Label making machine..?

B0bbyEwing

Looking at buying one of these to get a few things a bit more organised around the home. Sure I could just get a paint pen or something but I thought doing it this way would just look a bit better.

Anyway, quite surprised to see such a wild variation in prices for these things for something that just spits a label out.

Having never even used one in my life before, I'm willing to bet since I know there's plenty of office workers on this message board then there's a reasonable chance someone reading this has experienced these things. And so....

What on earth is the difference?

I hop on Amazon & see £15, £25, £30, £50. It must've got in to the Faceook algorithm that I'd been looking at these because an ad came up for one & when I googled the model it was over £200. I wont be buying that one but still, why is the £25 £10 better than the £15, the £50 twice as good as the £25 and so on?

I don't want to end up buying twice because the first one is a dud.

flaneurs_lobster

Could you link to a couple of examples of the things you are looking at? Label machines can cover a wide range of solutions, are you looking at the ones with sticky labels on a roll? I even saw a Dymo machine in my local Tesco recently.

QrizB

I've been using Dymo label makers at work for 20+ years. Currently one of these at work:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/187323759792

... and have one of these at home:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/186827389444

My used labeller was less than £20 in 2012 and has been used intermittently ever since.

These all use Dymo D1 label tapes, which come in various widths and colours, have decent adhesive (we used ours to label our kids packed lunch boxes, and they lasted several school years of daily hand washing) and have continued essentially unchanged since the late 1990s.

I'd suggest a secondhand Dymo D1 labeller is likely to give better and longer service than any budget imitation.

(And I'm not usually one to recommend big brands when there's an own-label knock-off!)

Grumpy_chap

I have one of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brother-H101C-Handheld-Labelling-Batteries/dp/B00LV1NF4U

Does what I need, easy to use, might be exactly what the OP wants or might be the exact opposite of what the OP wants as "label maker" is a broad term.

OutdoorQueen

I’ve had a dymo letratag for about 15 years.  One of my most useful gadgets.  I paid about £15.   Aldi sometimes has the tape, otherwise I order via eBay.   It takes 4AA batteries as I didn’t buy the power lead.  

https://ebay.us/m/Zc7ov6

B0bbyEwing

flaneurs_lobster said:

Could you link to a couple of examples of the things you are looking at? Label machines can cover a wide range of solutions, are you looking at the ones with sticky labels on a roll? I even saw a Dymo machine in my local Tesco recently.

I'm not looking at anything really other than just a machine that makes labels. I'm not sure how many variations there are to "label making machine" to be honest.

As I say, what I am looking to do is label plugs &/or cables initially. I'm sure I'll find a few other things around the house where it would be handy to label since I'll have the machine.

Googling what I want to do I've seen images of labels wrapped around cables, tied to cables. As said I'll probably want to use it for other things too so some kind of adhesive label would be good & from reading the replies here it'd be even better if that adhesive didn't peel off after a day.

But to answer your question, basically all I did was hop on Amazon, type in "label maker machine" & saw the results.

£15
£25
£35
£50
And to just get a bit silly with the price ... £255

To be honest I just want something to do what I said I'll be using it for. I wont be setting up a label making business so once stuff at home is done then it'll be done other than the occasional thing that'll crop up in future.

molerat

The cheap ones are thermal on to paper labels, not very resilient / weather resistant.  The Brother is multi layer, it prints on to plastic and covers it in a clear film so is weather resistant and comes in a multitude of colour options. They also come as a PC driven version. So horses for courses.