Offbeat tool advice sought - label maker

I have used several different Brother label makers, including one that had to be connected to a computer. They all do the job for me. They just have varying levels of bells and whistles.

The only advice I have: "M" series tape is less expensive than "TZ" tape.

The tapes are not interchangeable, a given machine uses one or the other.

Thanks C.W.  I just bought a Brother P-Touch PT-1880c labeling system at Costco.  We're about to see how it works.

Correction, the misbehaving system was not an Avery - it's a Dymo.  And in looking at current reviews, failure of label tape to adhere is a problem.

George

I use my P-touch with TZ tape works great. TZ tape you can get black with white numbers which works great for renumbering steam locomotives and tenders.

Clem

You can also get TZ tape in gold lettering with a black background... Used that to reletter some Overton passenger cars.

That unit takes up to 3/4" tape. It may be obvious, but you can cut the tape narrower to fit in specific places once printed.  On the Overton cars I used 1/2" tape but cut it to a little over 1/3" to fit in the strip above the windows.

Ed

Ed,

That's a unique use of the label!  Good idea.

However, I was just trying to label bins and boxes and not have the label fall off a short time later.

Seems to work OK so far.

George

I have a Brother PT-20 that's currently outliving the padding in its carrying case . I found the receipt for it recently...01-27-1994. 19 years and still going.

I also have an early P-Touch PC (it's drivers are for Windows 3.1--I knew I kept one of those old laptops around for something ). It took tapes up to 1" wide, which was perfect for VHS labels--as long as black text-on-white was good enough. Not so useful now, but I imagine I'll have another use for it since I can insert custom graphics into the print.

---PCJ

Nick, I know what you mean.  It's nice to have a label maker that actually works and so I'm using it more! 

Railride, Windows 3.1?  Wow!  I'm been cleaning out my office and just threw out some 5.25" and 3.5" diskettes.  Some of them were labeled "Windows for Workgroups 3.11".     Yeah, it was time to get rid of them.

George

The Brother machine works great and it goes on sale periodically at Costco. We used it for about six months with no issues and have labeled hundreds of things.

Bob