Wireless Portable Printers: Create Safety Labels on the Spot

During a routine inspection, a worker walks the floor and locates a few pipes in need of safety marking, on the far end of the facility.

Knowing what he needs to do to comply with the American National Standard, he heads back to the benchtop label printer on the other side of the plant, designs the labels, prints them, and walks back to the pipes to apply them.

If the worker had a portable label printer with him, the job would already be done, and he’d be on to the next task. Imagine how much time and energy could be saved over the course of a shift, let alone a week or a month.

“A portable label printer is really beneficial in bringing the labeling right to the point of application,” says Dustin Stumpf, global product manager for Brady. “And rather than having a central location, you could place printers in a variety of locations in a manufacturing plant. It really makes labeling efficiency go up a lot.”

It gets better. In addition to convenience, Brady has upgraded several of its portable label printers to include wireless connectivity, faster printing, longer battery life and versatile label materials.

Take Your Printer with You

When it comes to technology adoption, the manufacturing industry is in a bit of transition. On one hand, older workers might prefer the legacy equipment they’ve been comfortable using over the years. On the other hand, younger workers generally have different technology expectations, which includes connected mobile devices.

With the introduction of the M211 Label Printer to Brady’s line of labelers, manufacturing companies can meet the needs of all workers at the facility, regardless of their technology expectations.

Whereas the M210 Label Printer—Brady’s most popular model—features a traditional keypad, the M211 connects to a mobile device via Bluetooth. “Now you can design, preview and print your labels all from your phone,” Stumpf says.

“Let’s say there’s a maintenance team at a manufacturing plant,” he explains. “Half of them want to continue to use the traditional keypad. Maybe the other half want to use their phones. Because the M210 and the M211 both use the exact same labels, they can purchase one set of labels but then have the labeler that meets their needs.”

For manufacturers doing barcoding-related work that also involves labeling, the M211 provides expanded capabilities with an available handheld scanner.

“This could be used in inspection management, where a worker inspects a piece of equipment and puts a label on it that says who inspected it and on what date,” Stumpf says. “With this handheld scanning device, the person could scan the existing inspection label, populate the new information and print the label right there on demand.”

WATCH: Design, preview and print labels from your phone or tablet. See how it’s done in the Brady Express Labels mobile app:

Robust Portable Printing

Manufacturers needing more robust portable printing for facility marking and other applications can find similar technology enhancements in the M710 Label Printer, which evolved from the BMP71, all housed in a military-grade, shock-resistant casing.

“In doing this refresh, we wanted to make the printer very recognizable and comfortable to our current users of the BMP71 while also meeting the user needs of 2023, where there are certain expectations of connectivity, of battery life, of speed,” says Chris Gauthier, global product manager for Brady. “We’re really speaking to multiple generations of skilled craftspersons who are using our equipment.”

On connectivity: “We added the latest Bluetooth technology, so you have a fast, persistent connection allowing you to use a mobile app or a tablet in addition to the keypad,” Stumpf says. “We also added a Wi-Fi connection.”

On battery life: “4,500 labels can be printed on a single battery charge, up from just under 4,000,” Stumpf says. “So it’s a lot bigger printing capacity than we’ve had previously.”

On speed: “We doubled the previous speed—it’s now up to 3 inches per second. That’s the fastest industrial portable printer on the market,” Stumpf says.

Read more: 5 Steps to Create a Functional and Effective Safety Program

Regarding safety and facility identification, Brady is making a statement with the M710, adding four label products to the portable printer that were previously only available on Brady’s benchtop models:

• High-intensity label tape for long-lasting luminance in low-light areas
• Magnetic polyester label tape for repositionable marking in warehouses
• Cold-application polyester label tape for marking assets in cold exteriors or refrigerated environments
• Low-halide polyester label tape for stainless steel pipe markers in harsh environments

These label products join the six others previously available on the M710 to give users a full complement of SFID materials in a variety of colors for just about any application.

Gauthier says, “Portable printers give you the ability to have the labels you need where you need them to save time and processes.”

What feature are you most excited to see in a portable printer—wireless connectivity, extended battery life or printer speed? Tell us in the comments below.