Near the end of September last year, one of our users started experiencing printer issues. The printers we use work well, but can be a little finicky in bright sun. Her printer was not printing – instead, it was feeding seven blank labels each time she tried to print one. She’d just installed a new roll of labels, so it was feasible that the new roll was defective somehow.
These handheld label printers have issues in bright sunlight because they use optical sensors to determine label size. However, when she took it to the shade, the issue still happened. She verified that the paper was feeding correctly and even factory reset the printer, but it still wasn’t fixed. Eventually, we gave up.
To circumvent the issue, she took out her older serial port printer. While it was functional, its age meant AnimalTrakker® wasn’t equipped to communicate with it wirelessly. Fortunately, the wired configuration worked fine for a while – until a ram chewed through the cable.
Later that night, she went back to check the non-functional printer under normal light. It turns out that a label had peeled off its backing and gotten stuck to the inside of the printer, hiding its sensor. Upon removing the stray label, the printer worked flawlessly. Problem solved at last!
Ken is going to try to repair her old printer’s cable for her, so she still has a backup for the next time her portable printer goes on the fritz. While not all printer issues are so easily fixed, troubleshooting will always be part of the job. Now that we know this can be an issue with these printers, hopefully it’ll be easier to diagnose the issue in the future for our other AnimalTrakker® users.