We have a label printer that spits out labels once in a while.
We need to have an audio alarm sound whenever the printer prints out a label.
Is there some sort of simple little gadget out there that I can mount on the label printer that will do this function?
All this gadget needs is a little motion detecting device and a buzzer. It needs to be small, I don’t want some motion detector built for a garage light. Smaller than 1-2" is ideal.
There seems to be lots of sensors and buzzers for sale, but I don’t know how to find a product that will do exactly what I need. It seems like everything I am finding requires soldering and wiring work. I just want a prepackaged product if possible.
How about a beam detector? You could aim it across where the label comes out and the label would break the beam and set off the alarm.
The motion detectors like for a garage can be easily fooled by small objects or slow objects. I’m doubting something like that would be reliable for what you want.
Interesting…Well actually the label printer is attached to what is called a terminal server. The terminal server is like a print server for lots of printers. The label print job originates with a Windows 2000 server in a different location…
perhaps I could get the W2k server to execute some simple alarm on a local workstation whenever it sends a print job to that printer…Kinda hate to install any funky stuff on our server though…hmmmm
very interesting strategy…I am going to run it by my cohorts… I think a physical motion alarm is safer…hmmmm
Actually, the printer is installed on a nearby workstation. So that workstation should be able to watch the printer jobs and sound an alarm when it prints. I am going to check into how to do this. Thanks!
Many printers will beep or make some sound upon receiving the ASCII bell code (control-G). If that’s true for this printer, then see if you can modify the program that prints these labels to include the bell code in the header for each label it prints.
I don’t mean to be flip, but doesn’t the printer get a bit noisy when it starts printing? There are two printers near me, and I can tell when they print and which one is printing by the sound.
I can see the value of an alarm beeping at a remote locatin, ie., I send a print job to a printer in another room, and my terminal beeps at me when the job starts. However, I don’t think your motion sensor idea would accomplish this.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding… is this a printer with multiple paper bins, letterhead in one, label sheets in another, etc., and you want to alarm whenever a label sheet is run through? In that case you’d have a great deal of trouble trying to get a motion sensor to distinguish between a label sheet and plain paper. Or you’d have to fit it inside the printer at a point in the path where only the labels pass – probably immediatly outside the correct sheet feeder.
I think this demands a software solution. But if I am misinterpreting the situation, please let me know.
I have a bit of experience with Eltron/Epson/Zebra thermal printer hardware and programming and they all use an optical sensor array to detect the label edge. Usually, before printing, the labels/tape retract into the printer a bit till the upper edge of the label is detected. It then begins to print from that edge.
Some models have a second ‘label take-away’ sensor. The terms for this vary by manufacturer but they are there to print a single label and to instruct the printer to wait until the operator removes the label.
Either way, if you are going to attempt to build a little circuit to sound an alarm, the sensors are already in place and easily reached and spliced into.
For my own curiosity, and to help you, what do you need the alarm for? If you let us know, it might be easier to come up with a solution and/or workaround.
JoeyP, I suspect that there may be forklift traffic and machine noise nearby. Also, workers running errands and picking parts may not be near the printer when the label gets spit out. Waiting for a label during a busy day sucks. You can do other tasks while you wait because the alarm will let you know the label is finished. Return trips to the printer to check for labels are eliminated also.
It took me about 5 hours of research and testing, but I almost have vbscript that watches the print queue for that printer and plays a wav file of my choice when it prints a job.
BTW, yes suprisingly enough, the reason I am doing this is because the people who need to be notified of the label printing are not always sitting next to the printer. The label printer is in a big room filled with lots of equipment and computers.
I will post the final version of my script once I get it going today. The only remaining question is will the script run stable for weeks on end or will it be prone to crashes. We’ll see.
Well, if the printer was receiving the print job from a windows machine…I would have it.
But it is not. It took me a while to realize this.
The printer is attached to what we call a “Terminal Server” which none of us really know much about. We do know you administer it from a very difficult command line interface. It took us several days the last time we had issues with it.
The print job comes from a proprietary software application, which runs on Windows, but it totally bypasses windows print manager. It sends the job to the server application and then sends it straight to the ip address of the printer…
Ok…maybe if I could get a script that monitered the ip activity at that ip address??
Either that or:
How about a beam detector? You could aim it across where the label comes out and the label would break the beam and set off the alarm.
Where can I buy a beam detector like this? anyone?
How about a little bell? Stick an 8-12 inch piece of light wire into something – silly putty would work – sticking straight up. Bend the top of the wire into an ‘S’, so you can hang a small bell from it. Put this in front of the label printer, so that a finished label hits the wire on ejecting. Use light enough wire (bendable) that multiple labels will just bend the wire over and out of the way. Not very high-tech, but it should work.
Depending on the construction of the printer, this might work:
The label feed will be driven by an electric motor - the coils in which will be generating a magnetic field only when the motor is in operation - careful positioning of a magnetic reed switch (or perhaps a Hall-effect transistor if you want to be a smartarse) might be possible - if it is an ordinary DC motor, there may be permanent magnets in there too, but even with this being the case, it should still be possible to position the sensor so that it is only triggered when the coils are energised.
I suppose you could actually just tap the motor wires and drive something straight off that, but I’d be a little wary of wiring into the machine itself.
I think the Radio Shack gizmo I suggested might not work. The description on their website suggests that the minimum distance is 2.7 feet.
Ready29003’s idea of a photoelectric detector circuit interrupted by the label emerging from the printer ought to work fine. I’m not even an electrical engineer, but even to me it seems a simple enough thing to build. But I couldn’t find the right parts on the Radio Shack website.
Another possibility is a small microswitch with a long springy lever attached; glued to the casing of the printer in such a way that it is triggered by the labels coming out, but isn’t too vulnerable to damage, especially when the labels are torn off.