#dymo

OK so Dymo make label printers. They used to make these little reels of plastic tape that you could fit into a gun. You twist the dial to get the letter, and it punches it into the tape, which stretches and goes white, making white text on a coloured tape.

Then they started making label printers. The 450 and 550 are nearly identical. They use a heated print head and thermochromatic paper - It's receipt paper.

So no ink! The paper just needs heat - great for labels!

The 450 and 550 are nearly identical.

They have an optical reader inside, which reads and calibrates the roll of stickers using a pattern printed on the back. You can feed the labels out or in, cancel a print... and the rest is handled by software.

The 450 is discontinued. You can still buy them but Dymo won't sell you a new one, and frankly they'd rather like to say they're enot supported and push a driver update to kill them all.

Why?

The 550 has an RFID chip reader. All Dymo label rolls - Which ar enot cheap - have a chip hidden in the roll. If the chip isn't there, the printer will not work.

That's so you can't use generic labels with your Dymo that you paid for.

There's no option to shut that down, either. The work-around is to re-use the RFID chip and tape it to your generic rolls.

"PEW PEW PEW" "Did you say something Honey?" "Nothing Dear. pew pew pew."

Fundamentally these all work the same way — a disc has a number of "petals" around its edge, each with a raised character. A strip of vinyl tape, with a sticky backing covered by a protective plastic film, rides through a slot in the labeler and passes either through or alongside the wheel. You spin the disc to select a character, and squeeze the handle, forcing the raised die to press through the tape. The tape both takes the shape of the die and turns white as it gets thinner, leaving you a raised, contrasting character embossed in the tape. Letting go of the squeeze handle generally advances the tape to the space for the next character.

Until the advent of small printing label makers, these were practically the only game in town for labeling tools, household items, and the controls on homebrew electronics.

This is a recent example of the style that's been predominant since at least the 1980s. It's sized solely for ⅜" tape (or 9mm) and is very straightforward to use: turn the wheel to select your character, and squeeze the grip. "Cut" is its own character, represented by scissors.

And this one is a shrunken version of the same; I'm uncertain of the manufacturer, but I think I got it amongst scrapbooking supplies back when that was big.

These two are together because they share one feature: the same kind of interchangeable die wheels; between the two models I have two identical "American 150" wheels and a third "Vertical" wheel. The Sears model (left) also takes the long- discontinued ¼" (6mm) tapes, and can print either in "wide" or "condensed" mode; it stores a roll of tape inside, where the Dymo model on the right lets the tape roll's caddy clip onto the back, and can only print in "wide". They both have separate cutting mechanisms: the Sears's is the extra white squeeze handle on the underside, while the Dymo uses the raised white button on top.