Brother P-touch 1010 at Lidl for £15

[ringer]

I see Lidl are selling a brother labeller for £15 starting next Thursday. Seeing as how I don't have a label machine I am considering getting it. Will this be okay for electrical installation/testing work, or would I be better off splashing out for a 'professional' model?

Brother machine at Lidl for £15

 

[Octopus]

Well spotted -I wonder if anyone has any views on this model/or uses one?

 

[DiscoDave]

I've got a Dymo, it apparently does all sorts, I use very few of it's massive array of features and i think that for anyone looking to buy then this is a great buy.

I use mine mostly for putting the dates the test stickers that i put on dbs after i've tested. You can even print on two lines using clear tape instead of putting a load of messy looking biro scrawls on the stickers.

 

[telectrix]

i've got the brother p touch. excellent except for one thing. you can buy most places 14-15 quid, but every labe you do, they waste about 2" of tape. i always make several labels before hitting print. and when you come to buy a new tape, it's £17.99 a throw.

 

[High Tower]

Yup i got the P-touch 7600 and its good but eats label rolls

 

[telectrix]

Yup i got the P-touch 7600 and its good but eats label rolls

that's why, when doing a few labels, i do several at one go so as to have only about 1/2" of space between eaqsh instead of 2" if you do one at a time.

It's like computer printers, the cartridges cost more than the printer. it's to make you buy a new one.

 

[ringer]

So £15 isn't such a big one-off bargain then. So what differentiates a £15 labeller from a £100 labeller? Is it worth spending £100 on the top of the range models, or will the cheapo ones do just a well for our sort of work?

 

[telectrix]

esp. for domestic cheapo ones are fine. it's on industrial where the labels may get a lot of abuse you need heavy duty stuff.

 

[Mark_Burgess]

If you want a very basic labeller get the Dymo Letratag from WHsmith about £15 - £20 and the cassettes are about £4.00 each.

I am really considering the rhinopro 5200 or 6000 as I have a lot of patch panels and DB's to label soon.

 

[WDMDL]

I've got a couple of P-Touch machines, a 1000 and an older 1250.

The fonts aren't as good as on the older Kroy machines I used to use (a little bit blocky) but they do work well.
The built-in tape cutter wears out after a few years heavy use, but that's no great hardship because...

You can adjust the excess tape setting in the menu. On max it's good for printing a single label, but if you're doing a lot of small ones like "DB1-6" for sockets etc, set it to zero, print them one after the other. For the final one you need to use the FEED function to spit out that bit of excess tape, otherwise you will cut your last label in half! Then chop each one off the length of tape with your sidecutters as you need to use it.

Battery life isn't bad, but they all take the Model G mains adapter (7V 1.2A unregulated). BE WARNED: The polarity is opposite to what everything else uses - it's centre pin negative!

Simon.