanners, I wonder if this would work?
Probably but...
@scottalanmiller said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
An RP would mean that standard tools... Zabbix, MeshCentral, whatever could be installed and used. As can ZeroTier, SSH, SaltStack, etc. Whatever standardization path you go down, they are a part of it rather than being an IoT device that isn't easy to manage.
Plus you have full control of patching and updates for the long haul. -
A quick search shows that Dymo is very finicky with 3rd party print servers. And we know the AviMark software is finicky as well.
Is it really worth all this trouble to save what, 60 bucks? For something that might or might not work reliably?
Even if you need ten of them, I doubt you are going break even - if you can make it work at all.
And what happens when Dymo upgrades their driver and the DIY print server doesn't work anymore. You're back to square one.
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@Pete-S said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
A quick search shows that Dymo is very finicky with 3rd party print servers. And we know the AviMark software is finicky as well.
Is it really worth all this trouble to save what, 60 bucks? For something that might or might not work reliably?
Even if you need ten of them, I doubt you are going break even - if you can make it work at all.
And what happens when Dymo upgrades their driver and the DIY print server doesn't work anymore. You're back to square one.
Maybe they won't work at all. I'm going to test one. And Dymo could change but really there isn't a huge financial incentive for them to change. They have a well designed product that does what it's supposed to.
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@CCWTech said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
@Pete-S said in Dymo vs. other print servers:
A quick search shows that Dymo is very finicky with 3rd party print servers. And we know the AviMark software is finicky as well.
Is it really worth all this trouble to save what, 60 bucks? For something that might or might not work reliably?
Even if you need ten of them, I doubt you are going break even - if you can make it work at all.
And what happens when Dymo upgrades their driver and the DIY print server doesn't work anymore. You're back to square one.
Maybe they won't work at all. I'm going to test one. And Dymo could change but really there isn't a huge financial incentive for them to change. They have a well designed product that does what it's supposed to.
Come to think of it, wouldn't it make sense to replace the printers that needs to be network connected, with the Dymo LabelWriter wireless model instead?
https://www.dymo.com/en-US/Label-writer-Wireless
